Day of Dialogue 2023 to Present BUILDING HOPE IN TRYING TIMES

Day of Dialogue 2023: Building Hope in Trying Times will be presented on October 25 from 9:30 am - 7:30 pm, FREE at Hofstra.

"Optimism is the belief that things will turn out all right," Harvard Professor Arthur Brooks wrote recently in The Atlantic. "Hope makes no such assumption but is a conviction that one can act to make things better in some way."

Each of this year's Day of Dialogue events focuses on the ways individuals are meeting specific challenges in their community. Activists identify and combat human trafficking. Journalists, academics, and community-based organizations join forces to cover local issues traditionally ignored by larger media. A CUNY professor shines light on the long-hidden story of two Black sisters involuntarily sterilized in Montgomery, Alabama. Two Hofstra alumni strive to understand and serve our community's most recent immigrants. And Hofstra students and staff join to demand action to prevent gun violence.

In a final culminating event and a dramatic parallel to our own modern-day struggles, a bold new play depicts the artistic journey of Long Island's own poet, Walt Whitman. In verse, Whitman celebrates the beauty of the individual and of America, while in reality, he must navigate the strife and chaos of the Civil War.

Day of Dialogue 2023: Building Hope in Trying Times

Presented by the Center for Civic Engagement

Date: Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Time: 9:40 a.m. - 7:25 p.m.

Location: Various locations on campus

Free and open to the public. Advanced registration is required. Please register for each event separately.

Session 6: Play: American Poet: Whitman's Warnings (Playwright Sarah Vander Schaaff)

6 - 7:25 p.m.

Cultural Center Theater

Panelist:

Sarah Vander Schaaff, Freelance Writer and Playwright

Experience the creative vitality of one of Long Island's most intriguing figures. Join us for a reading of American Poet, a bold new 90-minute play revealing Walt Whitman's drive to create Leaves of Grass as the young nation faced its biggest crisis, testing unity, identity and the meaning of American democracy. This play offers an expansive view of Whitman, addressing his life experience as a queer artist at a time when the US was rife with myriad conflicts, not so different from our own time.