Maine Humanities Council

The 2008 Douglas M. Schair Memorial Lecture on Genocide and Human Rights was a dialogue for Muslim-Jewish understanding, presented in cooperation with the Islamic Society of Portland and the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine. The featured speakers were Judea Pearl and Akbar Ahmed. Pearl, a computer scientist from Israel, and Ahmed, a social scientist from Pakistan, share a concern about the deterioration of relationships between Muslim and Jewish communities around the world. They have become partners in a dialogue project in memory of Pearl’s son, journalist Daniel Pearl, under the auspices of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. Through their public dialogue, they aim to inspire ongoing conversations in the communities they visit that are similarly honest and respectful. They were recognized for this project in 2006, with the first annual Purpose Prize.

The Schair Memorial Lecture took place at the University of Southern Maine in Portland on April 7, 2008. We welcome your feedback.

Beyond the Clash of Civilizations [ 1:32:21 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (6882)

David Scott Kastan is the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities and Chair of the English Department at Columbia University. He specializes in 16th- and 17th-century literature and culture, Shakespeare, and the history of the book. He is the first American to serve as General Editor of the Arden Shakespeare, and he also served as General Editor of the 5-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature, which was published in 2006. Kastan is presently working on a book called The Invention of English Literature, a project for which he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004.

This talk was part of the Portland Public Library’s Poetry Festival in April, 2008. We welcome your feedback on this Poetry Festival events.

Believing Shakespeare: Religion in Shakespeare’s World and in his Plays [ 59:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (6194)

Six years ago, at the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin left New England’s privileged Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother’s native village of Panomsarakram—thus fulfilling a familial obligation. Part armchair travel, part coming-of-age story, his debut book A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants (Da Capo Press, 2009) chronicles his time at the temple. Jaed Coffin holds a B.A. in philosophy from Middlebury College and an M.F.A. from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Writing Program. A boxer, sea-kayaker, and lobster fisherman, he lives in Brunswick, Maine. In this recording, he is introduced by Shonna Milliken Humphrey, Executive Director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

This reading was part of the Portland Public Library’s Brown Bag Lecture Series, sponsored by Martin’s Point Health Care. We welcome your feedback on this Jaed Coffin podcast.

Jaed Coffin [ 55:52 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (634)