The Humanities and Fine Arts Division of Chattanooga State Community College will host its 4th annual ChattState Chautauqua Lecture Series beginning Thursday, September 21.

Named after the lake in upstate New York where the first of its kind was held in 1874, a Chautauqua brings members of the community together to enjoy inspirational performances and lectures. The gatherings aimed to bring communities together in an environment of cultural enrichment and questioning. The Humanities and Fine Arts Division invites you to join in this tradition with the announcement of its slate of presentations and performances for the 2017-2018 academic year.

Chattanooga State’s Chautauqua Series will feature the informative and unique research of five ChattState Humanities & Fine Arts faculty as well as the series finale with Writers@Work 2018 visiting author George Singleton and his special guest Clyde Edgerton. Associate Professor Anna Harrington will kick off the series on September 21 at 4 p.m. with a talk entitled “The Good, the Bad, and the Horrific: The (Real) Regency England of Jane Austen,” revealing that Regency England was a much darker, more hostile, and more horrific place than Austen portrays in her novels.

The fall semester will offer two additional presentations. On October 19, Professor Evans Jarnefeldt will present “Reclaiming Play: Nontraditional Voices and Space in Theater,” an exploration of unconventional theatrical space and some of the 20th century artists who have redefined the relationship between performer and audience. Instructor Mollee Shannon will end the fall semester’s installments on November 16 with “Harry’s Hallows and Scamander’s Beasts: Examining Cultural and Media Notions of Heroism in Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” which examines the cultural values implicit in these two literary portrayals of fantastic(al) heroism.

The series will resume in the spring semester on February 15, 2018, with Assistant Professor Rachel Falu’s talk entitled “Zora Neale Hurston and the Oral Tradition,” which illustrates the meaningful and far-reaching influence of Hurston’s literary portrayal of African American Vernacular English. This is followed on March 15, 2018, by Instructor Josh Johnson speaking on “The Haiti You Don’t Know,” a revealing journey through Haiti’s colorful and often turbulent history and the way it has shaped the nation’s culture.

The final installment in the 2017-2018 Chautauqua Lecture Series will be a special event offered in partnership with the Humanities Department’s Writers@Work program, entitled “Writers@Work: Banter and Banjos.” This special event on April 5 will feature authors George Singleton and Clyde Edgerton as they discuss writing, read from their works, swap stories, and perhaps play some music.

Each Chautauqua lecture lasts approximately 60 minutes and includes a Q&A period. All sessions are offered free of charge to interested members of the Chattanooga community, and each presentation will start at 4 p.m. in the mobile classroom of the Augusta Kolwyck Library on the main campus of Chattanooga State Community College located at 4501 Amnicola Highway. A complete schedule, including dates, times, and additional information on each lecture can be found on Facebook as “Chattanooga State’s Chautauqua Series”, Instagram as “chautauqua_series”, and Twitter as “@ChautauquaSeries”. Contact Associate Professor Keri Lamb for more information at keri.lamb@chattanoogastate.edu or 423-697-2546.