Vermont Humanities

Past Fall Conferences

Rep. John Lewis and Andrew Aydin with students in front of a schoolbus

Our History

Each fall since 1974, Vermont Humanities has explored a humanities topic in depth at its Fall Conference. Over about a day and a half, conference goers explore a humanities topic through a variety of lectures with experts in their field. Scholars and attendees discuss topics with one another and share in camaraderie.

Conference Topics

  • 2022: Where We Land: Storytelling That Propels Us
  • 2021: This Mazed World: The Humanities and Climate Change
  • 2020: Democracy 20/20
  • 2019: Searching for Home: Journeys, Quests and Migrations
  • 2018: The Ebb and Flow of Optimism through American History
  • 2017: The Double-Edged Sword of Technology
  • 2016: Looking at Leadership Through the Humanities
  • 2015: Why Do Stories Matter?
  • 2014: A Fire Never Extinguished: How America’s Civil War Continues to Shape Civic and Cultural Life in America
  • 2013: Music and the Human Experience
  • 2012: Sacred Spaces, Sacred Places: Religious Architecture and Sites
  • 2011: The Power of the Humanities: Why They Matter
  • 2010: Comedy and Satire: It’s No Joke from Jonathan Swift to Jon Stewart, Ridiculing Vice and Folly
  • 2009: Food For Thought
  • 2008: Robert Frost in Vermont and New Hampshire
  • 2007: The Northern Civil War Home Front
  • 2006: Setting as Character: Vermont’s Landscape, Stories, and Sense of Place
  • 2005: Creativity and Madness: Romantic Notion and Reality
  • 2004: Movies, Books, and the 70s: Hollywood’s Golden Age
  • 2003: Voting Rights and Wrongs: The Starts and Stops Along the Road to Universal Suffrage
  • 2002: Shakespeare: Star-Crossed and Moonstruck Lovers
  • 2001: The Book of Job
  • 2000: The Eagle on the Throne: Eleanor of Aquitaine
  • 1999: Deep Diversity: The Role of the Humanities in Building Community
  • 1998: Harlem in the Jazz Age
  • 1997: Lincoln: The Man and the Myth
  • 1996: The Legends of King Arthur
  • 1995: Poetry: American Voices
  • 1994: Wonder, Fact, and the Human Condition
  • 1993: Justice, Honor, Family and Friends
  • 1992: Encountering Japan
  • 1991: Odyssey Tales
  • 1990: Different Dreams of Freedom: Cultural tensions in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
  • 1989: Reading Nature: A Conference on American Nature Writers
  • 1988: History, Myth, and the Invincible Armada
  • 1987: Can Virtue Be Taught?
  • 1986: The Life and Poetry of Emily Dickinson
  • 1985: J.S. Bach and the Culture of His Times
  • 1984: The Constitution and the American Political Order
  • 1983: The Visible Idea: Art, Architecture, and Society
  • 1982: The Governor’s Conference on the Future of Vermont’s Heritage
  • 1982: Religion and Science
  • 1981: Education and Freedom
  • 1980: Interpreting Our Legacies: A Program Development Conference for Museums, Historical Societies, and Historical Organizations
  • 1979: Understanding the Far East
  • 1978: In Search of the Promised Land: America in the 1970s
  • 1977: Excellence and Equality in American Culture
  • 1976: Evaluation and Program Conference: Some Uses of the Humanities in a Technological Society
  • 1975: Evaluation Conference: Public Programs in the Humanities through Museums and Historical Societies
  • 1974: Evaluation Conference: Reflections on the Humanities and the Public Interest
Vermont Humanities*** December 9, 2021