Category Archives: Lecture

Sandwich in History at the Arsenal Tower Building in MacArthur Park today

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Image may contain: sky, cloud, house and outdoorYou are invited to join the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program’s next “Sandwiching in History” tour, which will visit one of Little Rock’s oldest standing structures, the Arsenal Tower Building, now home to the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History on 9th Street in MacArthur Park in Little Rock beginning at noon on Friday, December 6, 2019.

This structure was built as part of a federal military installation. The U.S. Arsenal is the only building that remains of the more than 30 that made up the original installation. After 1892, the arsenal grounds became City Park and later MacArthur Park in 1942.

The two-story brick building displays a slight Gothic influence in a centered octagonal entry tower. Symmetrical east and west wings display two-story full porches. For several decades, the building was endangered, but the City of Little Rock undertook a renovation project in the 1930s. The U.S. Arsenal currently houses the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History.

Sandwiching in History tours are worth one hour of AIA continuing education credit. If you would like to receive email notifications of upcoming tours instead of postcards or need additional information, please contact Callie Williams, Education and Outreach Coordinator for AHPP, at 501-324-9880 or Callie.Williams@arkansas.gov.

Today at noon – Arkansas Rep production of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE is Clinton School topic

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The Arkansas Repertory Theatre’s holiday play – It’s a Wonderful Life is the topic of today’s Clinton School program. It will take place at 12 noon in Sturgis Hall.

Ring in the holidays with an entertaining spin on a familiar holiday favorite. Set in a 1940s radio station on Christmas Eve, enjoy a live radio version of Frank Capra’s classic 1946 film as the actors on stage transform into dozens of characters from Bedford Falls.

Faced with the threat of scandal and financial ruin, George Bailey experiences a crisis of faith and wishes he had never been born. Divine intervention arrives in the form of Clarence (Angel Second Class), who is on a mission to restore George’s will to live and earn his own wings in the process. Every life impacts countless others, whether we know it or not.

Join the Clinton School for a discussion with the cast and crew.

All Clinton School Speaker Series events are free and open to the public. Reserve your seats by emailing publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu or by calling (501) 683-5239.

Learn about Arkansas in Modern America at the December CALS Butler Center Legacies & Lunch program today at noon

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Dr.-Ben-Johnson-Ark-Studies-Endowed-Professor-300x196Today (December 4) at noon, the Central Arkansas Library System’s Butler Center’s monthly Legacies & Lunch program will feature Dr. Ben Johnson discussing Arkansas in Modern America.

Ben Johnson will discuss the topics and themes in his book Arkansas in Modern America Since 1930, published in August by the University of Arkansas Press. This second edition is a comprehensive revision of and elaboration on the first edition, which was published in 2000. Johnson incorporates recent scholarship to extend the analysis of economic, social, and cultural developments in Arkansas into the present day.

Ben Johnson is the John G. Ragsdale, Jr. and Dora J. Ragsdale Professor of Arkansas Studies at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia. In addition to Arkansas in Modern America, he has published Fierce Solitude: A Life of John Gould Fletcher and John Barleycorn Must Die: The War Against Drink in Arkansas, each published by the University of Arkansas Press.

Legacies & Lunch is a free monthly program of CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies about Arkansas related topics.  Program are generally held from noon to 1 pm on the first Wednesday of the month in the Main Library’s Darragh Center.  Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided.  A library parking discount is available upon request.  For more information, or to share ideas for future programs, please contact Heather Zbinden, 320-5744, hzbinden@cals.org.

Importance of Levees to the Economy; Update on 2019 Flood at Clinton School noon program

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The Economic Importance of Levees and an update on the Historic 2019 Flood will be the topic of today’s Clinton School program.  It takes place at 12 noon.

Bryan Day, Executive Director of the Port of Little Rock, and Col. Eric M. Noe, District Engineer and Commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Little Rock District will discuss the economic importance of levees and an update on the historic 2019 flood, including an update on port stream bank and dock repairs and the status of levees in the Little Rock District post-flood.

All Clinton School Speaker Series events are free and open to the public. Reserve your seats by emailing publicprograms@clintonschool.uasys.edu or by calling (501) 683-5239.

Authors of TWO DEAD – Van Jensen and Nate Powell – headline next OA South Words program

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Image result for two dead book"The Oxford American is excited to continue its 2019-2020 South Words readers series with Van Jensen and Nate Powell, author and illustrator of Two Dead. Moderating the discussion is OA senior editor and author of Carry the Rock, Jay Jennings.

The program takes place at the CALS Ron Robinson Theater.  Doors open at 6:00 PM, and there will be a book signing after the reading. Books will be for sale onsite.

Two Dead, a stunning crime noir graphic novel by Nate Powell and Van Jensen, explores intertwining threads of crime, conspiracy, racism, and insanity in the post-World War II Deep South.  Powell is the acclaimed DC Comics writer and the artist of the #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-winning illustrated trilogy March. Jensen, a former crime reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a graphic novel writer who has written for the Pinocchio and Buffy the Vampire Slayer series and DC Comics.

This special event is free to attend. Please reserve your RSVP tickets on this page.

Our Presenting Sponsor for South Words is the UCA College of Fine Arts & Communication, and the reading series is presented in partnership with the Central Arkansas Library System’s Six Bridges Book Festival. Additional season partners include the Clinton School of Public Service, Arkansas Arts Council, Division of Arkansas Heritage, and Villa Vue at SoMa.

Van Jensen, a former crime reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a graphic novel writer who has written for the Pinocchio and Buffy the Vampire Slayer series and DC Comics. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Nate Powell is an illustrator who worked on the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel trilogy March, for which he became the first cartoonist ever to win the National Book Award. His work also includes You Don’t Say, Any Empire, Swallow Me Whole, The Silence of Our Friends, The Year of the Beasts, and Rick Riordan’s The Lost Hero and he has received a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, three Eisner Awards, two Ignatz Awards, two Harvey Awards, the Michael L. Printz Award, a Coretta Scott King Author Award, four YALSA Great Graphic Novels For Teens selections, and the Walter Dean Myers Award. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

Jay Jennings is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in many national newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Lowbrow Reader, Garden & Gun, Travel & Leisure, and Oxford American, where he is a senior editor. He is the author of Carry the Rock: Race, Football and the Soul of an American City and the editor of Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany.