NEA Big Read has kicked off!
- Post Date: 02/18/2019
- Author: Adriana Vaca, student writer
- Reading Time: 2 minute read
The NEA Big Read kick-off, held at the Spurlock Museum on January 27th, started off a series of 35 collaborative community events. The Spurlock Museum shared a new exhibit embodying home and celebrations, From the Subcontinent to the Prairie: Stories of Immigration and Identity, meant to serve as a companion piece to the Big Read’s focus novel, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri.
Keynote speaker Dr. Rini Bhattacharya Mehta spoke on the importance of hearing stories of immigrant families and how she feels the novel, which she called a child of the change of thought that occurred in the 1990s, successfully executes this topic.
Additional speakers included Dr. Koeli Goel, the Museum’s community curator; Padma Rangaswamy from the National Indo-American Museum in Chicago and the lender of a traveling exhibit; Dhara Puva, the director of the South Asian American Policy Institute and lender of a traveling exhibit; Celeste Choate, director of The Urbana Free Library; and Mara Thacker from the International and Area Studies Library at the University.
The speakers addressed a mission to preserve history and promote understanding in the space around them and beyond.
Find out more about the NEA Big Read and see a schedule for the community-wide events.
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