The 2024 Bale Boone Symposium An Evening with Emily St. John Mandel
Join the Gaines Center for the Humanities for the 2024 Bale Boone Symposium featuring award-winning author, Emily St. John Mandel. The event takes place at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday October 17, at the Mitchell Fine Arts Center at Tranyslvania University. Moderated by Gaines Center Director Michelle Sizemore, Ph.D., the conversation will focus on the role of the humanities in a world navigating climate change, global pandemics and fracturing leadership. The conversation will be followed by a book signing with books available to purchase.
Emily St. John Mandel is the author of the critically acclaimed novel “Station Eleven,” a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award, as well as “The Glass Hotel,” which was a 2020 finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Mandel is the author of several other novels — “Last Night in Montreal,” “The Singer’s Gun” and “The Lola Quartet,” — all of which were Indie Next picks. In her lectures, Mandel captivates audiences with stories about her early writing career and her thoughtful reflections on writing literary fiction with the strongest possible narrative drive. A poised speaker whose works continue to grow in scale and ambition, Mandel is popular with colleges and universities, literary festivals and libraries.
“Emily St. John Mandel’s work could not be more relevant for our time,” Sizemore said. “In her 2014 novel, ‛Station Eleven,’ a global pandemic ravages the human population and survivors search for meaning and purpose after civilization’s collapse. The story follows the remarkable journey of the Traveling Symphony, a Shakespeare troupe dedicated to making and sharing art amid the devastation. The group’s mantra, ‛Survival is Insufficient,’ reinforces not only the basic needs of food, shelter, clean air and water, and health care for our lives, but simultaneously, the necessity of the arts and humanities for our existence.”
This event is free and open to the public, but does require registration. Tickets are available at this link: https://transytickets.ticketspice.com/gainesctr-emilystjohnmandel?t=UKY.
Through the Bale Boone Symposium, Gaines Center sponsors an array of public humanities and arts events to promote dialogue, intellectual exploration and partnerships among the campus, Bluegrass and Commonwealth communities. Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the symposium demonstrates the commitment of Joy Bale Boone and George Street Boone to the betterment of the humanities.
Founded in 1984 by a generous gift from John and Joan Gaines, the Gaines Center for the Humanities functions as a laboratory for imaginative and innovative education on the University of Kentucky’s campus. Devoted to cultivating an appreciation of the humanities in its students and faculty, the center embraces varied paths of knowledge and particularly strives to integrate creative work with traditional academic learning. The Gaines Center was also designed to provide a link, intellectual as well as geographic, between the campus and town communities. The center sponsors an array of public events that bring together the rich and varied resources of the Lexington community and the university.