For the ninth consecutive year, Keystone College will host The Gathering from July 16-19 on campus. The Gathering is an annual three-day symposium on creativity and imagination with performances, lectures, discussions, and workshops. People from diverse backgrounds meet to explore the creative spirit that permeates literature, science, and the arts around the world.
This year’s event, “The Story: Exploring Personal Encounters with History” will focus on the intersections of personal lives and world events. One of the featured presenters will be Professor Anita Hill, best known for her riveting testimony in the 1991 Supreme Court nomination hearings for Clarence Thomas. Professor Hill will discuss her book, Speaking Truth to Power on Friday, July 17 at 7:30 p.m. in the Theatre in Brooks, followed by a book signing at 9 p.m. Professor Hill’s lecture will be available to all attendees of The Gathering at no extra charge. Individual admission for members of the community is $25.
In addition to Professor Hill, The Gathering will also feature a variety of well-known personalities including Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Katherine Boo, and award-winning poet Denver Butson.
Professor Hill is famous for her courageous stand during the Clarence Thomas nomination process. She is Professor of Law, Public Policy, and Women’s Studies at Heller Graduate School of Policy and Management, Brandeis University. Professor Hill is a respected advocate for equality and civil rights. In addition to Speaking Truth to Power, she is the author of Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home.
Katherine Boo is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, which won the National Book Award in 2012. She is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and a former reporter and editor for The Washington Post.
Denver Butson has published three books of poetry, including illegible address, plus poems in several anthologies, and in literary journals, including Yale Review, Ontario Review, and Caliban. His poems have also been featured several times on National Public Radio’s Writer’s Almanac and in the Library of Congress’s Poetry 180 program. Three-times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Mr. Butson was a New York Foundation for the Arts Individual Artist Fellow.
Other presenters for the event include poet, journalist, and scholar Constance Garcia-Barrio; author Gina Nahai; musician and dancer Adwoa Badoe; Keystone professor Kerry Roe; Penn State Worthington-Scranton professor Philip Mosely; and fitness and nutrition expert Donna Fetzko.
The Gathering, held on Keystone’s beautiful 276-acre campus, has gained a reputation as one of the most respected symposiums of its kind in the nation. For additional information, registration, and a complete schedule of events, call (570) 561 5962, or visit thegatheringatkeystone.org.
