Is it worth losing your soul to win an election?
Fall Weekend
Offered with support from We the People, a program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
This question seems particularly relevant in 2008, but was just as important in 2007 when the MHC presented A Good Book on a Fall Day in October. This new lecture and discussion program revolved around Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. Inspired by Louisiana politician Huey Long, the story follows Willie Stark, a smooth-tongued populist obsessed by his ambition to become President. Distinguished scholars presented on a variety of topics. Speakers included Ray Arsenault (University of South Florida) on the connection between Huey Long and Willie Stark, Tricia Welsch (Bowdoin College) on American politics in films, and Joseph Wensink (Brandeis University) on the limits of political idealism. The day ended with a bourbon tasting and a gala Southern dinner overlooking Portland from the University of Southern Maine’s Glickman Library. These talks and more are available as podcasts.
Intense Humanities Experiences
Community Seminars & Winter Weekend
Scholar-led discussions can be powerful, and two MHC programs make the most of what a small group and big books can offer. Not all the books offered in Community Seminars (held in Portland, Falmouth, Augusta, Bangor, and Camden for 25 participants) are physically big, but they are, more often than not, challenging in other respects. Participants find this delightful, and discussions examine books with vigor and insight. Dinner before the discussion adds to the experience.
Winter Weekend has been a tradition for more than a decade. Over 125 people gather at Bowdoin College in Brunswick for a two-day extravaganza of lectures around a very big book (in 2006, it was Swann’s Way; in 2007, The Canterbury Tales). Speakers include experts in their fields on some aspect relating to the book, including translation, art, a history, and music. The diversity of presenters rounds out the experience.
A Celebration
Humanities Fest
In 2006, for its 30th anniversary, the MHC went all out and offered, in addition to its regular programs, a one-day lecture series and humanities celebration at Bates College in Lewiston: the Humanities Fest. The 25 presentations included such diverse topics as Walt Whitman and the Civil War, Power and Idealism in Imperial Greece and Rome, Money and the English Novel, and Ordinary People or Willing Perpetrators: Free Will and Coercion in Nazi Germany. The speakers were scholars from Maine’s universities and colleges who had participated in MHC programs in the past, and who kindly donated their time for this event. In addition, the MHC offered a storytelling program with Ashley Bryan and Allen Sockabasin at the Franco-American Heritage Center—and a free, authentic Somali lunch. At both sites, birthday cake for the MHC closed activities and delighted children and adults alike.
Humanities on Demand? You Bet!
Humanities Podcasts
Humanities on Demand started as a dream several years ago as staff members pondered how to share MHC programs with a wider audience, and capture the exciting but otherwise ephemeral experience of these humanities events.
In 2006, the National Endowment for the Humanities made this dream a reality for the MHC with a Digital Humanities Start-Up grant. In 2007, the MHC was poised to go ahead with an exciting new initiative that would place humanities-based talks and lectures on www.mainehumanities.org. This would let Mainers in all communities have a powerful humanities experience…on demand.
With the click of a button, Humanities on Demand now puts the humanities at your fingertips. Available as audio files that work on any computer, the first programs included interviews with Maine writers from the MHC’s Maine Writers Speak compact disc (released in 2006 in celebration of the MHC’s 30th anniversary, it includes interviews with Richard Ford, Richard Russo, and Monica Wood, among others). The Portland Public Library’s Brown Bag Lecture Series, featuring popular, fascinating, and unusual authors swiftly followed. Humanities on Demand offers talks on books, writing, history and more, and is updated every month.
