The University of New England’s Center for Global Humanities has kindly invited me to give a talk on “Uniting Divided America” at their Portland campus Sept. 23. Ahead of that, I joined the center’s director, Josh Pahigian, on their “Oh, the Humanities” podcast where we talked about, in his words: “his best-selling books on American regionalism, witnessing the supposed ‘end of history’ in Eastern Europe, his reporting on the effects of climate change, and his work as a historical consultant for the video game Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. Our discussion eventually arrived at the important work Colin’s doing to counteract the rising threat of authoritarianism for Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University.” You can hear the podcast at Spotify or wherever you get such things.
That does sum it up nicely, though I also made a gratuitous pitch for the value of a liberal arts education, of which I’m definitely a product. Josh raised this in his recent essay for the Portland Press Herald, “No, the humanities are not dying out,” with a kind pitch for my upcoming talk. “If you think the humanities are dying, I encourage you to join us for Colin’s talk at UNE,” he wrote. “See the crowd of people, young and old, that turns out to share in his wisdom … all made possible through a lifetime of humanities exploration. I have a feeling you’ll change your mind.”
Let’s hope so! The talk is free and open to the public, with further information available here.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at Maine's Portland Press Herald, he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.