Beyond the Divide

media release: The Morrill Lecture Series is proud to present acclaimed author Sarah Smarsh at 6:30 pm, August 20, 2024, at the Octagon Barn in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Sarah’s lecture, Beyond The Divide, will explore the dangers of simplistic political and cultural narratives, especially about rural America and the people who live there. She invites us to transcend fear-based postures and polarizing frameworks even as we insist on a more just society.

“We are beyond thrilled to be able to bring Sarah to the Morrill Lectures,” said Stefanie Morrill Kerckhoff, founder of the lectures, “Sarah’s storytelling skills and understanding of rural issues are just what we need to help bridge the divisions we face.”

One of the goals of the Morrill Lectures is to foster community and a sense of connectedness with others. This year, they lectures explore how stories help build that sense of connections.

A former writing professor, Sarah Smarsh has served as a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Sarah’s latest book, Bone of the Bone: Essays on America from a Daughter of the Working Class, 2012-2024, will be published by Scribner in September 2024. Her first book, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, was an instant New York Times bestseller, a finalist for the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize, the winner of the Chicago Tribune Literary Prize, and a best-books-of-the-year selection by President Barack Obama. Her 2020 book She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named a must-read book by TIME Magazine. In 2019, Sarah released a podcast entitled The Homecomers, which focuses on how a national blind spot toward rural and working-class America is driving misleading headlines, broken politics, and dangerous fissures in our social fabric.

The Morrill Lecture Series (https://morrilllectures.org/) is sponsored by River Valley Commons (https://www.rivervalleycommons.org/), a non-profit with a mission to increase the well-being of the community and those who live in, UW-Madison Continuing Studies, and the generous support of individuals.