The audience is a visitor in Walt Whitman’s room as he prepares for his seventieth birthday celebration and questions his success as a man and a poet. Through Whitman’s poetry and letters, actor Stephen Collins helps us experience the poet’s growth into a mature artist who is at peace about “himself, God and death.”
Bill Mares began making his own beer 45 years ago, when homebrewing was illegal and there were no microbreweries in America. Today there are over 7,000 such breweries nationwide, and Vermont has the highest percentage of breweries per capita in the country. In this presentation, Mares will discuss the American beer revolution, Vermont’s small but significant contribution, and his co-ownership of a brewery.
This exploration starts with a question: what is the arc from Lucy Terry Prince to the modern moment of the spoken word within poetry? Lucy’s poem “Bars Fight” survived for 100 years in oral tradition before appearing for the first time in 1854 in the Springfield Daily Republican.
Each one of us has a story that is valuable. In this presentation, Rajnii Eddins will share his poetry, and will discuss how our stories can be used to confront racism and other injustices, affirm diversity and equity, and initiate community dialogue.
We often are divided on the merits of the Constitution: can it redeem us or is it a convenient cloak for white supremacy? Meg Mott explains that the Constitution might be seen as an invitation to develop the habits of political engagement through deliberation and adjudication.
Shanta Lee is the 2020 recipient of the Arthur Williams Award for Meritorious Service to the Arts and was named as Diode Editions’ full-length book contest winner for her debut poetry compilation, GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak in Woke Tongues.
Rajnii Eddins performs poetry and engages diverse audiences for the purpose of confronting white supremacy while affirming common humanity.
After twenty years of teaching political theory and constitutional law to Marlboro College undergraduates, Meg Mott has taken her love of argument to the general public.
Damian Costello specializes in the intersection of Catholic theology, Indigenous spiritual traditions, and colonial history. He is an international expert on the life and legacy of Nicholas Black Elk.
This lecture explores the life and legacy of Nicholas Black Elk (1866-1950), the Lakota holy man made famous by the book “Black Elk Speaks.”
Poet Sarah Audsley joined us at the Taconic Mountains Ramble State Park for Words in the Woods.
Humanities Camps are filled with reading and writing projects, field trips, and outdoor activities.
We won a 2020 Schwartz Prize for best public humanities programming in the U.S. for Vermont Reads 2019: “March: Book One.”
We supported Historic New England’s “More than a Market” project that explored the experiences of new Americans through food markets.
Our free public events help bring the power of the humanities to communities across Vermont.
