Calendar of Events
Humanities for Everyone
Events Calendar
Events Search and Views Navigation
October 2021
*DIGITAL* Daisy Turner’s Kin
Folklorist Jane Beck shares the story of the Turner family, a saga that spans four generations and two centuries. This rare account of the Black experience in New England covers capture in Africa, the middle passage, two generations of enslavement, escape from bondage, and eventually a family farm on a Vermont hilltop. (Registration required.) Read More »
November 2021
*DIGITAL* Philanthropy and Civil Society in Challenging Times
The pandemic year of 2020 challenged every aspect of modern community, including our visions of equality, civility, health, and democracy. Stuart Comstock-Gay, former president of the Vermont Community Foundation, discusses how civic engagement can help us rebuild our communities and reclaim our dreams. (Registration required.) Read More »
Vermont, 1800 and Froze to Death: The Cold Year of 1816
1816 has long been known as the year without summer. Vermonters still call it “1800 and Froze to Death,” a year of frosts every month, dark skies, and mysterious lights that caused a widespread belief that a higher power was displeased. In this talk, historian Howard Coffin includes scores of anecdotes on the dark year of failed crops, scarce food, and religious revival. Read More »
December 2021
*DIGITAL* Learning Hidden History with Picture books and Graphic Novels
The current renaissance of picture books and graphic novels written by and about marginalized communities provides new ways to engage with history. Latinx scholar Laura Jiménez describes how contemporary authors and illustrators use visual literature to center narratives previously unseen in mainstream publishing. (Registration required.) Read More »
January 2022
Atlantic Is a Sea of Bones
Jarvis Green, founder of the Black theatre company JAG Productions, invites us to reflect individually and collectively on the afterlives and the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade. Green will explore how Black queer and feminist artists have created ways to honor this history and heal ancestral trauma. Registration required. Read More »
February 2022
*DIGITAL* Boneyarn: New York Slavery Poems
The oldest and largest slave cemetery in the United States is located in the shadow of Wall Street. Actor and poet David Mills reads from and discusses his award-winning poetry collection, Boneyarn, featuring groundbreaking poems about slavery in New York City, a topic rarely addressed. (Registration required.) Read More »
March 2022
From the Parlor to the Polling Place: Stories and Songs from the Suffragists
Singer and historian Linda Radtke, in period garb and a “Votes for Women” sash, celebrates the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave the right to vote to white women. Read More »
April 2022
The Poetics of Girlhood and Womanhood in America
Poets and writers Diana Whitney and Shanta Lee Gander join Christal Brown, associate professor of Dance at Middlebury College, in a conversation that explores how girlhood and womanhood in America are manifested across the boundaries of poetry, dance, and lived experience. Read More »
May 2022
The Force of a Story in Parts: Star Wars, Fandom, and Seriality
From Dickens to Game of Thrones, stories told in piecemeal style have shown their power to command a reader’s attention. In this apt talk for “Star Wars Day,” author Anne Moore examines how Star Wars’ serialized structure encourages readers to fill the gaps between installments with their own imaginative play. Read More »