Conference Information
Click to Register Online
Sept. 29 - Oct. 21
Members: $435
Nonmembers: $495
Conference Hotel
Vinoy Renaissance
Conference Program
(Updated Oct. 12)
Schedule at a Glance
(Updated Oct. 11)
Federation Forum
Federation Forum Topics
Hands on Humanities
Session Descriptions
Readings for Specific Sessions
Civic Reflection
Re-imagining the American Dream Through the Humanities
Maps
Conference hotel map and St. Petersburg walking map
Dining
Click to book your dinner in St. Petersburg. (Select "Restaurants & Night Life.")
2011 National Humanities Conference
November 3-6
St. Petersburg, Florida
Beautiful St. Petersburg, Florida
Remembering the 2010 Conference in Albuquerque
St. Petersburg in the 1930's, including footage of the Vinoy, the 2011 National Humanities Conference host hotel
Conference Theme: Re-Imagining the American Dream
Amid the worst economic decline since the Great Depression, wars of attrition in Afghanistan and Iraq, the wake of the environmental disaster of the BP oil spill, and the increasingly uncivil and polarizing rhetoric of our national politics challenging the very governance of our republic, we approach our conference in St. Petersburg-the 40th anniversary of the creation of the first state humanities councils-with a salient question: What does "The American Dream" mean to the citizens of our nation?
American history is rich with inspiring tales of self-determination and littered with arrested dreams. The Great Depression profoundly shook America's political and economic system, so that for many, faith in democracy itself was shaken. In Land of the Free (1938), the poet Archibald MacLeish pondered:
We wonder whether the dream of American liberty
Was two hundred years of pine and hardwood
And three generations of the grass
And the generations are up; the years over...
We wonder if the liberty is done:
The dreaming is finished.
Are Americans haunted by such renewed fear? How do today's new immigrants, the recently unemployed, or the young, jobless college graduates saddled with debt and few prospects interpret the old belief that thrift and hard work will yield the good life? The Declaration of Independence secures for all Americans the rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Yet yearning for these "inalienable rights" in the face of declining economic security and shaken faith in the democratic system can feed cynicism that challenges noble ideals.
As we embark on a sesquicentennial commemoration of the American Civil War, we must reflect upon the lessons of history when, facing adversity in our darkest hour, Abraham Lincoln appealed to a divided nation in 1864 to evoke the "mystic chords of memory," to reveal "the better angels of our nature."
In troubled times, how might the humanities help us to sustain ideals, inspire civility, rekindle hope, and re-envision the American Dream?
With this question as our lodestar, we come to our 2011 conference in St. Petersburg to re-imagine the American Dream from personal experience, from diverse cultural viewpoints, from environmental perspectives, and from the deep wells of historical, literary, spiritual, and philosophical inquiry.