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• An Issue of Translation

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• Upcoming Events

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• News from MHC

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• Recent Grants

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• What We’re Reading

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• Quote of the Month

“In reality, every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to the reader to enable him to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have experienced in himself. And the recognition by the reader in his own self of what the book says is the proof of its veracity.”

— Time Regained
Marcel Proust

Romeo: I dream’d a dream to-night.
Mercutio: And so did I.
Romeo: Well, what was yours?
Mercutio: That dreamers often lie.
Romeo: In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
Mercutio: O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

Purists will say that Shakespeare should always be performed in the original, leaving each witty, tangled verse—a layer upon layer of linguistic shell—to ring out in the voice or in the mind as the Bard intended; Shakespeare’s messages of humanity will shine through his poetry, and as in his days, if performed right, will appeal to the masses.

This poses a problem for the people who have not had the luck to see Shakespeare performed well or at all. Even for those who have, it can be a struggle to understand archaic words—yes, even spoken in context—if one has never heard them before. For the incarcerated boys at the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland, who have had little or no exposure to Shakespeare, expecting them to find true love at first sight in Romeo and Juliet seems a bit ambitious.

Herein enters the issue of translation, brought to the fore by the Winter Harbor Theatre Company through a project funded by the Maine Humanities Council and the Maine Charitable Trust. Recognizing the connection that the Long Creek boys have with the medium of hip-hop and its commonalities with the poetry of the Bard’s, the Winter Harbor Theatre Company is introducing the boys at Long Creek to Romeo and Juliet through a month-long program in which they will read the play, rewrite it as hip-hop, and then memorize it for two performances in mid-March.

Why this play?

The Winter Harbor Theatre Company told us, “We feel that Romeo and Juliet is not only immediately accessible to teenagers, but it also addresses issues of class, love, anger, violence, murder, revenge, sex and family—all themes which we believe are important studies of the human condition.”

What happens when you expose troubled youths to Shakespeare?

“Teaching Shakespeare and the performance of Shakespeare to the youths at Long Creek is hands on, visible change. We have seen boys who at the beginning of a session can barely read or write, memorize and perform Shakespeare. We have seen boys work through complicated emotions from within the safe place of acting, and finally laugh or smile for the first time since coming to Long Creek. But, most importantly, we have seen dreams set free: Boys think they can be more than just criminals, more than just drop-outs, more than just druggies. All of a sudden, they are actors, writers, readers of Shakespeare, costume designers, set designers and celebrities at Long Creek.”

The Maine Humanities Council is proud to support this project.

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Teachers for a New Century

The Maine Humanities Council is holding two Teachers for a New Century seminars this month and one early in April. These daylong sessions help teachers grow, offering them intellectual stimulation as well as ideas for the classroom. While these programs are generally closed to the general public, I invite interested readers of this newsletter to contact me diane@mainehumanities.org to attend one and experience what the Maine Humanities Council offers to the teachers of Maine. Each will be held from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM at a midcoast location to be announced soon.

March 16, 2006: Watergate Revisited

Archivist-historian Chris Beam will present a day-by-day unraveling of the 20th century’s most famous political scandal.

March 31, 2006: America in the Middle East

Mahmud Faksh—scholar, author, and USM professor of political science—will share a survey, from the Barbary pirates through the Iraq wars, of U.S. involvement in the Islamic world.

April 7, 2006: Maine’s Native Americans in Context

This seminar presents the story, from pre-history through the land claims debate, of Maine’s indigenous peoples and their relationship to other Native Americans.

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Winter Weekend

Proustians will gather at Bowdoin College on March 10 and 11 for the MHC’s 2006 Winter Weekend. The star: Lydia Davis’s new translation of Swann’s Way.

Other stars include the keynote speaker, Harold Augenbraum, who is the executive direction of the National Book Foundation and a Proustian of the first order. His credentials include the establishment and management of the Proust Society of America in New York City. For Winter Weekend regulars who attended Magic Mountain, you’ll be delighted to know that Colby’s Raffael Scheck will be speaking about French history 1870-1920. He told Charles Calhoun, our Winter Weekend coordinator, that he’s planning on reading Swann’s Way in the French in preparation.

Any Winter Weekend devotee knows well that the event is long, long sold out. If you are interested in being on the mailing list for advance notice next year, please let me know. You may reach me at diane@mainehumanities.org.

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Grant-Funded Events

We have, as always, our ongoing series of grant-funded events across the state listed here.

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The Middle East has gained critical importance to Americans in the past five years, and it is in light of this and with the goal of furthering an understanding of this part of the world that Let’s Talk About It has developed a new series: Behind the Headlines: An Introduction to the Middle East. This is a response to the many requests for a Let’s Talk series on the Middle East. Surprisingly, in the humanities council world, only a few offer ongoing public library-based programs on this topic.

The Maine Humanities Council is working with Mahmud Faksh of the University of Southern Maine to create a series that will be a strong introduction to the history and culture of the region. We hope that we can then offer follow-up series that will build on this base of knowledge.

The format will be a bit different from the standard Let’s Talk About It programs. Groups will meet twice with a facilitator/scholar who specializes in the Middle East. The readings for both sessions will be from The Contemporary Middle East, edited by Karl Yambert, a new and accessible anthology of writings by leading scholars incorporating historical, cultural, and political perspectives of the region. To provide participants with background and context, each session will begin with a 45-minute presentation by the facilitator, followed by approximately an hour and a quarter of facilitated discussion.

This is an exciting new venture. If you’re interested in learning more, please contact Let’s Talk About It Program Officer Elizabeth Sinclair at lizz@mainehumanities.org. This program is supported in part by the Maine Community Foundation’s Belvedere Fund.

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MHC On the Air

Imagine her surprise when, on January 31, relaxing after a long day, our executive director Deedee Schwartz saw a familiar face on the telly. It was Board member Peter Aicher, and he was in the middle of a great concrete tunnel underground. It took Deedee a few moments to realize that she was watching a documentary on NOVA called "Secrets of Lost Empires: Roman Bath." Peter, Classics Professor at University of Southern Maine, who happens to be a Roman history scholar and an expert on the Roman aqueducts, was a consultant for the project, both off and on the air. Click here for NOVA’s interview with Peter on the water distribution system that made Rome famous, as well as a few photos of Peter in action.

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$1,000 to the Academic Council for Post-Holocaust Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Studies, USM, for Never Again? Genocide and Indifference
A lecture by Paul Ruseabagina, real-life hero of the film Hotel Rwanda, and a special commemoration of 1916 genocide that massacred over one million Armenian men, women, and children.

$1,000 to Friends of Colonial Pemaquid, New Harbor, for Interpretive Documentary of Colonial Pemaquid
Professional filmmakers will create a documentary about Colonial Pemaquid, including the history of the settlement, the forts, and the archaeological work that has been taking place for the past 40 years.

$1,000 to Portland Symphony Orchestra for Concert Conversations 2006
Seven pre-concert lectures designed to provide a better understanding of the music on the program for the symphony’s Tuesday and Sunday Classical Concerts.

$1,000 to the University of Maine at Farmington, Farmington, for Maine’s Place in the Environmental Imagination
A conference devoted to the ways in which Maine has figured in the nation’s environmental consciousness and how practicing writers think of the state as a symbol, myth, image, and setting in their work.

$1,000 to Portland Public Library, Portland, for Portland Public Library Poetry Festival
The Portland Public Library will celebrate poetry in March & April with readings from Maine poets, workshops, a poetry contest, a birthday party for Shakespeare, a hip hop performance, and more.

$1,000 to Seal Bay Festival, Vinalhaven, for Workshops with Students and Visual Artists: Finding the Creative Link between the Arts through Improvisation
Composers & musicians interact with middle-school children and artists from Vinalhaven’s Arts & Recreation Center in workshops that explore the creative links between verbal narrative, visual imagery, physical movement, and music composition.

$500 to New Hill School, Portland, for The Story Exchange
Storyteller Lorna Stengel will share multicultural stories with the students. They will also have a hands-on opportunity to engage in sharing stories through monthly visits with elders at The Cedars, a retirement community in Portland.

$300 to Belfast Free Library, Belfast, for Odes and Other Forms of Praise
A series of two workshops to include the reading and discussion of odes from different time periods.

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The residents of Oran, Algeria face sudden physical and emotional confinement—an inner exile—when their city is struck by the bubonic plague, and the city is in quarantine. Albert Camus’s The Plague describes the effect of this isolation on the people of Oran and how it brings out great nobility and cowardice in real, understandable ways. It is a very human classic, too, following a likable protagonist, Dr. Rieux, as he attempts to work with the authorities, deal with the plague, help his regular patients, and tries not to constantly worry about his wife, who left the city with her own health worries for a sanitarium before the plague began. Health care professionals in Literature & Medicine are reading this text.

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"Every opinion counts."

— from New Books, New Readers participant

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