Portland, Maine Poet Laureate

ey/they/she

Maya Williams  is a religious Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who was selected as Portland, ME's seventh poet laureate for a July 2021 to July 2024 term. Maya received a MFA in Creative Writing with a Focus in Poetry from Randolph College in June 2022. Eir debut poetry collection Judas & Suicide (Game Over Books, 2023) was selected as a finalist for the New England Book Award. They also have a second poetry collection, Refused a Second Date (Harbor Editions, 2023). Maya was selected as one of The Advocate's Champions of Pride in 2022 and one of Maine Humanities Council's recipients of the Constance Carlson Public Humanities Prize in 2024.  Follow her at mayawilliamspoet.com

Talks

When God Gives Us a Lot We Can't Handle

Something simultaneously apparent and subtle that plays a role in our mental health is religion, whether we still identify with the religion we were raised in or not. Maya Williams' poetry collections Judas & Suicide and Refused a Second Date addresses the impacts of religious related trauma. This talk involves a reading of poems and conversation about poetry in relation to religion and mental health.

George Lincoln Skolfield, Jr. Professor of Religion, Bowdoin College

he/him

Robert Morrison is George Lincoln Skolfield, Jr. Professor of Religion at Bowdoin College in the United States. A scholar of science in Islamic societies and Jewish cultures, he is currently finishing a book on cultural exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean. His teaching includes courses on astrology, Islam, Judaism, science and religion, and religion and the environment.

Talks

Decolonizing Nature in Afrofuturism

Nature often seems to be a good thing. Mother nature deserves our respect and natural foods are better than processed foods. Nature can often be a refuge from the crazy world around us. Yet ‘nature’ is not a neutral or universal term.

In the New Testament, homosexual sex is condemned as contrary to nature. In the United States, the history of the national parks is far from pristine. This talk focuses on the Afrofuturist film Space is the Place as a source for an alternative refuge, space, and Octavia Butler’s alternative, challenging presentation of the non-human world in Parable of the Sower.

This talk is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this presentation do not necessarily represent those of the NEH.

Religion and Nature in Parable of the Sower

In Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower, natured is portrayed as being harsh. While day still follows night and food sometimes comes forth from the ground, precipitation is unpredictable and animals are even more emboldened to attack humans.

This talk explores how a breakdown of natural order coincides with a breakdown of human society and a re-evaluation of morality. We will also investigate how Butler’s protagonist, Lauren Olamina, theorizes a new God for the dystopian world she lives in. Her challenging ideas empower her and her younger, previously marginalized companions.

This talk is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this presentation do not necessarily represent those of the NEH.

Professor of History, University of New England

she/her

Elizabeth DeWolfe is Professor of History at the University of New England where she teaches courses in women’s history, archival research, and American culture. Dr. DeWolfe is a historical detective: she hunts archives for the traces of ordinary women, piecing together their all-but-forgotten lives from faint clues.

Dr. DeWolfe’s book on the short life and tragic death of a textile mill girl, The Murder of Mary Bean, was named the Outstanding Book of 2008 by the New England Historical Association. She has also written on textile factory workers, the Shakers, and a Maine stenographer turned undercover detective.

Talks

The Great Turn-Out of 1841: Maine Textile Workers on Strike! 

In 1841, nearly 500 female factory workers walked out of Saco’s York Manufacturing Company and paraded up Main Street, chanting and singing. They gathered in a local church, formed a committee, and sent the factory owner a document articulating their complaints about wages, housing, and paternalistic rules. In this illustrated talk, we’ll explore the life of New England “factory girls,” the opportunities mill work brought, and the challenges of this difficult labor. We’ll examine the tense days that followed the “turn-out” and see how a strike in one Maine town connected to national agitation for women’s rights, including suffrage.

Dangerous Temptations: Textile ‘Factory Girls’ in Fact and Fiction

The 1849 "murder" of textile worker Berengera Caswell shattered the tranquility of life in Saco and Biddeford. In the wake of her death, authors published over a dozen tales set in Maine factory towns. To protect Maine's young, female workforce throughout the state, short stories and novellas reviewed the "dangerous temptations" young people found in Maine's cities, and offered advice on how to avoid Caswell's tragic fate. These sensationalized, gothic stories were eagerly read cautionary tales that offered young women (and their nervous parents) guideposts to safety. But did the factory girls take the advice?

Mourning Maine's Dead : Victorian Hair Jewelry and Crafts

In 19th-century Maine, death was ever present. To grapple with loss, Victorian Mainers could turn to art and craft to mourn and remember their loved ones. Their material of choice was human hair. Mary Baker made a good living crafting flowers, wreaths, and jewelry from human hair. Her Portland home-based business tapped into a national craze for Victorian hair jewelry which not only memorialized the dead, but also connected the living. From snips of a loved one's hair in a locket, to braided hair friendship rings exchanged between schoolgirls, to a large-scale wreath of flowers containing the hair of an entire family, Mainers embraced hair art as a symbol of mourning the dead and celebrating the living.