Decades in the making, our series, Let's Talk About It, ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½!, remains one of our most popular events. Every semester, a new theme is selected for this ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ Humanities-sponsored book club series. Books are free to borrow from the program and anyone may participate. Join us for illuminating presentations and community-building through group discussions. Delve into topics from civil rights, to history, to mystery β and beyond!
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Current Season of at ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½
Free loaner copies of books available at Dulaney-Browne Library! Availability is on a first-come, first-serve basis.
This season's theme:
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"Most American"
A Theme
In the turbulent 1930s, ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½n Woody Guthrie penned his famous lyrics This land is your land, this land is my land, and the song is still widely sung in schools, at rallies and community celebrations. Often, though, it seems that only the second half of the chorus is really meantβthis land is my land. This land is our land. Meaning people who look like me, speak like me, have the same histories as me. How do we stand united as Americans when there seems to be so much that divides us? This series seeks to foster cross-cultural understanding, empathy, and community resilience by introducing readers to works that recognize the myriad ways we are they, and they are us.
βMost Americanβ looks at our shared but separate historiesβrich, complex, wounded, inspiringβwhich we may not think of as belonging to all of us. And yet they do. Each is a piece of the American tapestry, a narrative that has played out in especially dramatic, sometimes violent, always compelling ways in ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½. These four booksβtwo novels, a collection of stories, and a collection of essaysβask interwoven questions in myriad ways: What does it mean to be βAmericanβ? Whose America is it? Who gets to be called βAmerican,β and who decides that identity?
To learn more about the books and theme, click for a copy of the full series essay. Printed copies of the theme essay will also be available with book check-out. If the program's copies of the books run out, community members are also welcome to join with their own copies!
The program will begin February 11th and books are available now!
All sessions will take place at 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays, at ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ City University
Petree College of Arts & Sciences Walker Center, Room 151
NW 26th and N. Florida
Each session features a short lecture, followed by small-group discussion of the book.
| DATE | BOOK TITLE | PRESENTER |
|---|---|---|
| FEB. 11 | Most American by Rilla Askew (2017) | Rilla Askew, Author |
| FEB. 25 | The Roads of My Relations by Devon A. Mihesuah (2000) | Dr. Harbour Winn, Center Director Emeritus |
| MARCH 11 | Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy (2014) | Dr. Tracy Floreani, Center Director |
| MARCH 25 | Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy (2014) | The conversation continues with Part II |
| APRIL 8 | An American Ending by Mary Kay Zurafleff (2023) | Dr. Nathan Shank, Associate Professor of English at ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ Christian University |
Free parking is available in the lots surrounding the building.
Thanks to our partnership with ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ Humanities, we've been given the ability to go back in time! Take a trip down memory lane and scroll through an extensive list of every Let's Talk About It theme from the past.
| YEAR | THEME |
|---|---|
| FALL 2024 | Of Shadows and Light: Stories of African American Resilience |
| SPRING 2024 | Where We Come Together |
| FALL 2023 | Native American Identity: From Past to Present |
| SPRING 2023 | Immigration Stories in Contemporary Fiction: Suspended Between Borders |
| FALL 2022 | Speculative Women, Future Bodies |
| SPRING 2022 | Memories, Memorials, & Painful Pasts: A More Perfect Union Theme |
| FALL 2021 | Travel, New Ways of Seeing |
| SPRING 2020 | Working to Survive, Surviving to Work |
| FALL 2019 | Coming and Going in ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ Indian Country |
| SPRING 2019 | Wade in the Water |
| FALL 2018 | Living with Limits |
| SPRING 2018 | War, Not War, and Peace: A Pulitzer Prize Centennial ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ |
| FALL 2017 | The American Frontier: A Pulitzer Prize Centennial ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ |
| SPRING 2017 | Young Adult Crossover Fiction: Crumbling Borders between Adolescents and Adults |
| FALL 2016 | Civil Rights and Equality: A Pulitzer Prize Centennial ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ |
| SPRING 2016 | Play Ball |
| FALL 2015 | Hope Amidst Hardships |
| SPRING 2015 | The Dynamics of Dysfunction: To Laugh or Cry or Both |
| FALL 2014 | ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ Private Investigations |
| SPRING 2014 | Muslim Journeys: American Stories |
| FALL 2013 | Making Sense of the American Civil War |
| SPRING 2013 | Myth and Literature |
| FALL 2012 | Native American Writers of the Plains |
| SPRING 2012 | The ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½n Experience: From Wilderness to Metropolis |
| FALL 2011 | Much Depends on Dinner: What We Eat and What It Says About Us |
| SPRING 2011 | What America Reads: Myth Making in Popular Fiction |
| FALL 2010 | Rebirth of a Nation: Nationalism and the Civil War |
| SPRING 2010 | Journey Stories |
| FALL 2009 | The Worst Hard Time Revisited: ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ in the Dust Bowl Years |
| SPRING 2009 | Do You See What I See: Growing Up in the Wide World? Contemporary World Literature |
| FALL 2008 | American Icons: The American President |
| SPRING 2008 | Mysterious Fears and Ghastly Longings |
| FALL 2007 | Crime and Comedy: The Lighter Side of Crime and Misdemeanor |
| SPRING 2007 | The ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ Experience: The Thirties |
| FALL 2006 | Invisibility and Identity: The Search for Self in African American Fiction |
| SPRING 2006 | The Journey Inward: Women's Autobiography |
| FALL 2005 | Piercing the Quilt, Stirring the Stew: Ethnic American Women's Voices |
| SPRING 2005 | The ΒιΆΉ΄«Γ½ Experience: Re-Vision - Reading and Discussing |
| FALL 2004 | Vietnam |
| SPRING 2004 | Crime and Punishment |
| FALL 2003 | The American Renaissance |
| SPRING 2003 | Friendship in Literature: Reading and Discussing |
| FALL 2002 | The Gilded Age: The Emergence of Modern America |
| SPRING 2002 | Private Investigations: Hard-Boiled and Soft-Hearted Heroes |
| FALL 2001 | Liberty and Violence: The Heritage of the French Revolution |
| SPRING 2001 | Many Trails, Many Tribes: Images of American Indians in Contemporary Fiction |
| FALL 2000 | Individual Rights and Community in America |
| SPRING 2000 | Making a Living, Making a Life: Work and its Rewards in a Changing America |
| FALL 1999 | The Unknown Americans: Contemporary Latin American Literature |
| SPRING 1999 | Generation to Generation: Contemporary Young Adult Fiction |
| FALL 1998 | Being Ethnic, Becoming American: Struggles, Successes, Symbols |
| SPRING 1998 | Writing Worlds: The Art of Seeing in Anthropology, Fiction, and Autobiography |
For more information, check out the
