Happy Holidays from the Tanner Humanities Center

From Scott Black, Director

Dear Friends of the Tanner Humanities Center,

As I wrap up my first semester as Director of the Tanner, I am writing to express my gratitude to you for your enthusiasm and support of our work to foster a vibrant Humanities community in the Salt Lake Valley and at the University of Utah.

This fall we have been honored to host three exceptional external guests as Tanner Speakers:

• Alice Dailey speaking about her memoir, Mother of Stories

• Ruth Ben-Ghiat speaking about her study, Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present

• Percival Everett speaking about his novel, James, which has just won this year’s National Book Award

We also presented the work of our exceptional Humanities faculty at the University:

• A Book Conversation with Peggy Battin, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, about her important work of bio-ethics, Sex and the Planet: What Op-In Reproduction Could Do for the Globe

• An Evening of Great Books, featuring faculty from the College’s new, innovative and popular Great Books course

We also continued to offer our Gateway to Learning workshops for local educators and sponsor the popular National Theatre Live performances at the Broadway Theater.

We are deeply appreciative of the large number of people who attended our events and have supported our broad range of public programming.

We have an equally exciting line-up of speakers and events this winter and spring, including Tanner Talks with Ed Yong and Louis Chude-Sokei, two faculty Book Conversations with Isabel Moreira and Paul Reeve, and the Tanner Lecture on Human Values with David Damrosch, followed by a symposium featuring faculty from the U and across the country. In addition, our exceptional group of Tanner Fellows will be presenting their work throughout the semester, and we will be rolling out our new Tanner podcast, The Virtual Jewel Box, to share our programming with people across the state.

We are working on several new initiatives for the upcoming year: Tanner Labs, which support innovative, collaborative, and interdisciplinary Humanities projects; partnerships with Utah Humanities and the Marriott Library to support work in Public Humanities and in Marriott’s Special Collections; and our new Tanner Book Club. Stay tuned and check out our website for further information on these and other exciting upcoming events.

On a personal note, I am an English teacher at heart, so my own fondest memories of our fall are two “classroom” experiences I was lucky to participate in. I really enjoyed the chance to work with my colleagues to recreate a mini version of our Great Books course and get to talk about one of my favorite books, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. And it was a great privilege to see Percival Everett in action as a teacher with a class of local high school students who had just read James. The students had really impressive, insightful and interesting questions, and their level of engagement was matched by Dr. Everett, who facilitated one of the most attentive, respectful, and caring class discussions I’ve ever seen.

At a time when there’s a lot of doubt and noise about the value of the Humanities, Dr. Everett's class discussion was a vivid reminder that at the heart of our work is the practice of careful and caring attention and shared learning. It’s hard to quantify that caring and sharing, but we all know its value and how much richer our lives are with it. It has been both an honor and a pleasure to meet so many enthusiastic people at our events who are dedicated to our work of supporting and advancing the insights, creativity, and excitement of the Humanities with everyone in our community. Thank you for your continued support!Best wishes for the Holidays and New Year,Scott Black
Director, Tanner Humanities Center