Library mini-golf to benefit Literacy Volunteers of Berkshire County
Pittsfield — The Links for Literacy Berkshire Gas Mini-Golf Classic will take place Saturday, March 30, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Berkshire Athenaeum.
Beginning in the library’s auditorium, players will sign in, choose their putters and start swinging on the practice hole. The course features 10 holes, each with a tee marker decorated by its sponsors as well as unique hazards. The course uses the whole library, taking advantage of the building’s natural “geography” of three floors and many long rows between the stacks. The course takes roughly one hour to play.
The cost of the event is $5 for adults, $2 for youth ages 13–18 and free for children ages 12 and under. Pizza and other snacks will be available free of charge for all players. All proceeds will benefit Literacy Volunteers of Berkshire County. For more information, contact Karen Wallace at (413) 499-9487.
–E.E.
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Simon’s Rock to host ‘Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow’ exhibit
Great Barrington — Bard College at Simon’s Rock will host the exhibit “Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow” beginning Thursday, March 28, in the college’s Hillman-Jackson Gallery inside the Daniel Arts Center.
Following the Civil War, the country struggled to rebuild itself amid profound loss, destruction and revolutionary social change. Great Barrington activist W.E.B. Du Bois described this period as a “brief moment in the sun” for African-Americans, when they could advance and achieve education, vote, and run for (and win) positions in public office.
The exhibit, which includes archival photographs and documents from the Du Bois Center at Great Barrington as well as an eight-poster exhibit from the New-York Historical Society Museum and Library, shows how formerly enslaved people battled Jim Crow racism and transformed the country. The exhibit coincides with the national televised screening of the PBS documentary “Reconstruction: America After the Civil War,” which was executive produced and hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and features Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner, who delivered the 2018 W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture at Simon’s Rock.
The exhibit is free and open to the public through Friday, April 12. For more information, contact Bard College at Simon’s rock at (413) 644-4400 or info@simons-rock.edu.
–E.E.
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Knosh & Knowledge to present H.G. Adler biographer Peter Filkins
Great Barrington — On Friday, March 29 at 10:45 a.m. at Hevreh of Southern Berkshire, the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires’ Knosh & Knowledge program will host poet and translator Peter Filkins, who will talk about the life and career of H.G. Adler. The presentation will be followed by a buffet lunch.
Adler was born in Prague, survived the Holocaust, fled post-war communist Czechoslovakia, became a freelance writer and scholar in the United States, and went on to author 26 books on history, sociology and philosophy as well as poetry, fiction and autobiographical works.
Award-winning poet and translator Filkins has translated three novels by Adler as well as the collected poems of Ingeborg Bachmann. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Leon Levy Center for Biography and the American Academy in Berlin, he is the Richard B. Fisher professor of literature at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, and also teaches translation at Bard College. He is the author of the recently published biography “H.G. Adler: A Life in Many Worlds.”
Admission to the program with lunch is $11; the program only is free. Advance reservations for lunch are required. For more information or to make reservations, contact the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires at (413) 442-4360 x10 or federation@jewishberkshires.org.
–E.E.
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Lecture to focus on women in U.S. political office
Hillsdale, N.Y. — The Roeliff Jansen Community Library will celebrate Women’s History Month with the talk and discussion “U.S. Women in Office: Critical Mass vs. Critical Actors” with Ellen Boneparth Saturday, March 30, at 4 p.m. The talk will focus on the difference women make and the significance of the increasing number of women in political office.
Boneparth received her Ph.D. from Stanford University and has taught at various institutions including the University of Hawai’i at Hilo, where she was also a dean. She was an early pioneer in the study of women in politics and edited one of the first readers in the field. She has worked as a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service and served in Athens, Greece. She now lives in Washington, D.C., has written a number of novels, and leads a nonprofit she founded for aid to women in developing countries. She continues to be active in electoral politics.
The talk is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Roeliff Jansen Community Library at (518) 325-4101.
–E.E.
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Urban foresters to offer tree-pruning workshop
Pittsfield — Berkshire Environmental Action Team will partner with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Wednesday, March 27, from 3 to 5 p.m. to offer a free tree-pruning workshop with DCR urban foresters as part of the Greening the Gateway Cities Program. Participants will learn in the field from certified arborist with over 40 years of experience to prune street trees in Pittsfield. Topics will include proper pruning technique, safety, when to prune particular species, and common pruning mistakes.
The program is free but registration is required. For registration and location information, contact Elizabeth Orenstein at (413) 717-1255 or elizabeth@thebeatnews.org.
–E.E.
