Humanities Symposium hosts Edwidge Danticat as keynote

Award-winning author Edwidge Danticat delivered the keynote lecture “Home as Grief, Home as Us” at the 2017 Humanities Symposium, sponsored by the Center for Public Humanities, in Parmer Hall Feb. 22.

Before her lecture, Danticat visited Marshall Math Science Academy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In keeping with the symposium’s theme of “home,” students read poems they had written on the subject.

I was so impressed with how present, engaged and encouraging she was to the young poets at Marshall,” said Jean Corey, associate professor of English at Messiah College. “She was amazing!

That evening for her keynote address, Danticat spoke of the complexities of home. She said that by practicing the Golden Rule or exemplifying Martin Luther King Jr.’s “dangerous unselfishness,” people can serve as a home to one another.

— Staff report