Willson Center for Humanities and Arts

The University of Georgia Press, Avid Bookshop, and the Athens-Clarke County Library invite the public to an author event and book signing with Sally Bethea in celebration of her book Keeping the Chattahoochee: Reviving and Defending a Great Southern River on Tuesday, September 5, 2023, from 7pm-8pm at the public library. There will be a book signing after the discussion.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

ChatGPT made its début less than a year ago: how are humanists responding to the bot? Join Dr. Julia Burkhardt, Professor of Medieval History at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and a participant in the UGA-LMU Faculty Research Exchange Program, in exploring this question with a group of UGA faculty who have been thinking deeply about artificial intelligence and education: Elizabeth Davis (English), Jeremy Davis (Philosophy), Katie Ireland (Libraries and Digital Humanities), Kevin Jones (History), and Montgomery Wolf (History). 

Join the Russell Library for the fourth annual Food, Power, and Politics Lecture featuring Maurice Bailey, President & CEO of Save Our Legacy Ourself (SOLO), a non-profit based on Sapelo Island. Bailey will discuss the revival of heritage crops and the preservation of the culture, heritage, and traditions of the Saltwater Geechee people on Sapelo Island. Nik Heynen will moderate the event. Light reception to follow. 

The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection welcomes Peabody Award winning documentary film producer George King to Athens for a screening of his newest film, “Thumbs Up for Mother Universe- Stories from the Life of Lonnie Holley.” The screening is free and open to the general public as well as UGA faculty, students, and staff.

Malinda Maynor Lowery is the Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University. She is a historian, scholar and documentary film producer who is a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. She has written two books, over 20 book chapters or articles and has published essays for popular audiences in places such as The New York Times.

Lecture, "The Blood of Christians: Phillis Wheatley Peters and White Christianity" with Professor Kim Coles, 10AM: 

This one-day symposium will consider representations of race in performance in connection to the work of visual artist Kara Walker, who’s exhibition “Back of Hand” will be on display at the Athenaeum. Taking Walker as a departure point, invited speakers will address themes related to rethinking Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, satire, stereotypes, gender, and identity. The Keynote Speaker is Kirsten Pai Buick, professor of art history, University of New Mexico.

In 2020, Marylyn Tan’s debut volume shocked Singapore’s literary world by winning the country’s premier English-language poetry prize, making its then twenty-seven-year-old author the first woman to ever win the award. Moreover, it is not a polite book. It is an instruction book, a grimoire, a call to insurrection to wrest power back from the social structures that serve to restrict, control, and distribute it among those few privileged above the disenfranchised.

Doreen Baingana is a Ugandan writer and arts manager. Her short story collection, Tropical Fish, won a Grace Paley Prize and a Commonwealth Prize, and she has been shortlisted for the Caine Prize three times. Her other awards include fellowships to the Rockefeller Bellagio Residency, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, La Porte Peinte residency, the Hambidge Center, a Tebere Arts Playwright residency, a Miles Morland Scholarship and a Sustainable Arts Foundation grant.

Douglas Kearney is a poet, performer, and librettist who has published seven books that bridge thematic concerns such as politics, African-American culture, masks, the Trickster figure, and contemporary music. His most recent book, Sho (Wave Books, 2021), was the winner for the 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize, the 2022 Minnesota Book Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Voelcker Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award.