Winter Wisdom 2008
AT CURTIS MEMORIAL LIBRARY, BRUNSWICK
12:15 --- 1:45pm
Free and Open to the Public*
Hemingway’s Personal Farewell to Arms January 9
Susan Beegel is the editor of The Hemingway Review, a scholarly journal published by the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, and the author or editor of three books as well as more than fifty articles on Ernest Hemingway, other writers, and various aspects of American literature and history. This illustrated lecture will look at the historical and biographical context of A Farewell to Arms and how Hemingway altered autobiographical material to create one of his most compelling fictions. The lecture explores the causes and nature of WW I, Hemingway’s service as a Red Cross ambulance driver on the Italian front, his wounding, and his love affair with nurse Agnes von Kurowsky during his recuperation at a Milan hospital. The lecture looks as well at how he used these experiences when crafting the novel.
The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918: Its Effect on World History and Lessons for Today January 16
Richard Neiman MD is Emeritus Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine. He has had a long- standing interest in the history of medicine, and particularly in the effect disease has had on the course of history. The influenza pandemic killed between 20 and 100 million people, more than have been killed so far by AIDS, and in a period of less than three months. It seemed to come from nowhere and it disappeared as quickly as it came. Could it happen again? Are we more, or less, prepared for such a pandemic?
Cruising the Mediterranean from France to Turkey January 23
Mark Davies, who received his doctorate in Classical Archaeology from Princeton, has taught classics courses from the secondary through collegiate level. Mark will be teaching a course on Homer’s Odyssey this coming spring at MSC. The illustrated talk will describe a cruise by Mark and Monique Davies on their 43-foot cutter SPINDRIFT from southern France to Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Croatia, Italy, Greece and Turkey during the summer and fall of 2007.
A Novel Look at History January 30
Anne Easter Smith is an historical novelist from Newburyport, MA whose first book, A Rose for the Crown, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2006. Her second, Daughter of York about Margaret of Burgundy, sister to Edward IV and Richard III of England, will be published in early 2008. In Anne’s words: “I began my research for my book on Richard III pretty much in conjunction with receiving my first AARP card, and now eight years later I am a published author with a total of four books contracted to Simon & Schuster. I guess I qualify as a senior who has finally found her bliss.”
Some Things I Know About Making Stuff Up February 6
Ellen Cooney of Phippsburg has been a creative writer all her life; she was a child poet and playwright, and became a fiction writer over 30 years ago. In all that time, she has been asking questions about the thing that we all have inside us called “imagination,” and her talk will focus on some of the answers she has discovered. She will offer samples of her own creative efforts and discuss her own training and the problems she’s encountered, along with thoughts on how the impulse toward creativity is a vital force for everyone, and how it gets strengthened and weakened, like any natural resource. She is well known to Maine readers as the author of Gun Ball Hill, a novel about mid-coast Maine during the early days of the American Revolution. Her seventh novel, Lambrusco, will be published by Pantheon/Knopf early in 2008.
Longfellow and the Network to Freedom February 27
This National Park Service dramatic presentation under the auspices of National Underground Railroad: Network to Freedom program portrays Henry W. Longfellow’s connections with the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad. This program is sponsored by Longfellow Days 2008 in cooperation with Midcoast Senior College. We will hear several interacting presenters during the 55-minute production. There will be time for questions.
Longfellow was born in Portland (then part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) in 1807, the second son in a family of eight children. He attended Portland Academy and went on to graduate from Bowdoin College in 1825 where he subsequently served as librarian and professor. His Poems on Slavery (1842) became an instant bestseller receiving impassioned reviews. His account books reveal that during the 1850s and 1860s he was actively supporting numerous abolitionist causes, including making donations to free and educate slaves and giving money to assist fugitive slaves.
*The overwhelming success of our Winter Wisdom presentations has brought the problem of overcrowding. To ease this, this winter we will dispense with all tables, including the refreshment service. Space is limited, so come early for our 12:15pm starting time. First come, first serve ---or in this case, first seated.
Snow “make-up” date, February 13th.