Digital Programs
Podcasts, videos, and other online resources.Featured Content
Join poet Shanta Lee Gander in a video recorded at Sweet Pond State Park in Guilford, Vermont for the latest installment of Words in the Woods. Shanta reads from her collection, GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues, and reflects with Vermont Humanities staffers Rachel Edens and Sahra Ali on the craft of poetry.
Digital Programs
First Wednesdays Videos
Recorded talks from our free public lecture series, from 2016 through the 2020-2021 season. View talks.
Before Your Time Podcast Series
Exploring Vermont’s history, one object at a time. Produced with the Vermont Historical Society. See list of episodes.
The Portable Humanist Podcast Series
Listen to Vermont Humanities talks and learn when you’re on the go. View list of episodes.
Fall Conference Recorded Sessions
Videos from our free 2020 Fall Conference “Democracy 20/20.” View talks.
Recent Digital Posts
How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish
Yiddish is imprinted in American English in terms like chutzpah, kosher, bagel, and schmooze. And the work of Sholem Aleichem, Anzia Yezierska, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Grace Paley, and Irving Howe shows the deep impact of Jewish immigration on the United States. Amherst College professor Ilan Stavans surveys the journey.
Libraries in the Time of Covid
In the wake of the pandemic, libraries have had to both evaluate and rapidly respond to the changing world. Librarian Jessamyn West helps us to understand the role of the library in these unusual times.
Religious Literacy is Social Justice
UVM professor Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst describes religious literacy—knowing what religion is, how religions work, and who religious people might be—as a social justice issue. Morgenstein Fuerst explores who is allowed to be religiously illiterate, who has to be religiously literate, and how to learn more about religion.
Vincent Van Gogh and His Language of Compassion
Despite his reputation for madness, Vincent Van Gogh was a compassionate and faith-filled man. Art historian Carol Berry explains how Van Gogh depicted the sacredness of life in ways that touched and comforted people around the world.
Meg Mott on “The Glorious Occupation” of Citizenship
We speak with Meg Mott—political theory professor, constitutional scholar, and the moderator at Putney’s town meeting—about the ongoing threats to Vermont’s town meeting tradition.
Before Your Time: A Town Solves a Problem
Town meeting is central to our identity as a little state on a human scale that does things differently. But what happens to town meeting when it needs to change during a pandemic? Or when it changes because Vermont itself has changed?
Talking In Place: What Can Vermont Town Meetings Teach Us About Bridging Divides?
Author Susan Clark, historian Paul M. Searls, podcaster Erica Heilman, and UVM professor Cheryl Morse reflect on what Vermont’s rural town meeting tradition can teach us about our nation’s democracy today.
Before Your Time: Send Me a Box
We examine some of the products that people have mailed from and to Vermont, from maple syrup to complete houses and almost everything in between.
Why Does the Electoral College Matter?
The job of the Electoral College is to select the President and Vice President after the people of each state have voted. When the national vote and the electoral vote reach different conclusions, as happened in 2016, voters on the losing side cry foul. Why do we have an electoral college in the first place? In this first of three presentations on our constitutional democracy, Meg Mott considers the rationale behind this 18th century institution.
The Postmodern Turn in Architecture
The designs and skylines of our cities are constantly changing, molded by economic forces and by our ideas of who we are as humans. Champlain College professor David Mills explores how opposing theories of human nature have shaped and reshaped cities in the last century, from modern to postmodern and beyond.