The Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Library System is teaming up with the Arkansas Humanities Council in hosting a scholar-led Civil War reading and discussion series. The program will start in September with sessions being held in the library’s children’s theater room.
“Making Sense of the Civil War,” which is free and open to the public, is a presentation of AHC, and the National Endowment for the Humanities and American Library Association’s Public Programs Office. Five sessions are to be held at 5:30 p.m. every other Tuesday beginning Sept. 11 and continuing through Nov. 6. Each session will focus on a Civil War experience, utilizing one or more common texts as a foundational touchstone.
A program reading list includes works of historical fiction and interpretation, speeches, diaries, memoirs, biographies and short stories, according to a library news release. Readings will also include an introductory essay that provides context for the entire series and each of its sessions.
The essay was written by University of Richmond (Va.) President Edward L. Ayers, the national project scholar and American South historian who is also a digital history pioneer. Ayers selected the program’s reading materials and conversation topics.
AHC-provided books for the course include “March” by Geraldine Brooks, “Crossroads of Freedom” by James M. McPherson, and the “America’s War: Talking About the Civil War and Emancipation on Their 150th Anniversaries” anthology edited by Ayers.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The sessions – to be led by University of Arkansas at Monticello history professor and Civil War historian and author William Shea – will be:
• Sept. 11 – Imagining War.
• Sept. 25 – Choosing Sides.
• Oct. 9 – Making Sense of War.
• Oct. 23 – The Shape of War.
• Nov. 6 – War and Freedom.
Registration is required. Persons wishing to participate should either call the library at 870-534-4802 or visit the facility to register before Sept. 11 and check out reading list books.