A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Features

Telling the Truth—with Hospitality

By Beth Waltemath

July 16, 2012 On June 7, 2012, Lipscomb University in Nashville welcomed more than 325 scholars and participants to the thirty-first annual Christian Scholars’ Conference. Since 2007, Lipscomb has expanded the scope of the conference, opening it to broad interdisciplinary and interfaith conversation. “As far as the larger cultural dialogue, this conference is right in the middle of it,” says Kathy Pulley, professor of religion at Missouri State University and a member of the CSC board. This year Chapter 16 was on hand for three days packed with internationally recognized speakers, academic panels, and great catering.

Are We Nearing the End of the Print Age?

By John Egerton

In 1942, when I was a rambunctious lad of seven, I was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The prescription for my recovery called for naps at ten and two, bedtime at seven—and plenty of rest in between. Bad news for a kid, but my mother was as resourceful as she was wise. “Let’s publish a newspaper,” she said. “I’ll teach you how to make stories that we can type up and print on the mimeo.” Thus began my introduction to reading and writing as self-generated pleasures, to the painful necessities of editing and rewriting, to the messy fun of putting ink to paper, and to the intoxicating thrill of seeing front-page news under my byline. The awe and wonder eventually turned to pride of craft, then drudgery, then boredom—but I have never forgotten the sense of empowerment I got from that first opportunity to learn adult skills.

Tasty Reading

By Paul V. Griffith

July 5, 2012 In a culture filled with so-called food porn, it’s perhaps surprising that Nashville’s Alimentum: The Literature of Food is the country’s first literary journal dedicated exclusively to themes of table, kitchen, market, and sustenance. In its pages—and in a revamped website, launching today—editor Paulette Licitra invites readers to consider food as a savory (or sweet) organizing principle, which writers can apply to themes as wide as human experience itself.

Bright Beads on a Thread

By Susannah Felts

June 28, 2012 A devoted teacher of Appalachian children and the author of more than sixty books for children, May Justus rarely traveled from her home in East Tennessee. But her books, written over half a century, were read widely and reviewed in the major media, awarded prizes, and collected in libraries. Now the Tennessee Folklore Society and Jubilee Community Arts of Knoxville have released May Justus: The Carawan Recordings, a collection of traditional mountain ballads sung by Justus. The recordings help cement Justus’s legacy as an Appalachian folk hero, and they highlight her connection to the famous Highlander Folk School and its contribution to the protest movements of the 1960s.

Where the Wild Things Are

By Michael Sims

May 14, 2012 Mark W. Scala’s Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination, a beautiful catalog for an art exhibition, is both invigorating and disturbing. It’s invigorating because it isn’t another business-as-usual record of a museum playing it safe with crowd-pleasers like the Impressionists but rather a lively demonstration of a museum engaged with the primordial dark side of the human psyche. It’s disturbing for the same reason, and it’s meant to be. “Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination” runs through May 28 at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville.

Fighting the Summer Slide

By Susannah Felts

May 11, 2012 A celebration of children’s literature held annually in downtown Knoxville, the Children’s Festival of Reading is the Knox County Public Library’s way of rallying interest in summer reading. Founded eight years ago, the festival combats the too-common notion among kids that reading is a chore or punishment, something they do only when a teacher makes them. But even while reminding kids of the pleasures of reading, the festival also speaks to something teachers see as a critical problem: the “summer slide,” a loss of academic skills that often happens when students are out of the classroom for weeks in a row. The Children’s Festival of Reading will take place on May 19 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at World’s Fair Park in Knoxville. All events are free and open to the public.

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