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Vermont Humanities E-newsletter
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First Wednesdays 2014-2015
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Among the headliners of this season's First Wednesdays are Salman Rushdie, Richard Blanco, Susan Stamberg, and many more renowned speakers.
First Wednesdays begins Wednesday, October 1 at 7:00 pm in the following communities. We hope to see you there!
Brattleboro -- Reading for the Life of the World with award-winning author and Vermonter Katherine Paterson. Location and host: Brooks Memorial Library. Learn more. 
Essex Junction -- Rumi, A Soul on Fire with Dartmouth professor Nancy Jay Crumbine. Location and host: Brownell Library. Learn more.
Manchester -- A Century after World War I: Are We Sleepwalking Again? with distinguished veteran diplomat George Jaeger. Location: First Congregational Church. Host: Mark Skinner Library. Learn more.
Middlebury -- The Real Robert Frost with Edinboro College professor Donald Sheehy. Location and host: Ilsley Public Library. Learn more.
Montpelier -- 1814: America Forged by Fire with historian Willard Sterne Randall. Location and host: Kellogg-Hubbard Library. Learn more.
Newport -- Stark Decency: German POWs in a New England Village with historian Allen Koop. Location and host: Goodrich Memorial Library. Learn more.
 Norwich -- An Evening of George Gershwin with pianist Michael Arnowitt. Location: Norwich Congregational Church. Hosts: Norwich Public Library and Norwich Historical Society. Learn more.
 Rutland -- The Costumes of Downton Abbey with Middlebury College artist-in-residence Jule Emerson. Location and host: Rutland Free Library. Learn more.
 St. Johnsbury -- Vincent Van Gogh: What Influenced Him and His Influence on Twentieth-Century Art Art with historian Carol Berry. Location and host: St. Johnsbury Athenaeum. Learn more.
The 2014-2015 season of First Wednesdays begins October 1 at the nine locations listed above. The free lectures draw nationally and regionally renowned authors, artists, scholars, and public figures who speak on diverse topics before audiences sometimes numbering several hundred people.
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Fall Conference: A Fire Never Extinguished
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* * Taking registrations online * *
Vermont Humanities Council Annual Fall Conference
November 14-15, Dudley H. Davis Center, University of Vermont
The Civil War casts a long shadow in the United States. As Robert Penn Warren put it in his classic 1961 book, The Legacy of the Civil War, "many clear and objective facts about America are best understood in reference to the Civil War."
VHC's 2014 fall conference, presented in collaboration with the Vermont Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission, explores the influence that the War had and continues to have on literature, visual art, race, memory, and politics. The conference, taking place five months before the end of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, will seek to identify lessons vital to American democracy that still can be learned from the War and its aftermath.
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Screen Time: Growing Readers in a Digital World
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Screen Time: Growing Readers in a Digital World with Author Lisa Guernsey
Thursday, October 23, 7:00 PM * Free and open to the public
Dudley H. Davis Center, University of Vermont, Burlington
 Author of Screen Time: How Electronic Media - From Baby Videos to Educational Software - Affects Your Young Child
Guernsey, director of the Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation, will discuss how electronic media affects young children and how to responsibly incorporate technology into a child's life. Information: Jan Steinbauer, jsteinbauer@vermonthumanities.org or 802.262.1352 Presented by the Vermont Humanities Council in collaboration with the annual conference of the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children.
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Civil War Book of Days : Latest Entry
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Searchable site contains all 200 plus entries to date.
Civil War Book of Days. VHC began the weekly e-newsletter to honor the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. We hope you enjoy our most recent entry. Sherman Writes Atlanta's Mayor Not "War is Hell," but "War is Cruelty, and You Cannot Refine It." He Explains Why All Atlanta Residents Must Leave and Outlines the Union's Case Against the South." September 12, 1864. Atlanta Mayor James M. Calhoun surrendered the city to Sherman on September 2, 1864. After Sherman ordered the evacuation of the remaining civilian population on September 7, Calhoun and the city council protested, arguing that most of those still in the city could not leave on account of their age, sickness, or poverty. In reply, Sherman wrote: Gentlemen: I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To continue, click here.  | | Major General William T. Sherman on Horseback near Atlanta between September - November 1864. Click on image to see the picture larger. |
Visit civilwarbookofdays.org for the complete searchable archive of nearly 200 entries of the Civil War Book of Days. The site is updated weekly. And sign up for the weekly e-mail.
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WORDS TO LIVE BY
"In the presence of insatiable curiosity and plentiful goodwill, anything can be seen anew, in another light, showing us ourselves, also, in new ways."
 | | Nye Ffarrabas. Photo by Judith Hill-Weld |
Nye Ffarrabas is an artist, poet, and creative thinker who was part of the Fluxus art movement in the 1960s. A retrospective of her work was recently shown at the C.X. Silver Gallery in Brattleboro and captured in a book Nye Ffarrabas: a walk on the inside - 50 year Retrospective.Words to Live By brings weekly wisdom from Vermont poets, writers, artists, and thinkers and is a project of the Vermont Humanities Council and the Vermont Arts Council.
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Wonder Author R. J. Palacio Coming to Vermont
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 Thursday, October 9, 4:30 PM, Manchester Elementary Middle School, free and open to the public
Presented by the Vermont Humanities Council and the Northshire Bookstore
The author of Wonder is coming to Vermont on October 9. R.J. Palacio will be here to present her new book 365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne's Book of Precepts.
 Wonder, the 2014 Vermont Reads pick, has drawn the largest Vermont Reads participation ever, inspiring 115 communities to host discussions, staged readings, Wonder-themed movie nights and art exhibits, community meals, and more. Two schools also chose Wonder as their theme for VHC's summer Humanities Camps program for middle-school students.
There's something for everyone in Palacio's new book with words of wisdom from such noteworthy people as Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., Confucius, Goethe, and Sappho. And it includes precepts from two Bennington students who participated in Vermont Reads Wonder.
We hope to see you on October 9!
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Double Your Devotion
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A group of VHC friends has offered a one-to-one 40th anniversary challenge grant. They will match the entire gift of donors who at least double their giving from 2013 to 2014. They will also match gifts from people who didn't give in 2013 or are a new donor to VHC. VHC hopes you will participate in this exciting opportunity to help the Council in a very dramatic way.
If you would consider making a stretch gift to VHC, there isn't a better time to do so!
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Humanities Commentaries on VPR
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 The Last Passenger Pigeon(9-1-2014) Vermont Humanities Council executive director and commentator Peter Gilbert tells the timely story of the swift extinction of a species that once existed in the billions here in the United States. Move-in Day (8-18-2014) It's that time of year when many parents are dropping their children off to begin college, and commentator Peter Gilbert is reminded of one parenting style that may be problematic-but certainly isn't new. Timely CommentariesSummer reading extends to Fall (9-3-03) Peter Gilbert has some tips for finding more time to read that you may find helpful. Yard Sales (8-19-05) You find some of the darndest things at yard sales. Recently commentator Peter Gilbert found a family board game, and it was not a . . . Trivial Pursuit.
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The Vermont Humanities Council presents more than 1,000 events every year. Thank you for your interest in lifelong learning!
Sincerely,
Sylvia Plumb, Director of Communications
Vermont Humanities Council
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