Oregon Humanities

$1,000 Grant Awarded for Occupy Portland Teach-in

Oregon Humanities awards Responsive Program Grant to the Dill Pickle Club for November 14 teach-in

09 November 2011 | Permalink

Oregon Humanities has awarded a Responsive Program Grant of $1,000 to the Dill Pickle Club to support “The 99%: A Teach-in about Occupy Portland,” which will take place on November 14, 2011, 6-8 p.m. at the Portland Building Auditorium (1120 SW 5th Ave., Portland). The event is free and open to the public.

The teach-in will consist of short presentations that objectively bring together various perspectives on the current Occupy Wall Street movement, focusing on the economic, political, and social factors that have led to the movement as well as the movement’s impact on a local level.

Presenters include Randall Bluffstone (Portland State University professor of economics), John Coghlan (filmmaker, Occupy Portland Video... More

January and February Conversation Project programs cover topics such as life in Iraq, immigration, and the American prison system.

02 December 2010 | Permalink

Communities around the state have year-round access to free discussions through the Conversation Project: A New Chautauqua, a program of Oregon Humanities that connects Oregonians with public scholars and provocative ideas.

The 2010–11 Conversation Project lineup features 16 programs presented by 15 scholars. This season’s programs span diverse topics, including immigration, volunteerism, life in Iraq, moral integrity, and reimagining the American prison system. Programs scheduled from January 6 to February 26, 2011, are listed below by county. For more information about each program and to view the full events calendar, please visit oregonhumanities.org.

Clackamas
• Borderless: Migration, Globalization, and Changing... More

Special Wordstock Conversation about Science, Stories, and Forest Policy

Writer Gail Wells will lead a discussion about how allegiance to place influences land-use policy.

14 September 2010 | Permalink

How does our allegiance to places affect our opinions about land use, particularly forest use? How do we build meanings into places individually and collectively through storytelling and public policy?

This is the focus of a special Wordstock Festival event, “Seeding a Sense of Place: Science, Stories, and Smart Forest Policy,” a free conversation with independent writer and editor Gail Wells on Wednesday, October 6, 2010, at 6:00 p.m. at Hoyt Arboretum, Bill DeWeese Classroom, 4000 SW Fairview Blvd.

This is event is part of the Conversation Project, a program sponsored by Oregon Humanities that engages community members in thoughtful, challenging conversations about ideas critical to our daily lives and our state’s... More

Oregon Humanities Authors Read at Broadway Books

Four writers will read their essays recently published in the summer 2010 issue of Oregon Humanities magazine.

09 September 2010 | Permalink

Oregon authors Barry Johnson, Bette Lynch Husted, M. Allen Cunningham, and Dave Weich will read from their essays published in the summer 2010 issue of Oregon Humanities magazine on the theme of “Work.” Oregon Humanities magazine, a triannual publication, is published by Oregon Humanities (formerly Oregon Council for the Humanities).

The reading, which is free and open to the public, will be held on Thursday, September 23, 2010, at 7:00 p.m. at Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, Portland. A question-and-answer period will follow.

Barry Johnson will read from “Please Don’t Consume the Art,” in which he argues that fall arts guides act like shopping catalogs, turning audiences into consumers. Johnson has written about... More

Free Statewide Community Discussions this Spring

Oregon Humanities sponsors Conversation Project programs across Oregon March through June 2010.

02 March 2010 | Permalink

Through the Conversation Project: A New Chautauqua, Oregonians around the state have access to free community discussions year-round. The Conversation Project, which connects Oregonians with public scholars and provocative ideas through idea-driven dialogue, is a program of Oregon Humanities (formerly Oregon Council for the Humanities).

The 2009–10 Conversation Project lineup features seventeen programs presented by sixteen scholars. This season’s programs span diverse topics, including friendship, mega cities, the future of rural communities, media literacy, and reimagining the American prison system. Programs from March 3, 2010, through June 27, 2010, are listed below by county. For more information about each program... More

Art, meat, and enlightenment in American sport fishing

Oregon Council for the Humanities sponsors a free public event on June 6 in Bend.

13 May 2008 | Permalink

The closure of nearly all ocean salmon fishing in Oregon this year will have a devastating financial impact on working-class Oregonians who make their living in the state’s multimillion dollar fishing industry.
But besides being a profitable industry, sport fishing, whether catch-and-release fly-fishing on Central Oregon’s pristine rivers or bait-and-hook fishing on the Oregon Coast’s fisheries-stocked waters, is also a strong symbol of the region’s identity.
Oregon Book Award-winning poet Henry Hughes, a dedicated angler who uses both bait and fly, explores how the sport illuminates human relationships to art and nature at a free public event, “Crossing (Class) Lines: Art, Meat, and the American Angler,” at McMenamins Old St.... More

Geographer looks at impact of Russian and Ukrainian refugees in Oregon

University of Oregon professor uses maps and first-person stories in Spring 2007 Commonplace Lecture in Salem.

23 April 2008 | Permalink

Although much of the recent discussion about immigration has focused on the state’s predominantly Hispanic migrant worker population, Oregon’s Willamette Valley is also home to more than 80,000 Russian and Ukrainian refugees—the second largest population of post-Soviet-era Russians and Ukrainians in the country.
According to University of Oregon geography professor Susan Hardwick, these new residents were, in large part, drawn to the region by “religious networks forged at home, economic opportunities, and the hope of finding freedom and prosperity for their children.” She says that this sizable population has the potential to play a major role in shaping the future of the state.
Hardwick will deliver a free public lecture,... More

Native journalist to discuss challenges faced by urban Indians

Seattle newspaper editor Mark Trahant will deliver the Oregon Council for the Humanities' Commonplace Lecture on Oct. 26 in Portland.

09 September 2007 | Permalink

The 38,000 Native Americans who reside in the Portland area comprise the nation’s ninth-largest urban Indian population, according to the Native American Youth and Family Center in Portland.
Journalist Mark Trahant, the editorial page editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, explains that many of these urban Indians find themselves torn between the opportunities available in the cities and the history and culture of the reservations. He notes that this group is a significant—and perhaps unplanned for—population that faces specific challenges in the fields of education, employment, and health care.
As an example, Trahant, who is a member of the Shoshone Bannock tribe of Idaho, says, “In recent years the Bush Administration has... More

Critic calls for new direction in Oregon's architecture and land-use planning

Randy Gragg, architecture critic for the Oregonian, delivers Commonplace Lecture, "Against Nostalgia," at historic Temple Beth Israel in Portland

28 February 2007 | Permalink

In his 17 years of writing about art, architecture, and planning for the Oregonian newspaper, Randy Gragg says he is struck by how many of the state’s conflicts in these arenas are rooted in efforts to merely preserve the past rather than build on it.
“Preservation is an easy argument,” he says. “Articulating a theory of change is much harder. By holding on so hard to the past, I believe we, as a region, risk becoming victims of the future.”
Gragg, the Oregonian’s architecture critic, will deliver a free public lecture, “Against Nostalgia: The roots of a new direction for architecture and planning in Oregon,” at Temple Beth Israel, 1931 NW Flanders St., Portland, on Saturday, February 24, 2007, at 5 p.m. with a reception to... More