First Annual Des Moines Humanities Festival

This Saturday I'll be speaking at the first annual Des Moines Humanities Festival, at Salisbury House in Des Moines.  Organized by the Olberman Center's Teresa Mangum and Salisbury House's Director, Eric Smith.  The Des Moines Register writes about the event and interviews Eric here.  The event's theme is "Collectors, Collections, and Collecting," and the picture of Native American artifacts reproduced here comes from Salisbury House, which also holds a wide array of Shakespeareana and early books.

I'll be talking about the way Iowans have read, collected, and remade Shakespeare from some of the earliest settlers to 2012, when Iowa City book artist Emily Martin produced a fantastic pop-up version of Romeo and Juliet to enter in a bookbinding competition sponsored by Oxford University's Bodleian Library.  If you happen to be in Des Moines -- and why wouldn't you be!? -- you should get a ticket and check out the festival, which includes a lunch, reception, and brilliant talks by all us "big thinkers" (as the Register describes the speakers!). 

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