History Bites returns to its live lecture format! Our first live lecture is scheduled for noon on Friday, March 11, in the Woodbury Room of the Jones Library.
‘The burial grounds of old New England hold a great range of poetic messages in the epitaphs carved on their gravestones, each one a profound expression of emotion, culture, religion, and literature.’
Author Robert Hanson will tell the story of his years-long reader’s walk among these old gravestones and he will share some of the learning he has gained along the way: identifying the source texts and authors chosen for these stones; interpreting some of the beliefs of the people who did the choosing; offering ideas on the ways these texts were accessible in remote towns and villages; giving a summary of the religious context of the times; and reflecting on how the language and literature chosen for these epitaphs expresses conflicted and evolving attitudes towards life, death, and eternity.
Copies of his book, “Reading the Gravestones of Old New England”, will be available for sale.
Coming up in two weeks: Dr. Julie Dobrow returns to the Amherst Historical Society on Friday, March 25, to talk about her upcoming book, Crossing Indian Country: From the Wounded Knee Massacre to the Unlikely Marriage of Elaine Goodale and Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohíye S’a).