Voices for Truth: 2024 Literature Discussion Series
First Wednesdays at 7pm
HYBRID format: both in-person and via Zoom
Discussions led by Dr. John Getz, Professor Emeritus, Xavier University and various monthly co-leaders
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2024 Theme
In 2024 our monthly discussion series will have a new name, Voices for Truth, and will feature all-new discussion topics. We'll continue to focus on moments in American history when eloquent voices arose, often from the margins, to address important issues, usually related to social justice, in culture and society. We’ll study the writings of many authors from the 19th and 20th centuries to determine
This series is sponsored by School Outfitters. |
Harriet Beecher Stowe is our exemplar voice for truth. During her eighteen years in Cincinnati as a young adult (1832-1850), she discovered her voice as a writer, and in 1851, she decided to devote it to the anti-slavery cause. Horrified by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, she wrote to editor Gamaliel Bailey: "Up to this year I have always felt that I had no particular call to meddle with this subject [slavery], and I dreaded to expose even my own mind to the full force of its exciting power. But now I feel that the time has come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak."
The result, of course, was Uncle Tom's Cabin, the blockbuster novel that awakened many Northerners to the horrors of slavery and helped create the change of heart that would allow the Union to stand firm when the South ceded over slavery. |
2024 Series Schedule
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Early Black Abolitionists
Wednesday, February 7, 2024 at 7pm Walnut Hills Branch Library (2533 Kemper Lane) & Zoom Co-Leaders: JeMiah L. Baht Israel, doctoral student, Department of History, University of Cincinnati & Dr. John Getz, professor emeritus, Department of English, Xavier University In the first full week of Black History Month, we listen to the voices to two early Black abolitionists: Olaudah Equiano and David Walker. Suggested reading: |
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The Grimke Women Speak Out
In the first full week of Women's History Month, we listen to the voices for truth of Grimke women from two centuries: Angelina Grimke Weld, her sister, Sarah Moore Grimke, and their lesser known but also important great niece Angelina Weld Grimke. Suggested reading: |
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Poetry to Resist & Uplift
As we saw with Angelina Weld/Grimke, the struggle of Black Americans for justice didn't end with the Civil War. This month we listen to three voices weaving together across time a song of resistance to racism and affirmation of African American humanity. Suggested reading: |
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How Can We Rise?
On the first day of Mental Health Awareness Month, we listen to voices expressing challenges to mental health and ways of affirming it. Suggested reading:
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Wednesday, September 4, 2024 at 7pm
Harriet Beecher Stowe House 2950 Gilbert Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45206 ZOOM participation also available Co-leader: Dr. Cheli Reutter "In the beginning..." As our fall series resumes, we ask how much we can learn about Harriet Beecher Stowe's voice for truth from the first chapters of three of her most interesting and important books: Uncle Tom's Cabin, A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, and The Pearl of Orr's Island. How do these chapters introduce their books, and what do they tell us about Harriet's craft and preoccupations as an author? Suggested reading: |
About the Facilitators:
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Gothic Social Criticism
Wednesday, October 2, 2024 at 7pm Harriet Beecher Stowe House 2950 Gilbert Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45206 Zoom participation also available Gothic authors have often used what can be an escapist genre for insightful social criticism. Get into the Halloween spirit by listening to the voices for truth in short stories by three Gothic authors, including Harriet herself in what is likely her last published story. Suggested readings:
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About the Facilitators:
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Wednesday, November 6, 2024 at 7pm
Harriet Beecher Stowe House 2950 Gilbert Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45206 Zoom participation also available On the day after the 2024 elections, we’ll discuss a fictional account of a real event: the only successful coup d’etat in US history, the Wilmington Massacre of 1898. Although born in Cleveland, Ohio, African American author Charles Chesnutt had lived in North Carolina for sixteen years before returning to the North, so he was well prepared to write The Marrow of Tradition (1901), a book he hoped would do for his time what Uncle Tom’s Cabin had done a half-century before. Suggested readings: |
About the Facilitators:
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Christmas Hope in Adversity
Wednesday, December 4, 2024 at 7pm Harriet Beecher Stowe House 2950 Gilbert Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45206 Zoom participation also available What could Christmas mean to people in the worst circumstances? What hope or at least reprieve could it signify? In our final meeting of the year we listen to voices for truth from two enslaved African Americans and a Jew remembering his time in Auschwitz. Suggested reading: |
Past Series
2023: Power of Voice Discussion Series, continued
2022: Power of Voice Discussion Series
2021: After Uncle Tom's Cabin: Black Voices for Justice Discussion Series
2020: Year of the Woman Discussion Series
2022: Power of Voice Discussion Series
2021: After Uncle Tom's Cabin: Black Voices for Justice Discussion Series
2020: Year of the Woman Discussion Series
Series Sponsors |
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