Novelist Solomon and Songwriter Burson Collaborate for Special "Jewish Voices" Event

Singer/songwriter Clare Burson. 

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Novelist Anna Solomon and singer-songwriter Clare Burson will perform together at Washington College on Tuesday, November 13 as part of the “Jewish Voices” series sponsored by the Rose O’Neill Literary House. The event will take place in the Egg, Hodson Hall Commons, at 4:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public. A book and CD signing will follow.

Anna Solomon is the author of The Little Bride (Riverhead Books, 2011), as well as many short stories and essays. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Harvard Review, and many other publications. She has been nominated for two National Magazine Awards and was awarded two Pushcart Prizes and an Editor’s Prize from The Missouri Review.

Writer Anna Solomon.

 A former journalist for National Public Radio, she reported and produced award-winning environmental stories for the program Living On Earth. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop and now lives in Providence, Rhode Island. Her novel, The Little Bride, tells the story of a teenaged mail-order bride from Russia who is sent to the South Dakota prairie in the late 1800s to wed an older Orthodox man and share his sod hut.

A Tennessee-born musician now living in New York, Clare Burson has won praise for her fresh version of contemporary folk music, often tinged with melancholy. Her latest album, Silver and Ash, released in 2010 by Rounder Records, is a collection of songs inspired by her ancestors’ experiences in the Holocaust. 

Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Susan Dominus observed, “In Silver and Ash, 28 years of questioning, studying and mourning have been channeled into song, yielding an unusual cultural hybrid: an American album of popular music devoted to the theme of the Holocaust. … Tunes that could accompany hard-knock American love stories are laced, instead, with references to trunks and train platforms, a piano at a picture window, candles burning down — European worlds and the ways they were lost or saved, details she gleaned from her grandmother and in her research.”

Solomon contacted Burson, a fellow Brown University alumna, to collaborate on a project that would feature songs based on The Little Bride. In an interview with music blog largehearted boy, both women said working together allowed them to reach new levels of emotional depth in their work. After hearing one of Burson’s musical takes on her work, Solomon recalls, “I felt my character’s sorrow – her deep, primal missing of her mother – more than I ever had while I was writing the book.” Burson, in turn, says that in reading Solomon’s work, “I was able to experience it, be moved by it, and then let the songs grow out of that.” The two artists’ collaboration results in a moving performance that is part reading, part music.

The third and final event of the “Jewish Voices” series will be a poetry reading by Idra Novey on December 4. For more information on the series and other Literary House programming, visit http://lithouse.washcoll.edu.

Noted Author Neal Gabler to Teach Course on Biography at Washington College

CHESTERTOWN, MD— Neal Gabler, one of America’s most accomplished biographers and public intellectuals, will be in residence at Washington College for the Spring 2013 semester and will teach a course on “The Art of Biography.”

Gabler is an author, cultural historian, screenwriter, producer, film and media critic, and commentator who has been called “one of America’s most important public intellectuals.” He has written prizewinning biographies of Walt Disney, Walter Winchell, and early Hollywood movie moguls and is now at work on a book about the late Senator Edward Kennedy and modern American politics. He has won many awards, including an Emmy, two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Gabler's first book, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History. His second book, Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity, was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named the non-fiction book of the year by Time magazine. His third book, Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, has been used in college courses across the country to examine the convergence of reality and entertainment. And his most recent book, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, a New York Times best-seller, was named the biography of the year by USA Today and won Mr. Gabler his second Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

As a visiting fellow at the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, Gabler will work on Against the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Tortuous Course of American Liberalism, the first major biography of the late senator, which will be published by the Crown/Harmony division of Random House.

“This is an exceptional opportunity for Washington College students to learn from one of America’s most acclaimed contemporary masters of biography,” said historian and journalist Adam Goodheart, the director of the Starr Center, where Gabler will be a Patrick Henry Writing Fellow. “Studying biography with Neal Gabler is like having Michael Phelps as your swim coach.”

Mr. Gabler was graduated with high distinction and highest honors from the University of Michigan and holds advanced degrees in film and American culture. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Penn State, and SUNY Stony Brook.

The texts for his “The Art of Biography” course will include Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, by Joseph Ellis; Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, by Robert Caro; Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin; Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life, by Richard Ben Cramer; and Diane Arbus, by Patricia Bosworth. Students also will learn techniques for finding and dealing with original materials, conducting interviews, taking notes, organizing data and outlining a book. The semester will culminate with each student undertaking a biography of a major figure of his or her choosing.

Launched by the Starr Center in 2008, the Patrick Henry Writing Fellowship aims to encourage reflection on the links between American history and contemporary culture, and to foster the literary art of historical writing. It is co-sponsored by the Rose O’Neill Literary House, Washington College's center for literature and the literary arts. 

The fellowship’s funding is permanently endowed as part of a $2.5 million challenge grant package that the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded through its nationwide “We the People” initiative for strengthening the teaching, study and understanding of American history and culture. A generous gift was received from the Barksdale-Dabney-Patrick Henry Family Foundation, which was established by the Nuttle family of Talbot County, direct descendants of the patriot Patrick Henry.The Starr Foundation, the Hodson Trust and other donors have provided further support for the fellowship.

Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Based in the Custom House along the colonial waterfront, the College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience fosters the art of written history and explores our nation’s past—particularly the legacy of its Founding era—in innovative ways, through educational programs, scholarship and public outreach. For more information on the Center and the Patrick Henry Writing Fellowship, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.    
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Slide/Lecture Presents History of England’s Jews

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Washington College adjunct professor of history Gary Schiff will explore the thousand-year old history of the Jews of England in a slide/lecture on Thursday, November 15, at 4:30 p.m. in the Forum of the Casey Academic Center, on the Washington College campus, 300 Washington Avenue.  Titled “In Search of Jewish England,” the talk is free and open to the public.  

Geographically, Schiff’s talk will explore London, where the majority of England’s Jews have always lived, medieval cathedral cities such as Norwich and York, the ancient university town of Oxford, and modern industrial centers such as Birmingham and Liverpool. He will illustrate the great diversity of English Jewry, visiting both the urban mansions, country estates and grand synagogues of its upper class and the gritty sections where the working-class lived. 

The slide/tour will explore familiar tourist sites through the eyes of English Jewish history, and share lesser-known locations such as Bevis Mark, the nation’s oldest synagogue, and the stone house of Aaron of Lincoln, the Jewish banker believed to have been the richest man in England in 1200.  Schiff also will introduce and illustrate the lives of some of the most prominent Englishmen of Jewish origins, including politicians, prime ministers, financiers, and philanthropists. “Part of what I cover is how English Jews throughout the centuries rose from humble origins to attain middle class status and above, and how they managed to obtain equal rights over time,” he says.

The November 15 event is sponsored by Hillel and the Office of the Provost and Dean.          

George Washington: Icon or Politician? Historian Beeman Offers Answers on November 14

CHESTERTOWN, MD—George Washington is often viewed as a president far above the fray, more icon than politician. But in the final installment of the “Meet the Founders” series at Washington College, historian Richard Beeman will offer a surprising portrait of the man he describes as America’s “essential founding father,” a leader often buffeted by the storms of public opinion and political opposition in America’s rambunctious young democracy.

Beeman’s talk will take place on Wednesday, November 14, at 5:30 p.m. in Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue, and will be followed by a book signing. It is hosted by Washington College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, where Beeman is a senior fellow.

“George Washington was the indispensable man who, in both his behavior and his public persona, tried to represent not a single faction or point of view, but all Americans,” says Beeman. “But it was not always an easy job – especially during the turbulent final decade of his political career.”

The November 14 talk will focus on the challenges that Washington faced first as president of the Constitutional Convention and then as president of the United States. He spent two arduous terms struggling to find consensus among opposing philosophies and political interests.

Beeman, the John Welsh Centennial Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, has been a member of that university’s faculty for 44 years and has served as Chair of the Department of History and as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He was the winner of the 2010 George Washington Book Prize, one of the largest literary prizes in the nation, for Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution (Random House). The New York Times called the book a “scholarly yet lively account” of the “passion-filled crucible” that was the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

Beeman is the author of seven books on Revolutionary-era America, including The Penguin Guide to the American Constitution (Penguin, 2010) and Patrick Henry: A Biography (McGraw-Hill, 1974), which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Other honors have included fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the Huntington Library. He has served as a Fulbright Professor in the United Kingdom and as Harmsworth Distinguished Professor of American History at Oxford University. He has written articles and book reviews for many publications and has appeared with Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.”

“Meet the Founders” serves as a sequel to “Inventing a Nation,” a series of four talks Beeman offered at Washington College in the fall of 2011.  “Dr. Beeman’s series last year was a smash hit, and we’ve been thrilled to have him return,” says Adam Goodheart, the Starr Center’s Hodson Trust-Griswold Director. “There are few historians as gifted as he is at bringing to life the vivid personalities who played starring roles in the Revolutionary drama.”

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Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience is dedicated to fostering innovative approaches to the American past and present. Through educational programs, scholarship and public outreach, and a special focus on written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between the academic world and the public at large. For more information on the Center, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

Expertise on Politics, Religion and Gender Put Professor Deckman in Media Spotlight

Deckman participates in a Brookings Insitution event that discussed
the findings of the 2012 American Values Survey.

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Political science professor Melissa Deckman has been busy on the media circuit, sharing her expertise on how religion and gender are affecting voter attitudes in the presidential election through appearances on nationally broadcast panels and in interviews with radio and print journalists.

            At an October 22 event at the National Press Club in D.C., sponsored by Catholic University's Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies and covered live by C-SPAN, she shared her research findings on the gender gap among Catholic voters. You can see C-SPAN video of her observations here.

            The following day, as an Affiliated Scholar with the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), she participated in a panel discussion hosted by the Brookings Institution to announce the results of PRRI’s “2012 American Values Survey,” the organization’s annual comprehensive look at how values and beliefs affect voting behaviors. Deckman addressed several key areas of the survey: the correlation between religious affiliation and support for Romney or Obama, perceptions about the state of religious freedom in the U.S., and Tea Party opinions on social issues. Video of the event is available on the Brookings Institution Web site (Deckman’s segment begins about an hour into the video).

            Most recently, she was videotaped talking about religion’s impact on the presidential election for a segment of the PBS show “Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly,” which is scheduled to air on PBS stations across the country starting Sunday morning, Nov. 4.  (The show is carried locally on MPT2 that day at 6:30 a.m. and on Washington-based WETA at 10:30 a.m. For other station schedules, visit the show’s website.)

            She also appeared on Baltimore’s WYPR radio to discuss the election with Midday Show host Dan Rodricks, and was quoted in a piece by Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John Baer.

            “This election season has been busier than usual because being an Affiliated Scholar with the Public Religion Research Institute has brought exciting new opportunities,” says Deckman, who is the College’s Louis L. Goldstein Professor of Public Affairs. “As someone who has studied political behavior for a long time, I’ve enjoyed sharing my knowledge in these different settings.”

Appearing as part of an event at the National Press Club, Deckman
discussed Catholics and the gender gap in presidential politics.