Tickets available for Gaines Center’s Bale Boone Symposium with author Emily St. John Mandel
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 9, 2024) — Join the University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities for the 2024 Bale Boone Symposium featuring award-winning author, Emily St. John Mandel. The event is 6 p.m. Oct. 17, at the Mitchell Fine Arts Center at Tranyslvania University.
Moderated by Gaines Center Director Michelle Sizemore, Ph.D., the conversation will focus on the role of the humanities in a world navigating climate change, global pandemics and fracturing leadership. The conversation will be followed by a book signing with books available to purchase.
Emily St. John Mandel is the author of the critically acclaimed novel “Station Eleven,” a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award, as well as “The Glass Hotel,” which was a 2020 finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Mandel is the author of several other novels — “Last Night in Montreal,” “The Singer’s Gun” and “The Lola Quartet,” — all of which were Indie Next picks. In her lectures, Mandel captivates audiences with stories about her early writing career and her thoughtful reflections on writing literary fiction with the strongest possible narrative drive. A poised speaker whose works continue to grow in scale and ambition, Mandel is popular with colleges and universities, literary festivals and libraries.
“Emily St. John Mandel’s work could not be more relevant for our time,” Sizemore said. “In her 2014 novel, ‛Station Eleven,’ a global pandemic ravages the human population and survivors search for meaning and purpose after civilization’s collapse. The story follows the remarkable journey of the Traveling Symphony, a Shakespeare troupe dedicated to making and sharing art amid the devastation. The group’s mantra, ‛Survival is Insufficient,’ reinforces not only the basic needs of food, shelter, clean air and water, and health care for our lives, but simultaneously, the necessity of the arts and humanities for our existence.”
This event is free and open to the public, but does require registration. Tickets are available at this link: https://transytickets.ticketspice.com/gainesctr-emilystjohnmandel?t=UKY.
Through the Bale Boone Symposium, Gaines Center sponsors an array of public humanities and arts events to promote dialogue, intellectual exploration and partnerships among the campus, Bluegrass and Commonwealth communities. Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the symposium demonstrates the commitment of Joy Bale Boone and George Street Boone to the betterment of the humanities.
Founded in 1984 by a generous gift from John and Joan Gaines, the Gaines Center for the Humanities functions as a laboratory for imaginative and innovative education on the University of Kentucky’s campus. Devoted to cultivating an appreciation of the humanities in its students and faculty, the center embraces varied paths of knowledge and particularly strives to integrate creative work with traditional academic learning. The Gaines Center was also designed to provide a link, intellectual as well as geographic, between the campus and town communities. The center sponsors an array of public events that bring together the rich and varied resources of the Lexington community and the university.
As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.
In 2022, UK was ranked by Forbes as one of the “Best Employers for New Grads” and named a “Diversity Champion” by INSIGHT into Diversity, a testament to our commitment to advance Kentucky and create a community of belonging for everyone. While our mission looks different in many ways than it did in 1865, the vision of service to our Commonwealth and the world remains the same. We are the University for Kentucky.