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