Vermont Humanities

Where We Land – Fall Festival 2022

A maple samara sprouting a small sapling
Fall Festival

Stories are a way for us to travel without moving. They help us to explore a new or familiar landscape, see the world through the eyes of a cartoonist, reflect on what it means to be an immigrant, and so much more.

Join us in October during National Arts and Humanities Month for our Where We Land Fall Festival, a remix of our Annual Fall Conference. Attend in-person events in communities around Vermont or join hybrid events online. Many sessions will center around the themes of our Vermont Reads 2022 selection, The Most Costly Journey, a comics collection of stories told by migrant workers in Vermont.

Fall Festival Video

A green hill spotted with small colorful doors for Hobbit homes

Tolkien and Goddess Worship

In this First Wednesdays event recorded on November 2, 2022 at the Rutland Free Library, UVM lecturer Chris Vaccaro explores J.R.R. Tolkien’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and his occupation with female divinities such as Varda, Yavanna, Melian, Luthien, and Galadriel in his work. Vaccaro compares these divinities with goddesses within Greco-Roman, Celtic, and Norse mythologies and considers Tolkien’s influences.

Two elderly men sit in front of a white door on a red brick house while a dog watches through the window

Migration Pathways: Stories of Yesterday and Today

Andrew Ingall, creator of the project “Warlé, Yesterday, and Today,” presents a slide talk and storytelling exercise inspired by the lives and legacy of Warren Kronemeyer and Leon Ingall, a Vermont couple who were entrepreneurs and civic leaders in Townshend, VT during the 1980 and 1990s. Leon was a refugee twice: first fleeing the Bolsheviks in 1918 and then again from the Nazis in the late 1930s.

Illustration of people gathered around a document to discuss civics

Freedom and Unity Launch Party

Hosted by the Center for Cartoon Studies, this lively presentation about the making of Freedom and Unity, A Graphic Guide to Vermont Democracy features the cartoonists and scholars that helped create a comic book about the past, present, and potential of democracy and civics in Vermont.

A drone sits in a hangar looking out on a desert and mountain as a man in a jumpsuit walks towards it.

Dirty Work with Author Eyal Press

In his award-winning Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America, journalist Eyal Press examines the morally troubling jobs that society tacitly condones, and the hidden class of workers who do them. Press, a contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Times, discusses his reporting for the book, which won the 2022 Hillman Prize for book journalism and appeared on numerous “best books of 2021” lists.

Thank you to our festival sponsors at Vermont Public and the University of Vermont

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Vermont Humanities*** August 30, 2022