Humanities Tennessee is a nonprofit that fosters group and civility in Tennessee by public packages encouraging concepts, tales, historical past, arts, and tradition. This 12 months, the group misplaced all its federal funding in April, inflicting uncertainty on whether or not the group may proceed, a lot much less produce its beloved Southern Festival of Books. However, due to passionate donors, a fundraising drive with Ann Patchett and Parnassus, and a brand new partnership with Vanderbilt University, the pageant and annual Authors within the Round dinner can proceed uniting lovers of the written phrase. We chatted with Tim Henderson, Executive Director of Humanities Tennessee, concerning the nonprofit, its supporters, and the sense of group its packages and occasions convey. – Destiny Mizell
DAILY DUTIES: As the manager director of Humanities Tennessee, I’m lucky to work with a artistic, deliberate, and passionate employees to think about and administer public humanities packages all through the state.
IN ACTION: Humanities Tennessee has all the time had, at its heart, the mission of fostering stronger communities and larger civility in Tennessee. Right now, we’re looking for to comprehend this mission by a roster of packages that target literary arts, particularly, and the literary group statewide, in addition to a brand new initiative referred to as the Shared Futures Lab that encourages Tennesseans to suppose collectively about creating extra deliberate, extra imaginative, and extra affluent futures for ourselves and our communities.
IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY: In some ways, the 12 months to date has inspired us to rethink how we do what we do. We’ve needed to suppose deeply about our partnerships and our commitments to of us throughout the state, and in some ways, we’re constructing on relationships and belief of half a century whereas attempting to take care of a “startup” mentality.
YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND IN ME: It is sort of inexpressible to think about the various methods HT has seen supporters of this work step up in significant methods over the previous few months. The base of this assist has been genuinely numerous: 1000’s of people, massive and small establishments, nationwide personal philanthropies. I believe it demonstrates the worth we understand when folks interact within the historical past, tales, arts, and tradition of the locations round us.
CAN’T WAIT: Honestly, this 12 months, I’m most wanting ahead to seeing folks [at the Southern Festival of Books and Authors in the Round]! At the guts of every thing HT does, and has carried out for greater than 50 years, is the importance of our communities. The group round Authors within the Round — led by this 12 months’s co-chairs, Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williams — has responded in a really massive means already, and a broad group of assist for the Southern Festival of Books has proven as much as say how a lot that program means to them. We are wanting ahead to seeing of us in particular person and interacting with one another over the course of the pageant/AIR weekend.
TOGETHER WE CAN: HT was chartered half a century in the past to depend on public/personal partnerships. It appears as necessary now because it was to Congress then, establishing the cultural endowments as impartial companies, that We the People personal our tales — our historical past and our tradition — and even modest public assist of those pursuits is an efficient technique to obtain that.