Tag Archives: Arkansas Humanities Council

Lineup for 2015 Arkansas Literary Festival announced

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alf maurice               Prestigious award-winners, big names, GRAMMY nominees, filmmakers, journalists, and artists are among the diverse roster of presenters who will be providing sessions at the twelfth annual Arkansas Literary Festival, April 23-26, 2015. The Central Arkansas Library System’s Main Library campus and many other Little Rock venues are the sites for a stimulating mix of sessions, panels, special events, performances, workshops,presentations, opportunities to meet authors, book sales, and book signings. Most events are free and open to the public.

The Arkansas Literary Festival, the premier gathering of readers and writers in Arkansas, will include more than 80 presenters including featured authors John Waters, Rebecca Wells, Charles D. Morgan, Andrew Keen, Cheryl & Griff Day, Issa Rae, Ted Rall, Rick Bragg, Megan Abbott, Seph Lawless, Wesley K. Clark, and Bryan Collier.

This year’s Festival authors have won an impressive number and variety of distinguished awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Purple Heart, GLAAD Stephen F. Kolzak Award, Hugo Award, Coretta Scott King Award, Caldecott Honor, American Society of Newspaper Editor’s Distinguished Writing Award, Hammett Prize, Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, Bram Stoker Award, Whiting Writers Award, Plimpton Prize, Shorty Award for best web show, Beatrice Hawley award, New York Times Editor’s Selection, Poets Prize, Romantic Times Legend of Romance, Porter Prize, a James Beard Award nominee, the U.S. nominee for the Hans Christen Andersen Award, and more.

Special events for adults during the Festival include a cocktail reception with the authors, a session with John Waters, special art exhibits, and a workshop on developing a personal style. Panels and sessions include genres and topics such as scientific thinking, Jerry Lee Lewis, the web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, comic art, romance, war, and baking.

Children’s special events include a Tiny Ninja workshop, and a play based on Chicken Little and the Little Red Hen. Festival sessions for children will take place at both the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library and Learning Center, 4800 10th Street, and the Youth Services Department at the Main Library, 100 Rock Street. Special events for teens include a session with E. Lockhart, whose book, We Were Liars, was the best reviewed book for young adults in 2014..

Through the Writers In The Schools (WITS) initiative, the Festival will provide presentations by several authors for Pulaski county elementary, middle, and senior high schools and area colleges.

Support for the Literary Festival is provided by sponsors including Central Arkansas Library System, Friends of Central Arkansas Libraries (FOCAL), Arkansas Humanities Council, Fred K. Darragh Jr. Foundation, Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, ProSmart Printing, Little Rock Family, KUAR FM 89.1, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Sync, Arkansas Life, William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, Windstream, Arkansas Federal Credit Union, Arkansas Times, Wright, Lindsey & Jennings LLP, Hampton Inn Downtown/McKibbon Hotel Group, Capital Hotel, Historic Arkansas Museum , TransAmerica, Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center, Arkansas Library Association, Pulaski Technical College, Union Pacific, Sequoyah National Research Center, Gibbs Elementary School, Rockefeller Elementary School, Hendrix College, Hendrix College Project Pericles Program, Arkansas Women’s Forum, Philander Smith College, University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, East Harding, University of Arkansas at Little Rock English Department, University of Arkansas at Little Rock Department of Rhetoric and Writing, Pyramid Art, Books & Custom Framing/Hearne Fine Art, Stickyz Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken Shack, Literacy Action of Central Arkansas, Christ Episcopal Church, and Lamar Advertising. The Arkansas Literary Festival is supported in part by funds from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Author! Author!, a cocktail reception with the authors, will be Friday, April 24, at 7 p.m. and the Fred Darragh Distinguished Lecture with John Waters, will be Saturday, April 25 at 8 p.m. Tickets for both events are $25 in advance, and $40 at the door, and go on sale at ArkansasLiteraryFestival.org beginning Tuesday, April 1. Author! Author! tickets will also be available for purchase at the Main Library and River Market Books & Gifts, 120 River Market Avenue.

The Arkansas Literary Festival is a project of the Central Arkansas Library System.  The Festival’s mission is to encourage the development of a more literate populace. A group of dedicated volunteers assists Festival Coordinator Brad Mooy with planning the Festival. Katherine Whitworth is the 2015 Festival Chair. Other committee chairs include Kevin Brockmeier, Talent Committee; Susan Santa Cruz, Festival Guides; Laura Stanley, Hospitality Gifts; and Amy Bradley-Hole, Moderators.

For more information about the 2015 Arkansas Literary Festival, visit ArkansasLiteraryFestival.org, or contact Brad Mooy at bmooy@cals.org or 918-3098. For information on volunteering at the Festival, contact Angela Delaney at adelaney@cals.orgor 918-3095.

Ed Bethune speaks at Butler Center Legacies & Lunch today

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EdBethune-580x323Former Congressman Ed Bethune’s diverse career has included service in the Marine Corps, as a special agent in the FBI, and as a prosecuting attorney.

Bethune will provide an “Arkansas autobiography” at Legacies & Lunch, the Butler Center’s monthly lecture series, on Wednesday, January 7, from noon-1 p.m. in the Main Library’s Darragh Center, 100 Rock Street.

Bethune, a native of Pocahontas who served three terms in the United States House of Representatives, will share details about his childhood during World War II and his career. He will also discuss his family and cultural changes in his lifetime. Finally, Bethune will talk about how he and his wife attempted to sail across the Atlantic Ocean in a 31-foot sailboat, detailed in his memoir, Jackhammered. Copies of Jackhammered and Gay Panic in the Ozarks, a novel by Bethune, will be available for sale; Bethune will sign books after the program.

Legacies & Lunch is free, open to the public, and sponsored in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided. For more information, contact 501-918-3033.

Photographing Everyday Arkansas Architecture the focus of talk tonight by Prof. Geoff Winningham

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adn g winningham bookWORKING IN THE EYE OF THE SUN: Photographing the Vernacular Architecture of Arkansas is the title of remarks this evening by Geoff Winningham a Professor at Rice University and holder of the Lynette S. Aubrey Chair in the Humanities.

Arkansas has its share of vernacular architecture, everyday structures built by and for ordinary people, architecture without architects, so to speak. Working in the early eighties with Professor Cy Sutherland of the University of Arkansas School of Architecture, Geoff Winningham traveled throughout the state, identifying and photographing vernacular forms – houses, barns, silos, churches, schools, stores and more. Winningham will share a number of those images with his audience when he talks about Arkansas’s vernacular architecture.

Selections from his collection of black and white images of those structures, plus interviews with people long familiar with them, are the makings of “OF THE SOIL”, a book just published by the University of Arkansas Press. Professor Jeff Shannon of the Fay Jones School of Architecture, served as its editor.

Professor Winningham is presented by the Architecture & Design Network as part of their monthly lecture series. The talk will take place this evening, Tuesday, December 9, 2014 at 6pm. It will be preceded by a reception at 5:30 pm at the Arkansas Arts Center lecture hall.

Supporters of the Architecture and Design Network (ADN) include the Arkansas Arts Center, UA’s Fay Jones School of Architecture, the Central Arkansas Section of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture. All ADN lectures are free and open to the public. For additional information contact ardenetwork@mac.com. This project is supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Healthcare Pioneers focus of this year’s Civil Rights Heritage Trail

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crht-banner-2014-thru-banner32Drs. Thomas A. Bruce, M. Joycelyn Elders, Henry Foster Jr., Edith Irby Jones, and Billy Ray Thomas, and five posthumous honorees will be recognized for their efforts to provide quality healthcare to all citizens at 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24, in the Little Rock River Market District at the entrance of the St. Vincent Medical Mile.

Posthumous honors will be bestowed upon Drs. Cleon A. Flowers Sr., Samuel Lee Kountz, and John Marshall Robinson; registered nurse Lena Lowe Jordan; and scientist and educator Phillip Leon Rayford, Ph.D., during the fourth annual Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail Commemoration.

Commemorative markers will be added to the Heritage Trail in honor of pioneers in health care, individuals who were either first of their race to graduate from medical school, or who have shared their professional talents generously in ways that have championed racial equity in Arkansas.

“This year, the Institute turned to healthcare because even though it is a profession by which African Americans in particular have been grossly underrepresented and underserved, Arkansas has a rich tradition of producing some of the nation’s best and brightest medical professionals,” said Dr. Michael R. Twyman, director of the UALR Institute on Race and Ethnicity.

The Institute is partnering with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Center for Diversity Affairs to honor these healthcare professionals. The center specializes in encouraging young persons of color to seek careers in health and STEM professions.

“I am honored to be recognized with such accomplished people,” said Thomas, vice chancellor for diversity affairs at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. “It is also a very humbling experience because many of the other honorees are also my mentors.”

Like Thomas, the other nine honorees have made significant contributions toward social and racial equity in Arkansas – most of whom received their professional education and training during the the Civil Rights Movement era, during a time of deep civil unrest in the country and state.

“It is not lost on us that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education court decision that prohibited public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race,” said Twyman.

“Access to quality education and healthcare have become the predominant civil rights issues of our time,” he added.

Learn more about each honoree at  arkansascivilrightsheritage.org supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In addition to the Center for Diversity Affairs at UAMS, the Central Arkansas Planning and Development District; East Harding Inc.; Arkansas Medical, Dental, and Pharmaceutical Association; Just Communities of Arkansas; the Little Rock Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.; and the Little Rock Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. are sponsors for the event.

 

About the Civil Rights Heritage Trail

The Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail was created in 2011 to acknowledge the sacrifices and achievements made by those who have fought for racial justice in the state. The Heritage Trail begins at the Old State House and currently stretches to the front of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce. As commemorative bronze markers are added each year, it will continue toward the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and beyond.     

 

About the UALR Institute on Race and Ethnicity

The UALR Institute on Race and Ethnicity was founded in July 2011. With a vision to make Arkansas the best state in the country for promoting and celebrating racial and ethnic diversity, the Institute conducts research, promotes scholarship and provides programs that address racial inequities. It does so by facilitating open and honest dialogue aimed at empowering communities and informing public policy to achieve more equitable outcomes.

LR Cultural Touchstone: Garbo Hearne

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garboGarbo Watson Hearne has moved from nurturing patients as a nurse to nurturing artists and art collectors.  As the Director of Pyramid Art, Books & Custom Framing and Hearne Fine Art, she has been cultivating artists and collectors for over 25 years.

In 1988, Garbo left her nursing career to establish Pyramid Gallery.  Over the years, the business has expanded its focus and changed locations.  Since 2010, she has been located in the historic Dunbar neighborhood.   Over the years, she has championed local, regional and national African American artists and authors. She has introduced many emerging artists to established collectors.  Having her as a champion has allowed some artists to be able to take risks and to move into different mediums or styles.

The 2010 move to Dunbar positioned Garbo’s businesses (as well as the medical practice of her physician husband) to be anchors in the newly designated Dunbar Historic Neighborhood.  That neighborhood seeks to maintain its historic structures and return to its roots as a mix of residential and office space.  In 2008, she and her husband, Dr. Archie Hearne, published Collaborations, Two Decades of African American Art: Hearne Fine Art 1988 – 2008.

Hearne has served on the board of directors of the Mid-America Arts Alliance, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, the Arkansas Arts Council (including a term as Chair) and the board of the Arkansas Humanities Council.

Cleveland County native Johnny Cash is focus of UALR exhibit, concert

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cash-image1-1-204x264The Center for Arkansas History and Culture (CAHC) at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has announced plans to premier a new exhibit on Johnny Cash’s relationship with Arkansas. The exhibit, “Johnny Cash: Arkansas Icon,” will open in the Underground Gallery at the Arkansas Studies Institute on October 10, 2014, and run through January 24, 2015. The physical exhibit will be accompanied by a virtual exhibit with educational materials for teachers.

Opening Night

The exhibit opens Friday, Oct. 10, in the Ron Robinson Theatre.

A free concert will be at 7:30 p.m. featuring the W.S. Holland Band, with special guests Jeff Coleman and the Feedersbeginning at 6:45 p.m. Seating is limited.

Johnny Cash: Arkansas Icon

The exhibit explores the musician’s Arkansas connections over the decades, covering his 1930s childhood in Dyess, Arkansas (though he was born in Kingsland in Cleveland County), through his comeback at the turn of the 21st-century. The exhibit places special emphasis on connections between his Arkansas roots and his music from his first performance in Little Rock in 1955 to a 2002 music video. Though Cash’s career took him far from Arkansas, the exhibit argues, he never quite severed his Arkansas roots. This exhibit tells that story through narrative and archival photographs from CAHC’s own collections, as well as others.

According to Colin Woodward, the CAHC archivist who proposed the exhibit and wrote its narrative, “While writing an article about Johnny Cash’s work with Governor Winthrop Rockefeller on prison reform, I began to see the thread of Arkansas in Cash’s music and life. He was such a dynamic artist, who persevered through many personal and professional challenges. He was a great Arkansan, and I wanted to show that through historical research and archival images.”

The exhibit will cover the walls of the unique Underground Gallery and immerse visitors in an artistic representation of Cash’s life in pictures and text. Designed by Bachelor of Fine Arts student Nick Sosnoski under the direction of Tom Clifton, Department of Art Chair, the exhibit makes use of key design elements like variety, unity, and texture on a large scale. The exhibit uses rare images from family albums and other sources and incorporates Cash’s lyrics into the design. According to Sosnoski, “The design is meant to reflect Johnny Cash as a man who never forgot his roots.”

The accompanying virtual exhibit will offer deeper exploration of the topics covered in the physical exhibit. The website will include a media gallery and behind-the-scenes information on the exhibit development. Educational materials, including full lesson plans and PowerPoint presentations, will be available for Arkansas teachers to use with students before and after visiting the exhibit. Stan James, an undergraduate Social Studies Education major, worked on the project and says, “It was really exciting to be able to prepare materials that will teach students important world concepts, and at the same time, expose them to one of Arkansas’ true treasures, Johnny Cash.  These materials, along with the exhibit and related events, will guide the students through an exciting journey towards learning about key issues in our state and nation, as well as how celebrities use their influence and talent to further issues that are important to them.”

On opening night, the W. S. Holland Band will perform a free concert in the Ron Robinson Auditorium. Holland spent 40 years performing with Cash’s band, Tennessee 3, and is the only band member to stay with the group until Cash’s retirement in 1997. In his long career, Holland has toured with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Carl Perkins. The Holland Band performance will start at 7:30, following an opening performance by Jeff Coleman and the Feeders at 6:45. Seating is limited. Also on opening night, Shape Note Singers from Mountain Home, Arkansas, will perform for Second Friday Art Night visitors to the Arkansas Studies Institute.

This project is supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Additional funding provided by the Arkansas Community Foundation. The Arkansas Community Foundation is a nonprofit organization that fosters smart giving to improve communities. The Community Foundation offers tools to help Arkansans protect, grow and direct their charitable dollars as they learn more about community needs. By making grants and sharing knowledge, the Community Foundation supports charitable programs that work for Arkansas and partners to create new initiatives that address the gaps. Contributions to the Community Foundation, its funds and any of its 27 affiliates are fully tax deductible.

The UALR Center for Arkansas History and Culture collects, preserves, and enables access to Arkansas records of enduring value; prepares students and the region for the 21st century through academic leadership and education on archival practices and technologies; and engages the community through outreach, programming, and exhibitions.

For more information on the exhibit or CAHC, contact us atcahc@ualr.edu or 501.320.5780.

LR Cultural Touchstone: Deborah Baldwin

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9 Deborah BaldwinAs a historian, arts patron, and administrator, Deborah Baldwin has had a hand in shaping Little Rock’s cultural scene for nearly thirty years.   As Chair of the UALR History Department from 1986 to 1992, she lead the department as it created the History Institute which sponsors the “Evenings with History” lecture series.  At the time it was started, it was one of the few lecture series in Little Rock (if not the only one).

A member of the UALR faculty since 1980, Baldwin is a specialist in modern Mexican history with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She has published a book on the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and a variety of articles, primarily on Mexican social history topic.

As a History Department faculty member, she has lead the Public History seminar. This program has documented the history of several Little Rock cultural institutions over the years including the Arkansas Arts Center, Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and Museum of Discovery.  The Public History program has trained many of the museum professionals working in Little Rock today.  The Central High Museum, a private forerunner of the National Park Service Central High National Historic Site Visitor Center, was lead in a large part by persons associated with the UALR Public History Program.

Starting in the mid-1990s, Baldwin led the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.  In that capacity, she oversaw the visual and performing arts programming at UALR.  Under her leadership, the Departments of Art, Music, and Theatre & Dance were all revitalized.  As a part of this, she ensured that cutting-edge technology was being integrated to arts curriculum.  She also led efforts to upgrade the performance facilities.  During her tenure as Dean, the College also played leading roles in the commemoration of the 40th and 50th anniversaries of the integration of Central High School, the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, and the “Life Interrupted” exhibit which highlighted the Japanese-American internment experience in Arkansas.  She also oversaw the creation of Finale!, an event each spring which celebrates the arts in Little Rock and honors arts patrons.

With the creation of the Arkansas Studies Institute (a collaboration between UALR and Central Arkansas Library System), Baldwin took on additional duties as UALR’s supervisor on the project.

In 2014, UALR underwent a campus-wide administrative and academic reorganization.  In conjunction with that, Baldwin became Associate Provost for UALR Collections and Archives.  In that capacity she oversees the campus library system, Center for Arkansas History and Culture and the Sequoyah National Research Center.  She continues to teach in the Department of History.

She is a past member of the board of the Arkansas Humanities Council and the MacArthur Military History Museum Commission.