It's more than 15 years since I wrote the posts below, retrieved today because Barry Wellman isn't well. I had a conversation with his beloved wife Bev, who is at his side, and found myself wondering just when it was that we first met. To my astonishment I see that I recorded it - in a
W E B Du Bois, a great US intellectual & civil rights activist, grew up right here in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. I can think of no more appropriate way to affirm that Black Lives Matter than to quote some passages by Du Bois today. I’ve been browsing his writings, and am astonished at their range.
The term “happy place” is not in the Oxford English Dictionary (though “happy slap” is), but I’ve been hearing the term a lot. There’s even a new shop in Great Barrington called HappyPlace Berkshires. I first dismissed it as therapeutic slang, but discovered that the concept actually goes back to the Greeks: a utopia is a
In 2006 I wrote a blog post about how much I missed England and the homesickness I felt for my London neighborhood and friends I made when I was a young working mum. It got a lot of responses; I wasn't the only one who had regrets about moving on, or a lingering desire to be at home again
The National Committee on US-China Relations (NCUSCR) is mentioned in the opening to today’s New York Times feature on Chinese president XI Jinping's first state visit to the United States. The #NCUSCR has been at the center of US-China people-to-people exchanges since 1966, and is soon coming to Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Greetings to all Berkshire authors and friends [this message was sent by email to contributors around the world, but we’re posting it here, too, so we can add comments and notes – and we welcome comments], It gave me heart to read that pro-gun politicians weren’t answering their phones last weekend and that not one of
1 April 2012, Great Barrington, Massachusetts—While construction slows in China, new opportunities for foreign investment and international cooperation beckon. The Northeastern Friendship Construction and Heavy Industry Transportation and Advertising Company (NFCHITAC), a division of National Pacific Patriotic People's Southern Construction, Investing, Securities, and Commercial Services Group (NPPPSCISCSG), has been selected for the construction of what is
As Berkshire Publishing focuses more on education, on learning as well as teaching, I found myself reflecting on a passage from a book called The Company of Strangers, by Parker Palmer. I read this book in the course of my research on community, and even though Palmer's worldview is Christian and mine is not, I found
Multimedia message, originally uploaded by KarenChristensen. I wasn't exaggerating in what I wrote about Arthur Morgan a few days ago. He was an astonishingly creative thinker, with a breadth of accomplishment that I cannot help falling for (in authors as well as real life). And didn't he know it, too. This book, published in Yellow
I'm finishing up my notes for the panel this morning on "The Power of the Right Community," in a hotel room above a lake at a Disney resort in Florida. A rather odd location, but perhaps evidence that community is truly a universal topic--one that applies in every aspect of life and work. It's an amazing
