eNewsletters

EnRICHment Opportunity lecture by Michael Bell

October 18, 2007, 7 pm

Narragansett Public Library, 35 Kingston Road, Narragansett

Close your eyes and imagine a vampire. The image that comes to mind probably is that of Bela Lugosi in the role of Dracula. Since 1897, when Bram Stoker published his novel, the Count has dominated our imaginations. But another kind of vampire survived in outlying areas of New England more than one hundred years before Stoker put pen to paper. Michael Bell relates the stories of rural families who dug up the bodies of their loved ones and burned their hearts to save the living. These ordinary farmers, who were confronted with an illness that medicine could neither explain nor cure, blamed the dead. Bell summarizes his quest for this authentic vampire tradition in his award-winning book Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001).

Action Speaks forum presented by RICH & AS220

October 17, 2007, 5:30 pm - 7 pm

AS220, 115 Empire St., Providence

The United States Food and Drug Administration approved the prescription anti-depressant medication, Prozac, in 1987, accelerating the tendency to treat mental illness with medicine. Medicating mental health has been controversial, in that for some, it represents freedom from torment, while for others, it represents a victory for the pharmaceutical industries. Panelists will discuss: medicinal treatment of mental illness, role of pharmaceutical companies in American society, controversy over who defines "mental health," and what the effects of that definition are on our society.

Conference hosted by Watson Institute at Brown University

October 19, 2007 - October 21, 2007

This conference hosts readings, discussions, and panel presentations exploring the divide between individuals, families and communities directly touched by the war experience, and the wider public.

EnRICHment Opportunity lecture by Sarah O'Dowd

October 25, 2007, 7 pm

Portsmouth Free Library, 2658 East Main Road

During the 19th century, a movement called "Modern American Spiritualism" swept across the United States, involving hundreds of thousands of people in the attempt to comprehend and make contact with the spirit world. During the movement's greatest popularity, the decades from around 1850 to 1870, three prominent Rhode Island women became involved in Spiritualism: Sarah Helen Whitman, Elizabeth Buffum Chace, and Frances Harriet Whipple Green McDougall. These extraordinary women are known for their other major interests, such as literary accomplishment and reform activities, but Spiritualism also played an important part in each of their lives. In this talk, we look at the various meanings that it assumed for each of them.

Public Lecture by John Eng-Wong

October 25, 2007, 7:30 pm

Rhode Island Historical Society, Aldrich House, 110 Benevolent St., Providence

Brown University professor John Eng-Wong first met Doris Fong thirty years ago and soon realized that she was a key figure in the history of Rhode Island's Chinese community. Later in life, Doris discovered that she was adopted as a child and that her birth name was Leah Woo. Doris is one of a rapidly diminishing number of survivors from the time when there really was a "Chinatown" in Providence. Eng-Wong has been working to record Fong's recollections as a way to begin preserving the story of Chinese Americans in Rhode Island. Join us in viewing the resulting slide show that uses Doris' life as a way of understanding the circumstances of a mostly understudied group in Rhode Island.

Exhibition - Photographs by Alexander Caserta, text by Michael Bell, PhD.

October 26, 2007 - November 11, 2007, 7 pm - 9 pm
Gallery Opening Oct. 26

Bristol Art Museum, Wardwell & Hope Streets

When you bite into an apple, do you think about the processes and people that have sustained such delectable moments since William Blackstone planted Rhode Island's first orchard in 1635? Orchards in the Ocean State is a window into the taken-for-granted world of apple growing families and orchard workers; a behind-the-scenes view of fruit stands, farmers' markets, and pick-your-own; of apples from the 'Yellow Sweeting' to the 'Honeycrisp' and activities from cider-making to pie-baking; of the yearly cycle of planting, pruning, spraying, thinning, harvesting, and marketing. But above all, the central story of Rhode Island's apple orchards is how growers have balanced the traditional approaches that were handed down to them by their parents and grandparents with changing technology and markets so that they can continue to succeed in a business that is fraught with economic uncertainty.