Shreve Memorial Library’s Witness to Change: Community Conversations on Coastal Impacts series continues on Monday, March 27 at the Broadmoor Branch, with a discussion of Jesmyn Ward’s novel, Salvage the Bones. Witness to Change is an adult reading and discussion program of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and is part of the BHP-funded project, Coastal Impacts: An Integrated Approach for Community Adaptation, Understanding, and Planning. Witness to Change incorporates history, memoirs and fiction titles to spark dialogue about our ever-evolving relationship with water. Dr. Elisabeth Liebert, Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of English at LSUS, will lead the next Witness to Change discussion on Monday, March 27 at 6:00 p.m. The discussion is free and open to the public, and will take place at the Broadmoor Branch, located at 1212 Captain Shreve Drive.
Every human being has a relationship with water. It forms our bodies, drives our commerce, and defines many of the places we live. Since civilization began, people have attempted to control water – keeping it close, but in its place. But what happens when the relationship with water changes? How do we react when the sea rises, when land is lost, and when flooding affects our homes?
Witness to Change: Community Conversations on Coastal Impacts offers a place to have these conversations. This adult reading and discussion program, led by scholars, offers participants the opportunity to learn more about issues arising from the complex and changing human relationship with water. Library patrons are invited to see how these issues are both local and global, and to join their neighbors in an exploration of how others are adapting to our changing world.
On Monday, March 27 at 6:00 p.m., Witness to Change participants will discuss Jesmyn Ward’s novel Salvage the Bones. The book tells the story of a rural family scraping by in the midst of a hurricane that is threatening their coastal home of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. As the twelve days that make up the novel’s framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family – motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce – pulls itself up to face another day. Dr. Elisabeth Liebert will lead the book discussion, and copies of the book will be available for participants courtesy of the Shreve Memorial Library Foundation.
Witness to Change discussions will continue through April 24, 2023, ending with a discussion of Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush. Each book title selected is designed to spark dialogue around issues presented in the books, such as what makes a place home, experiences of flooding, hurricanes, family roots and connections to place, land loss and dislocation, as well as scarcity and adaptation and risk and relocation. Scholar facilitators will lead each discussion.
Copies of all book titles, including Salvage the Bones and Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, are available for check out at Shreve Memorial Library.
Witness to Change: Conversations on Coastal Impacts is made possible at Shreve Memorial Library by the Shreve Memorial Library Foundation and a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
Witness to Change: Conversations on Coastal Impacts is a program of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and is part of the BHP-funded project, Coastal Impacts: An Integrated Approach for Community Adaptation, Understanding, and Planning, which will assist local communities to build intergenerational coastal literacy through community conversations around books, film and exhibitions, fostering greater understanding of and support for coastal restoration projects.