Carin

Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years.

Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.

Mary Karr's biography looks back through a child's eyes to sort through dark household secrets. She witnesses an inheritance squandered, endless bottles emptied, and guns leveled at both the deserving and the undeserving. In a voice stripped of self-pity and charged with brilliant energy, she introduces us to a family ravaged by lies and alcoholism, yet redeemed by the revelation of truth.

Shakespeare Anyone? is co-hosted by Elyse Sharp and Kourtney Smith, two professional actors and hobbyist Shakespeare scholars. Join us as we explore Shakepeare’s plays through as many lenses as we can by looking at the text and how the text is viewed through modern lenses of feminism, racism, classism, colonialism, nationalism… all the-isms. We will discuss how his plays shaped both the past and present, and look at how his work was performed throughout various periods of time–all while trying our best to approach his works without giving in to bardolatry. We examine one play at a time ...

George Eliot was born Mary Ann Evans in the same year as Queen Victoria. Mary Ann might have lived a traditional Victorian-era life had she been pretty and ornamental. When she didn’t attract attention with her looks, however, she made use of her remarkable intelligence. By her early 20s, she translated articles from Latin and French into English and wrote her own reviews for a radical magazine. Discover a plethora of topics such as her life as a young radical, her journey to Switzerland, meeting George Henry Lewes, becoming George Eliot, and more.