Maine Humanities Council

Tess Chakkalakal, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and English at Bowdoin College, is the last in our series of podcasts from our October, 2009 event: Looking for Zora: The Many Lives of Zora Neale Hurston. This one day event explored the life and lasting work of Hurston, an anthropologist with a literary sensibility. Chakkalakal led an interactive lecture entitled, The Politics of Zora Neale Hurston and its Resonance Today which closed the day discussing the political context of Hurston’s most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Professor Chakkalakal’s lecture was part of the Looking for Zora symposium which took place on October 17, 2009 in Pettengill Hall at Bates College. This program was made possible through the We The People initiative, a program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

 The Politics of Zora Neale Hurston [41:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (700)

Kate Miles, Associate Professor of Environmental Writing at Unity College, is the third in our series of podcasts from our October, 2009 event: Looking for Zora: The Many Lives of Zora Neale Hurston. This one day event explored the life and lasting work of Hurston, an anthropologist with a literary sensibility. Miles’ lecture, entitled, Seeing Green: Their Eyes Were Watching God from an Environmentalist’s Perspective explored how Hurston used her settings within nature to give a potent and passionate context to the work.

Professor Miles’ lecture was part of the Looking for Zora symposium which took place on October 17, 2009 in Pettengill Hall at Bates College. This program was made possible through the We The People initiative, a program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

 Seeing Green [35:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (739)

Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, the John D. and Catharine T. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies at Colby College, is the second in our series of podcasts from our October, 2009 event: Looking for Zora: The Many Lives of Zora Neale Hurston. This one day event explored the life and lasting work of Hurston, an anthropologist with a literary sensibility. Gilkes’ lecture, entitled, Worlds in their Mouths: The Mighty Anthropology of Zora Neale Hurston’s Novels explored how Hurston used novels to report her studies of the lives and cultures of Southern Blacks at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Professor Gilkes’ lecture was part of the Looking for Zora symposium which took place on October 17, 2009 in Pettengill Hall at Bates College. This program was made possible through the We The People initiative, a program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

 Worlds in Their Mouths [53:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (765)

Cedric Gael Bryant, Lee Family Professor of English at Colby College, is the first in our series of podcasts from our October, 2009 event: Looking for Zora: The Many Lives of Zora Neale Hurston. This one day event explored the life and lasting work of Hurston, an anthropologist with a literary sensibility. Bryant’s lecture, entitled, Looking for and Finding Zora: Literacy Legacy and Influence of Zora Neale Hurston opened the day discussing the literary context of Hurston’s most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Professor Bryant’s lecture was part of the Looking for Zora symposium which took place on October 17, 2009 in Pettengill Hall at Bates College. This program was made possible through the We The People initiative, a program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 

 Looking For and Finding Zora Neale Hurston [42:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (900)

For the kick-off of the new season of the Portland Public Library’s brown-bag lunch series, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Richard Russo, came back to Portland to read from his new novel That Old Cape Magic. Despite being a Yankees fan, Russo lives in Coastal Maine. Here, Russo reads a colorful chapter of his newly released and critically acclaimed novel.

This talk was part of the Portland Public Library’s Brown Bag Lecture Series. We welcome your feedback on this Richard Russo podcast.

 

 Richard Russo [35:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1285)

In the “flash reading” by Stonecoast MFA program faculty members, each writer gets three minutes in which to share his or her work before introducing the next writer in the queue. The flash reading from Stonecoast’s summer residency in July 2009 began with an introduction by director Annie Finch. Joan Connor started the reading with her “Three-Minute Love Story.” Aaron Hamburger read an excerpt from his story “Ludmilla in the New World,” published in the anthology Between Men 2. The next reader was Richard Hoffman, who read from his collection, Interference and Other Stories. Barbara Hurd shared the opening of a novel, Slow Dance on a Slanted Floor, then Michael Kimball read from his novel Mouth to Mouth. Debra Marquart read the essay “Whisker Meditations,” and finally, Suzanne Strempek Shea closed the reading with an excerpt from a story published in “Golf World” magazine.

This reading took place in Brunswick, Maine, on July 10, 2009. Stonecoast is the low-residency MFA program in creative writing at the University of Southern Maine. For more readings from faculty members, including other flash readings, click on the “Stonecoast” tag, below.

 

 Flash Reading [37:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (524)