Events

Lavelle Porter and Matt Miller will discuss issues related to Walt Whitman, race, and Porter's recent and highly influential article, "Should Walt Whitman Be #Cancelled?" They will discuss how black America has talked back to Whitman and how recent conversations about Whitman and his racist statements have affected the poet's reception and legacy. What do [...]

Jesse Merandy and Karen Karbiener discuss connecting to Whitman through place, using walking tours and location based mobile experiences as methods to understanding the poet's life and work.  Speakers will recount their own experiences using place-based pedagogy, offering helpful insights and resources for educators and those looking to embark on their own exploration of Whitman's [...]

This conversation will explore the similar views about the personality found in the works of these two creative individuals. Their shared focus on the Self stemmed from a familiarity with the history of religions and the new science of psychology. The lens for understanding the revolutionary potential of this approach will be Whitman’s “Chanting eh [...]

Triston P. Pullen will discuss the process and creation of his new play “Songs of Memories: A Whitmanic Queer Discovery”. From the conception of the idea of the play to the finalized script, Pullen has retraced Whitman’s life to highlight his “hells and damns” but also his greatest love stories. Pullen will also start a [...]

Gleaning from Whitman’s wisdom, this interactive session explores ways leading to a just recovery in post-COVID New York City. Taking up the great poet’s legacy of democracy and equality, New Yorkers are devoting their time and effort to mutual aid groups, mental health support and other programs that help the city to heal.Di Di Cui [...]

In the 1850s, Walt Whitman wrote twelve poems in a small handmade book he entitled "Live Oak, with Moss." The poems were Whitman’s first sustained attempt to write about the naturalness of love beyond traditional heteronormative boundaries. They are intensely private reflections on the attraction he felt for men, and they also present a new [...]

A conversation between Matt Miller and Zachary Turpin on their new book, Every Hour, Every Atom: A Collection of Walt Whitman’s Early Notebooks and Fragments. Zachary Turpin is an assistant professor of American literature at the University of Idaho, and a former Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress. A specialist in the lost [...]

“Artists don’t die,” notes Phillips. “I invade artists’ dreams and invite them to talk with me.” His lifelong dialogue with Whitman is represented by Robust American Love, a series of thirty watercolor illuminations of quotations from the poet's best-known works as well as obscure sources. Written in Phillips' easy hand, devoid of quotation marks and [...]

In February 1861, the president-elect of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, began a grueling 13-day train trip through the country to introduce himself to the divided people who had voted him into office (barely). Along the way, he had to deal with bruising adversity, including a serious assassination plot, but he also used the trip [...]

Norman Corwin was the genius of American radio drama. Bernard Herrmann, Hollywood’s supreme film composer (“Psycho,” “Citizen Kane,” “North by Northwest,” “Vertigo,” etc.) was also the foremost radio composer. In 1944, they created a classic radio drama, “Whitman,” to rally the home front during WW II with an appeal to the ideals of American democracy. [...]

The Library of Congress holds the largest number of Walt Whitman materials in the world, and has been actively digitizing these collections for the use and enjoyment of scholars, artists, and the general public. Join Library of Congress Historian and Curator Barbara Bair, writer and journalist Wally Suphap and Whitman Initiative President Karen Karbiener for [...]