Evaluating Potential Primary Sources
Research Log #1
Embedded Files
Two Potential Sources: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind & The Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee.
This is kind of above 300-400 words...sorry.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Creator: Hayao Miyazaki (Director).
Title: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
Date: Released in Japan on March 11th, 1984.
Accessibility: The film is available on HBO Max.
Genre & Medium: Sci-Fi Fantasy Animated Movie.
About the Creator: Hayao Miyazaki is a very popular Japanese filmmaker. Before his massive success, he worked as an animator and manga artist. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was his first feature film before founding Studio Ghibli, which has created several critically-acclaimed movies. Miyazaki's films are very humanistic and complex, with a prevalent theme of environmentalism. His goal was to create relatable characters and evoke a lot of feelings from the viewers. Inspired by his mother who fought Tuberculosis, many of his films' main protagonists are strong women.
Historical Context: In 1981, Miyazaki was hired to produce works for Animage's publisher Tokuma Shoten, which was the manga series that would be adapted into this film. The Japanese version of the film was released in theaters and on VHS in 1984. Miyazaki would continue working on the manga series until 1995 however. The foreign sales rights were bought by a US company that would create a heavily-edited and dubbed version of the film. Miyazaki was upset that the movie cutout a lot of the complexities of the film. It made its way across the world through DVD versions, which was critically acclaimed by the global audience.
Connection to Environmental Humanities: Studio Ghibli films was a primary focus of Professor Pitt's "Plants and Japan" unit, in which we analyzed how, for example through Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki criticizes post-WW2 Japan's lack of authenticity with environmentalism. This movie is very similar to Princess Mononoke as it is a story about an apocalyptic future environment that humans have caused, and the main character, Nausicaä, aims to make peace between the two conflicting worlds.
"The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it --I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it is rotten. This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics is hopeless."
- Hayao Miyazaki
Why it Interests Me: In the film, there are giant mutant insects that inhabit the Toxic Jungle, which mankind fears. Nausicaä is a 16 year-old princess from the kingdom of the Valley of the Wind, and has the ability to talk with these insects. The setting of the film is a dystopia that humans have directly caused, and instead of saving it, they aim to destroy it.
In being a film by Miyazaki, the themes of the movie are clearly grounded in real world problems Throughout the movie, we'll see the perspective of the regular humans who probably hate these mutant insects, but their perspective will probably be ignorant of the reality that they are unconsciously or consciously unaware of.
Potential Humanistic Research Questions: I want to learn about the inspirations of this movie. Since this was Miyazaki's early works, he would start to put his vision into these films. What is the dystopian environment trying to reflect? Is the hand-drawn art style an important element? How do perspectives matter?
Methodologies: Since it is a film I will be using the close-looking techniques we've been using throughout the quarter, analyzing sound, cinematography, mise-en-scene, characters, settings, etc. Its important that I consider every element of the film as something Miyazaki intended, as it'll allow me to find deeper meanings and connections. I think it'll be important to learn a bit about the manga series as well, as it continues the story for much longer.
The Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee
The Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee
Creator: J. K. Shafer, Lida J. Usilton, Geraldine A. Gleeson.
Title: Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro. A Prospective Study of the Effect on Life Expectancy.
Date: Published July 1954 in the US.
Accessibility: The article is available on JSTOR.
Genre & Medium: Research Paper.
About the Creator: There is almost no information about either of the authors of this article. These people don't seem to be very prominent in the research. However, people like Taliaferro Clark, the founder of the study, and Thomas Parran Jr, the US Surgeon General, are prominent names that I could do further research on as they were more involved with the study as a whole.
Historical Context: Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was conducted from 1932-1972, however, it was actually a compliment of a previous study, the Oslo Study, from 1891-1910. The Oslo Study had found cases of syphilis greatly increasing in Norway as rapid urbanization increased. However, this was a retrospective study on white men who had contracted syphilis before a proper treatment was found. This, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study sought to actively observe African American men who could be exploited for this prospective study, getting support directly from the The Public Health Service. The African-American men were deceived, as they were told they were receiving free treatment for "bad blood" from the government. This case became a staple for criminally negligent medical ethics.
Connection to Environmental Humanities: This case is similar to the study on Henrietta Lacks, in which she was never told that the researchers looked into her cell line. Their personal lives did not matter, instead, they were data that these researchers extracted from. In fact, because of the lack of treatment, women had contracted syphilis. A preventable situation that didn't matter to them.
Why it Interests Me: It is a study that really shows the truly evil and racist views of people, that was justified for it's medical value. It shifted into an analysis of what would happen to non-treated people, and these men had no clue what the study was ever about. In fact, at some point, a treatment was discovered but the researchers did not give it to them. It was public knowledge, as this primary source is a research report from 1954, 18 years before it was ended. It was framed as a government health program, and so community members of Tuskegee did not do anything about it, but even then, nobody did anything about the fact that untreated men were being left untreated.
Potential Humanistic Research Questions: Relating back to Dr. Carter's studies, I would hope to find why exactly the researchers and even the general community of people lacked the ethics to realize what they were doing was completely wrong. Would things have been different if the test subjects were white men? The ignorance from people is something that probably arose through the forced imagination of matter that created racism. How might the way that this study was presented and written used as a tool for segregation?
Methodologies: This primary source was just the first one that I found off of JSTOR, but there are many primary and secondary sources on the Wikipedia page that I can look from that may be better for me. While most of the text in the primary source are scientific data that would make no sense to me, what I would be looking at is how exactly they refer to their test subjects, who were human beings, but in the eyes of the research, were expendable for the sake of research.
Works Cited
Works Cited
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli/Topcraft, 1984.
Shafer, J. K., et al. “Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro. A Prospective Study of the Effect on Life Expectancy.” The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 3, 1954, pp. 262–74. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3348281. Accessed 10 Mar. 2026.
Nausicaä Image: https://a.ltrbxd.com/resized/sm/upload/mm/40/7r/k4/nausicaa-1200-1200-675-675-crop-000000.jpg?k=6c84fb599d
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