A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Mama? She's Crazy

May 23, 2011 It may appear that Ashley Judd has led a charmed life. The daughter/sister of famed country duo Naomi and Wynonna Judd, she seemed to appear out of nowhere during the mid-90s, her pixie-like presence lighting up films such as Smoke, Kiss The Girls, and 2004’s De-Lovely. But there’s a dark side to her fame—and to the seemingly wholesome Judd empire itself. In All That Is Bitter & Sweet, Judd documents her lifelong battle with depression and dysfunction, and the discovery of her true calling: social activism. By recognizing herself in the lost children of Africa and Asia, Judd has emerged as one of the most recognizable faces in the international fight for both HIV prevention and gender equality.

The Art of Recovery

May 20, 2011 Challenged Lives: Artistic Vision, a colorful new art book by the Creative Arts Project, is bringing attention to a number of Middle Tennessee creators, showcasing their work as well as their personalities and their thoughts on the creative process. Years in the making, it’s the latest effort by this Nashville-based organization to raise awareness about mental illness and addiction, and to draw attention to the life-changing benefits of art therapy. Jane Baxter, director of the Creative Arts Project, recently answered questions via email about the book, the artists it showcases, and the value of creative therapy.

The Art of Recovery

Moral, Not Faithful

May 19, 2011 Because atheists deny the notion of a supreme spiritual authority, they are often derided as amoral, libertine, or, in perhaps the biggest slight of all, moral relativists. In Reasonable Atheism, Vanderbilt philosophy professors Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse argue just the opposite. Though they clearly believe religion is wrong-headed, even dangerous, the authors’ goal is not to decry religious faith but to show that godlessness deserves the same respect afforded mainstream belief systems.

Fragile

May 17, 2011 Hamilton Cain is a natural storyteller. During his adolescence in Chattanooga, his way with words convinced his conservative family that he was anointed to preach. But it also gained him entry into a wider and more challenging world than the one offered by his strict Southern Baptist childhood: after college at the University of Virginia, Cain became a journalist in New York City. But the discovery that his first infant son had been born with a debilitating and degenerative genetic disease sent Hamilton Cain on a search to discover what liberation and affirmation can be found in a childhood he thought he had left behind forever. This Boy’s Faith is the story of a father who learns what it means to be faithful through raising his medically fragile son.

Fragile

Haunted by the Ghost of Hank Williams

May 12, 2011 Progressive country music star Steve Earle’s debut novel, I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive, is a somber tale featuring no less than the ghost of the great Hank Williams Sr. (The title is borrowed from one of Hank’s hit songs.) In this tale of addiction and redemption, released concurrently with an album of the same name, Earle almost certainly draws from the depths of his own darkest days in creating the tragic figure of Doc, a physician turned morphine addict. But one of several surprises in this accomplished first novel is the fact that it is neither a thinly disguised autobiography, nor a musician’s tale.

Da-vid, Da-vid Crockett!

May 11, 2011 Michael Wallis’s new biography, David Crockett: The Lion of the West, is full of the kind of information that every Tennessean should know but has likely never learned—including, for example, the fact that Crockett was an adventurer, patriot, and politician who used his fame to oppose the policies of Tennessee’s other larger-than-life personality, Andrew Jackson. Crockett was a complex man given to strong drink and an even stronger sense of honor, and by the end of his life he was fighting for control of his own legend. So, please, don’t call him Davy.

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