October 5
Author and theologian Damian Costello explores how the practice of maple sugaring in Vermont connects us to the land, our ancestors, and all that surrounds us. In conversation with the bestselling book “Braiding Sweetgrass,” he suggests that sugarmaking—which is informed by Indigenous wisdom—is a communal medicine of connection that teaches mutual reciprocity with the land.
November 2
Middlebury College professor Enrique García reviews the American superhero genre and how it has served as a tool to disseminate utopian ideas about immigration and the American Dream. While discussing characters such as Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Panther, and La Borinqueña, García reflects on comic artists’ struggles to overcome imperial ideas of white supremacy, heteronormativity, and American exceptionalism.
December 7
Changing racial demographics predict that those who identify as white will be in the minority by 2050. Rev. Thomas considers whether Vermont—one of the whitest states in the nation—is prepared to confront the growing presence of people of color within its own borders. He reflects on the recent ideological civil war that aims to maintain the status quo.
January 4
Filmmakers have tackled issues of displacement, discrimination, exploitation, and assimilation in movies like The Other Side of Hope (Syrians in Finland) and Dirty Pretty Things (West Africans in London.) Film history expert Rick Winston shares clips from fifteen works that address one of the most pressing issues of our times.
April 5
Celebrated cartoonist Alison Bechdel discusses her work as an illustrator and memoirist, including her most recent book, The Secret to Superhuman Strength, a graphic memoir about her lifelong love affair with exercise that won the 2021 Vermont Book Award.
May 3
Artist Ed Gendron shares and discusses images from his photo project about World War II reenactors in the United States. Gendron later produced Playing Soldier, a feature-length documentary on the same topic. “The re-enactors assert that ‘history is a personal thing,’ says Gendron. “And for them, it may be quite true.”
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.
