“I wasn’t very good at baseball,” jokes Stephen Kuusisto, who has been blind since birth, in describing what led him to a love of literature. “Reading,” he tells former speech professor Paul Burkhart, “is a wonderful alternative to all the things you can’t do.” Kuusisto, author of Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening, also talks about learning to reveal oneself in memoir, the difference between hearing and listening, how crows talk to each other, and how he envisions a horse even though he’s never seen one.

Host> Paul Burkhart, Chautauquan and retired professor of Speech, Shippensburg University
Guest> Stephen Kuusisto, author of Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening, a Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle selection for 2007

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Author and poet Thomas Lynch writes candidly about personal struggles in Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans, and says that he advises his students, “Write about things you fear the most and when you discover that the sky doesn’t fall, you will become emboldened.” In a similarly candid talk with Mike Sullivan, Director of Institution Relations for Chautauqua, Lynch reveals what he’s learned about the deeper meanings of ethnicity, talks about his profession as an undertaker, and speaks about the nature of human beings to “other-ize” people.

Host> Mike Sullivan, director, Institution Relations
Guest> Thomas Lynch, author of Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans, a Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle selection for 2007

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Who better to talk about the meaning of sacred texts than Karen Armstrong, who has authored scholarly books on God, Muhammad, Jerusalem, the Bible, Buddha, Christianity, medieval mystics, the crusades, the roots of religious traditions and more. In this discussion with the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, Chautauqua’s Director of Religion, Karen talks about the ways in which we misunderstand the term “myth” as it relates to our religious traditions, the problem with literalizing sacred texts, and how religious rituals enable us to enter into a realm of intimacy with our faith.  

Host> The Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, director, Department of Religion
Guest> Karen Armstrong, author, A Short History of Myth, and lecturer on the world’s religions

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Henry Ward Beecher may not have visited Chautauqua Institution in his time, but he is now making an appearance in a CLSC book selection, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher. Author Debby Applegate characterizes Henry as “Billy Graham, Paris Hilton and Bill Clinton all rolled into one,” comparing his life story to a psychological thriller complete with sex, scandal and religion. She also talks about why she sees him as a 19th Century Forest Gump.

Host> The Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, director, Department of Religion
Guest> Debby Applegate, author of The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, a 2007 CLSC selection.

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Emily Barton is about to start a new adventure as a distinguished visiting writer at Bard College. But first she sits down with Jeff Miller, Director of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC), to talk about storytelling and what inspired her widely-acclaimed second novel, Brookland. From her curiosity about the Brooklyn Bridge and an interest in feminism, to her research about the intricacies of gin-making and bridge design, she will grab your attention in this lively interview.

Host> Jeff Miller, Director of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Guest> Emily Barton, author of Brookland, a 2007 CLSC selection.

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