Charleston, WV — The West Virginia Humanities Council’s 2021 Little Lectures series will follow its longstanding tradition of eclectic subjects and dynamic speakers.
Charles B. Keeney, great-grandson of famed Mine Wars union organizer Frank Keeney and professor of history at Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College, kicks the series off on March 28 with “Saving the Blair Mountain Battlefield.” On April 25, Marshall professor Slav Gratchev presents “The Russian Avant Garde under the Soviet Regime.” May 30 brings in West Virginia University’s Jessica Wilkerson to speak on “Women’s Labor Activism in 20th Century West Virginia and Appalachia.” And on June 27, game designer Ivone Alexandre will draw upon their experience with Walt Disney Imagineering, Netflix’s Stranger Things, and other projects to talk about “History and the Humanities in Game Design.”
The Little Lectures have been presented every year since 2001 and are one of the many ways the Humanities Council shares its historic property with the community. In a typical year, they begin in March and are presented once each month through June in the parlor of the Council’s Charleston headquarters in the historic MacFarland-Hubbard House at 1310 Kanawha Boulevard East. The Council is closely monitoring public health conditions and will announce on a case-by-case basis whether some lectures will allow for limited seating of physically-distanced in-person audiences. In either case, every lecture will be filmed and the recordings made available on the Council website, Facebook, and Youtube channel. Visit the Little Lectures page at www.wvhumanities.org for links and up-to-date information.
More than 75 Little Lectures have been given in the series and past speakers include historian John Alexander Williams, biographer Jean Edward Smith, Monticello horticulturalist Peter Hatch, novelist Denise Giardina, playwright Billy Edd Wheeler, West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman, journalist Ed Rabel, maestro Grant Cooper, commentator Hoppy Kercheval, and filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon.
For more information visit www.wvhumanities.org or contact program officer Kyle Warmack at 304-346-8500 or [email protected].
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The West Virginia Humanities Council, an independent nonpartisan nonprofit, is the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Council is supported by the NEH, the State of West Virginia, and contributions from the private sector. The purposes of the West Virginia Humanities Council are educational, and its mission is to support a vigorous program in the humanities statewide in West Virginia.