This month, HNY’s Online Community Conversations will focus on “Community and Climate Change,” with a series of questions that focus on the collision of culture, science, and global warming. We will be hosting this conversation on April 21st at 8:00 p.m. HNY’s Zoom-based Community Conversations are free with registration. Register here. To complement this conversation, we have curated a selection of articles and books that explore the cultural and community impacts of the climate crisis. Like all of HNY’s Community Conversations, this one will use a single brief text to get things going. This text will be provided after registration. […]
Reading List: What Does Democracy Demand?
Since the 2020 election we’ve held “First Principles” and “Another Reconstruction” a free, two-part online town hall series featuring David Bromwich, Jedediah Purdy, Leah Wright Rigueur, and Brandon M. Terry. At the first town hall, our guest speakers summarized some of the components they see as necessary for a free and open democracy — such as trust, free expression, as well as basic civics education — and then evaluated the contemporary threats to those principles. Join us on January 20th for a Community Conversation in which all the participants can continue the discussion. Hosted over Zoom, we invite you to reflect […]
Reading List: US History or American Myth?
This October, HNY’s Online Community Conversations will look at how our nation uses its history, exploring ways in which American history so deeply informs our society and our self-image while, at the same time, many Americans’ memories have little to do with the historical record. We will be hosting this conversation on October 21st. Register here. These conversations lead up to the second annual History and the American Imagination event. This year we are hosting, virtually, distinguished scholar Danielle Allen and celebrated author Kiese Laymon for an illuminating conversation about the ways they see this topic. HNY board member Deva […]
Reading List: “Amended,” Suffrage, and Beyond
On August 26th, HNY launched Amended, its first podcast. Amended travels from the 1800’s through to the present day to show us a quest for women’s full equality that has always been as diverse, complex and unfinished as the nation itself. For our ongoing Online Community Conversations series we will be using brief excerpts from Amended to open a conversation about the past, present, and future of the struggle for gender equality. To complement this online conversations, we have curated a brief selection of readings that examine the complex legacy of the suffrage movement. You do not have to read […]
Reading List: Memory, History, and Community
HNY is continuing its Online Community Conversations series with a discussion on “Memory, History, and Community.” Who, in a democracy, gets to decide how we remember the past? What happens when one group’s memories lie in tension with those of another? What role does memorialization play in our society? To complement this online conversation, we have curated a brief selection of readings that examine the complex interconnections between memory, history, and memorialization. That said, our online conversation, like all of HNY’s Community Conversations, will use a single brief text to spark the conversation. This text will be provided after registration. […]
Community & Protest: Reading List
Since the beginning of 2020, we have seen a social turmoil that has not been broadly expressed in at least a generation, marked by protests sparked by the all-too-common spectacle of a black man’s unjust death. George Floyd’s killing is a recent — but by no means even the latest — iteration of America’s gruesome heritage of racist violence. This heritage scaffolds the length of our history, its shadow dimming us and our institutions. As Ibram X. Kendi teaches us, indeed as he said at last year’s Buffalo Humanities Festival (video below), we at institutions all have influence on the […]
Reading List: Pandemic & Inequality
On Wednesday, May 13th, HNY held its Conversations on Your Couch series with a discussion about “Pandemic and Inequality.” How do inequality and pandemics feed off of each other? Will the lessons we are learning about justice, fairness, and opportunity outlive the virus? To complement the conversation, we curated a brief selection of stories that examine the complex interconnections between the pandemic and inequality. For those interested in holding there own conversation this could serve as a starting point. Each selection is available to read / listen online, and each is free of charge. Some readings to get you started… […]
