Notes From an Open Book

Summer is almost here, and I hope that all of you will find the hours to tuck away each week to read. I've had great book conversations with a number of people this last month, and I'm eager to start on my reading list. We have a handful sea-related book recommendations from Maine librarians this month, as well as much other humanities information in this newsletter.

I am also sharing information about the memorial event celebrating Deedee Schwartz to be held this summer on Saturday, June 21. The memorial event will be at Studzinski Music Recital Hall on the Bowdoin College campus. Doors will open at 10:00 am with a slide show honoring Deedee's life and artwork, and the ceremony will begin at 11:00 am with a reception to follow in the Moulton Union lounge. There will also be a retrospective exhibition of Deedee's art at the June Fitzpatrick Gallery (located within the Maine College of Art's building on 522 Congress Street, Portland) around the time of the memorial. For exact dates, contact the Gallery.

Please read on to learn more about the MHC's goings-on this month.

In This Issue

Think & Drink

Feeding the Human Animal

Letters About Literature

Quick Links

Donate

2013 Fall Newsletter

About the MHC

MHC Blog
MHC Calendar of Events

Our mission:

The Maine Humanities Council,
a statewide non-profit organization, uses the humanities-literature, history, philosophy, and culture-as a tool for positive change in Maine communities. Our programs and grants encourage critical thinking and conversations across social, economic, and cultural boundaries.

Think & Drink

Tomorrow, June 4, we'll have our final installment of Think & Drink, a happy hour series that examines how our highly networked, plugged-in culture affects the way we relate to each other and the world around us. The final topic, "Intimacy in a Networked World" was initially delayed due to a January snowstorm, but our panelists Pete Coviello (Bowdoin College; @pcoviell) and Eden Osucha (Bates College) will be leading conversations tomorrow, Wednesday, June 4, about what it means to share yourself online and how relationships develop in the e-world.

Join us at SPACE from 6:00 to 7:30 pm for what will no doubt be a fascinating conversation. These are the days, after all, when online dating has led to marriages where many of the wedding guests are e-friends who are meeting each other in person for the first time.

Contact info@mainehumanities.org for more information.

Feeding the Human Animal, or, Reflections on Some U.S. Agrarian Novels

On Thursday, June 12, the
Maine Humanities Council will present an evening reception and discussion at the Lewiston Public Library at 5:00 pm. Anna Sims Bartel will speak on "Feeding the Human Animal, or, Reflections on Some U.S. Agrarian Novels."

"What is the point of reading novels?" Bartel asks. "To better understand the world, of course. To see ourselves in different lights, in different places, in different relationships. To imagine other ways of being and to try out other ways of seeing. The process of living, then, demands the novel. And the process of living wisely and well, in ways that feed us and sustain the world we depend upon, demands the agrarian novel."

The Maine Humanities Council invites participants to explore critical insights from a selection of U.S. agrarian novels that negotiate how we feed-or don't-the fullness of ourselves. Bartel's talk and her facilitated discussion will include light refreshments.

Letters About Literature

Each year, the MHC coordinates Maine's part of the national Letters About Literature contest, in which students write a letter to an author (living or dead) explaining how they found meaning, inspiration, courage, or support through one of the author's works. Letters from Maine students share powerful stories of using authors like Jerry Spinelli to challenge new divides at school, as well as heartbreaking stories of surviving loss through the help of authors like Lois Lowry.

This spring, a panel that included educators, librarians, and community activists selected three letters from this year's contestants to represent Maine at the national level: Katie Larson (writing about Peter Reynolds's Ish) from the Center for Teaching and Learning, Rebecca Cox (writing about Cornelia Funke's Inkheart)from Camden Middle School, and Isabel Crane (writing about Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods) from Watershed School. Here's an excerpt from Rebecca's letter:

"My mom was diagnosed with cancer when I was beginning third grade. By the time I was in fourth grade, things were going down-hill quickly. Inkheart was one bond that we shared. When she would start reading it to me, the bleak world would fade away and be replaced by the lively performance of the Motley Folk moving from Lombrica to Argenta, or the comforting sounds of bookbinding tools in Mo's workshop....Ms. Funke, hearing your voice in Inkheart helped me find my own. I now know that I will always write. I hope to write scripts, and poetry, and inspiring stories, and sad stories, and comical stories, and maybe even books. Books like yours. Books about magic, miracles, hope, love, and strength."

Congratulations to all students who wrote letters this year.

MHC Awards Civil War Grant to Five Communities

The Maine Humanities Council and Maine Historical Society are entering the final year of their partnership for the Local & Legendary: Maine in the Civil War grant, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grants allow community partners to explore and share their local history while drawing connections to the nation's experience of the Civil War.

Each community will receive $2,000 and in-kind assistance to develop three projects: a digital history exhibit on Maine Memory Network, a "One Book, One Community" reading and discussion program, and a performance based on local Civil War history in partnership with theater professional David Greenham. Grant-supported projects will be carried out between September 2014 and May 2015.

The Bethel project is a partnership between the Bethel Historical Society, Gould Academy, and Bethel Library Association. They will promote local history in the schools and the community. Students will work with primary sources and assist with making local Civil War material available on-line.

In Livermore/Livermore Falls/Jay, the Spruce Mountain High School and Library (RSU 73) and Washburn-Norlands Foundation, Inc. will collaborate on a project investigating the local experience during the Civil War, particularly through Livermore's Washburn family. Students will participate in a new course, "Our Hands-On History," which will let them do the work of an historian in conjunction with the staff at Norlands.

The Pittsfield project will include the Maine Central Institute (MCI), Pittsfield Historical Society, and the Pittsfield Public Library. Their goal is to create community connections, and to explore "life at home" and the influence of post war and reconstruction politics on the rise of Pittsfield as an educational and cultural center in central Maine.

In Rumford, the Rumford Area Historical Society, the Rumford Public Library, and Mountain Valley High School (RSU 10), as well as other schools in the Western Foothills School District, will enhance their community's understanding of the Civil War's impact on the River Valley of the 1860's. Using documents, technology, drama, literature, and history, the team will reach out to a broad spectrum of citizens in the project.

The Scarborough project is a collaboration between the Scarborough Middle School, Scarborough Historical Society, and the Scarborough Public Library. The partners hope to explore the basis for the Hon. Augustus H. Moulton's remark "no town and no place surpassed the patriotic record of old Scarboro," as he spoke at the dedication of the Scarborough's Soldiers' Monument in 1913.

For more information about the final projects of this year's grantees, visit the Maine Memory Network's Webblog.

Podcast: Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg

Julie Buckler: Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg

In this talk, delivered on March 8, 2014, as part of Winter Weekend 2014, Julie Buckler (Harvard University) takes us on a tour through the historical and the literary city of St. Petersburg. She begins with its construction in the early 1700s, traces the forces that influenced its growth, and takes the listener through the centuries with both the city's critics and its defenders.

Buckler is Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. She specializes in the cultural heritage of Imperial Russia. Buckler is author of The Literacy Lorgnette: Attending Opera in Imperial Russia and Mapping St. Petersburg: Imperial Text and Cityscape. Her new book project is titled Cultural Properties: The Afterlife of the Imperial in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia.

Upcoming Events

The final Think & Drink session is in Portland tomorrow, June 4. Let's Talk About It will reach West Paris, Richmond, Lovell, Greenville, and Augusta this month. A discussion of What is the What is coming to the Portland Public Library. David Greenham's Maine at Work can be seen in Caribou or Lille. For these events and others, visit our calendar.

Recent Grant List

$4,000 for "The ADA at 25: A Maine Perspective," Alpha One Independent Living Center, South Portland

This project plans a series of oral history interviews focusing on and marking the 25th anniversary of the disability rights movement's achievement in passing the Americans With Disabilities Act. The interviews will be used in an exhibit and a slide/audio presentation and will be augmented by a public panel discussion and radio modules featuring disability rights leaders.

$5,200 for "Educational Archeological Survey of the Francis O.J. Smith Residence," Deering Center Neighborhood Association, Portland

Deering Center Neighborhood Association will sponsor a professional archeological survey and conservation effort of artifacts found in the historic site of Francis O.J. Smith of Deering Center with a team of students from McCauley High School. The DCNA will host an Open Field Day and two public lectures for city residents and Baxter Woods visitors and will create an online repository to secure a detailed and accurate historical record of this unique parcel of city owned land.

$5,300 for "Twisted Path III: Questions of Balance," Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor

Twisted Path III is an exhibit by contemporary Native American artists that addresses some of the most provocative environmental issues of our time. With the addition of programs, workshops, and a Creative Summit, the exhibit will engage audiences with the artists themselves in discussions about the environment and about Native art as contemporary art. This grant supports educational programs designed to enrich the Abbe Museum experience and impact the learning of thousands of visitors.

$4,187 for "The Experience of Silent Movies and Film Cameras for a New Generation: A Theater, Festival and Hands-on Workshops," 19th Century Willowbrook Village, Newfield

This project will introduce the wonders of the silent film era, as well as its historical antecedent, to a new generation through movie viewing, commentary and discussion within recreated 1920's silent movie theater space as well as the hands-on workshops. In addition to an annual silent movie festival, this movie theater and related educational programming is intended to travel and be shared during the off-season with other Maine museums.

$5,200 for "Auditorium Project," William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, Rockland

An auditorium project will provide improved access to arts, cultural, and humanities programming for both museum and general audiences with new cutting-edge sound, lighting, and staging technologies and enhancements.

$3,794 for "Franco-American Collection Exhibit Furniture," University of Southern Maine, Portland

This grant supports the Franco-American Collection's exhibition space at its new location on the USM Lewiston-Auburn College campus. The exhibit space will draw more visitors, allowing for greater access to the Collection's holdings and support its public programming.

$2,849 for "Minott-Bowker Shipyard Landmark," Town of Phippsburg, Phippsburg

This grant supports the creation and installation of three markers to commemorate the historic site of the Minott-Bowker Shipyard. The ceremony will take place in the summer or fall of 2014, one of many activities planned during the year to celebrate Phippsburg's 200th Anniversary.