Cedric Gael Bryant presents his talk Definitions, Definers, and the Defined: Literacy and Orality in Toni Morrison’s Beloved  at Winter Weekend 2020. Bryant is the Lee Family Professor of English at Colby College. His talk was accompanied by dance and movement vignettes by René Goddess Johnson.

Dr. Carolyn Denard presents her talk “Why Read Beloved in 2020?” at Winter Weekend 2020. Denard is the Chief Diversity Officer at Georgia College and Founder and Board Chair of the Toni Morrison Society.

There’s something irresistible about an anniversary. Maine’s bicentennial, the centennial of women’s suffrage, the upcoming 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence: All invite public commemoration. But what are we doing when we mark these anniversaries? Celebrating our past? Interrogating it? Something else entirely? Presented in partnership by the Maine Humanities Council, Maine Suffrage Centennial, and Maine Historical Society.

  On May 7, 2019, Maine author Monica Wood was awarded our 2019 Constance H. Carlson Public Humanities Prize. In attendance was Governor Janet Mills, who honored Monica by delivering the event’s opening remarks. Hear the Governor’s remarks below.

Professor of English at Wellesley College, Timothy Peltason writes and teaches on nineteenth and twentieth-century British and American literature and Shakespeare. His essays on Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, focuses on its relationship to Wilde’s life, its origins in earlier Victorian literature, and its extraordinary afterlife in 20th and 21st century literature and culture. He has also written a sequence of web-based commentaries on five plays by Shakespeare and other...

Declan Kiely is the Director of Exhibitions at New York Public Library where he oversees exhibitions at the iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. He was most recently the Robert H. Taylor Curator at the Morgan Library and Museum and Head of its Department of Literary and Historical Manuscripts. During this time he curated major exhibitions focusing on Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and Abraham Lincoln.

Each year, on the third Saturday of October, the Dorothy Schwartz Forum (link) brings people together with expert guides to grapple with a basic question so big it’s everyone’s. In 2017, we asked the question “How can we know?” Now, in 2018, we’re starting to ask the next question: “Who is we?” As the 2018 event continues to develop, listen to MHC Program Officer Meghan Reedy talk with Gary and Ania Small, founders and teachers at Aikido of Maine.

Each year, on the third Saturday of October, the Schwartz Forum brings people together with expert guides to grapple with a basic question. In 2017, we asked the question “How can we know?”  Listen to MHC Program Officer Meghan Reedy  talk to folks about how they know things in the work they do. As you listen, you may find yourself wondering “Who is the ‘we’ in the question ‘How can we know?'” That’s the next question! Join us on October 20 for the 2018 Schwartz Forum question “Who is ?”

Each year, on the third Saturday in October, the Maine Humanities Council Schwartz Forum brings people together with expert guides to grapple with a really big question. In 2017, the question we asked ourselves was ‘How can we know?’ One of the most exciting things about asking this question was getting to talk with all sorts of people about how this crazy big question arises for them in the work that they do. As we prepare for this year’s big question, listen to MHC Program Officer Meghan...

Photo by Dan D’Ippolito “Violence & Belonging: The 14th Amendment and American Literature” is a Let’s Talk About It book and discussion series that addresses issues of diversity, identity, and inequality. For many Americans, the promises of citizenship fall short of reality, and the books in this series remind us that the more expansive version of American citizenship brought about by the Fourteenth Amendment was formed in the wake of violence and historical trauma. Tune in to this new...

The fundamental, personal, urgent question at the heart of this year’s Dorothy Schwartz Forum is: how can we know? Want to find out more? Register now and tune in below to hear part one of a preview on the day’s discussion surrounding doubt, curiosity, and trust.

In this episode of Humanities on Demand we visit the 20th annual Winter Weekend, held March 10-11, 2017, at Bowdoin College.

Khaled Fahmy is a Professor of History at the American University in Cairo. With a BA in Economics, an MA in Political Science from AUC and a DPhil in History from the University of Oxford, Fahmy taught for five years at Princeton University, then for eleven years at New York University before joining AUC in Sept 2010. He is currently the Shawwaf Visiting Professor in Modern Middle Eastern History at Harvard University. His research interests lie in the social and cultural history of modern...

In this episode of Humanities on Demand, we visit Buckfield Junior-Senior High School. Supported by a grant from the Maine Humanities Council, their Civil Rights Team hosted Portland-based artist Pigeon for a discussion on identity, belonging, and street art.

MHC Board Member Reza Jalali discusses the Winter Weekend 2017 text, Palace Walk, at Merrill Memorial Library in Yarmouth. A Muslim scholar, educator, and writer, he is the coordinator of multicultural student affairs at the University of Southern Maine and advises Muslim students at Bowdoin College. His most recent work includes the 2013 book Homesick Mosque and Other Stories as well as the 2015 play The Poets and the Assassin, which offers historic and contemporary insights into the plight...

Photo by Dan D’Ippolito Listen to Winter Weekend founder and emcee Charles Calhoun reminisce about 20 years of Winter Weekend in our latest Humanities on Demand podcast.