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Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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Margaret Mitchell House & Museum

The Margaret Mitchell House & Museum was founded in 1990 to save and preserve the house where Margaret Mitchell lived and wrote the book Gone With the Wind. On August 1, 2004, the Margaret Mitchell House merged with the Atlanta History Center (AHC). As a result, the AHC oversees the operation of the two-acre site which includes the Margaret Mitchell House, Gone With the Wind Movie Museum, Visitors Center, Museum Shop and The Center for Southern Literature. Tours of the exhibits tell the story of Margaret Mitchell beyond the book and movie, including her journalism career, philanthropy and family history. The Center for Southern Literature, the programming division of the MMH, preserves the legacy of Margaret Mitchell through weekly literary author programs, creative writing classes for adults and youth, and the administration of the PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools Program.

http://www.gwtw.org

Curtis Roosevelt: Too Close to the Sun

Wed, Nov 19, 2008

The oldest grandson of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Curtis Roosevelt, discusses his new book, *Too Close to the Sun: Growing up in the Shadow of my Grandparents, Franklin and Eleanor*. He talks about FDR’s lively bedside breakfast meetings and the more adult observations of the tension that riddled the family while he was a teenager.

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Margaret Mitchell House & Museum
Roy Blount Jr: Alphabet Juice

Fri, Nov 21, 2008

Roy Blount Jr. discusses his *Alphabet Juice* book, which celebrates “the juju of language”, the sonic and kinetic energies of words, and an exploration of our language. He uses sources as venerable as the Oxford English Dictionary and as hip as UrbanDictionary.com.

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Margaret Mitchell House & Museum
The Warrior: A Mother's Story of a Son at War

Thu, Apr 24, 2008

Frances Richey discusses her book of poetry, *The Warrior: A Mother's Story of a Son at War*, a personal exploration of the daily feelings a mother experiences while her child goes off to war and a family's struggle to overcome ideological differences in the face of a greater cause.

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Margaret Mitchell House & Museum
A Voyage Long and Strange: From Columbus to Plymouth Rock

Wed, May 14, 2008

Tony Horwitz discusses *A Voyage Long and Strange*, in which he attempts to understand what happened in the Americas between Columbus' arrival and the Mayflower's landing on Plymouth Rock. During this time, vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs, among others, roamed the unknown continent in search of grapes, gold, converts, and even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed to locate their treasure, their adventures and exploits left an indelible impression on those they met, peoples who would eventually come face to face with the English settlers.

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Margaret Mitchell House & Museum
Pearl Cleage: Seen It All and Done the Rest

Tue, Mar 18, 2008

Pearl Cleage reads and discusses her latest book, *Seen It All and Done The Rest*.

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Margaret Mitchell House & Museum
Alice Hoffman: The Third Angel

Wed, Apr 16, 2008

Alice Hoffman discusses *The Third Angel*, a triptych of interwoven love stories anchored to a haunted London hotel. In this novel of dark romance and penetrating psychic insight, Hoffman dramatizes the shocks and revelations that forge the self and reveals the necessity and toll of empathy and kindness.

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Margaret Mitchell House & Museum
Elizabeth Strout: Olive Kitteridge

Mon, Apr 21, 2008

Elizabeth Strout discusses her latest book, *Olive Kitteridge*, a series of 13 interlocking tales that present a portrait of ordinary coastal Mainers. Strout creates a world that represents the entire human drama, the highs and lows of life.

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Margaret Mitchell House & Museum
Randall Kennedy: Sellout

Wed, Jan 30, 2008

Author Randall Kennedy grapples with a stigma of our racial discourse that is a subject of much anxiety and acrimony in black America: "selling out," or racial betrayal. The new book, which comes in the wake of his controversial national best-seller, *Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word*, shows how usage of the word "sellout" bedevils blacks and whites, while elucidating the effects it has on individuals and on our society as a whole.

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Margaret Mitchell House & Museum
What Is Team Trivia?

Tue, Feb 5, 2008

Author and all-time *Jeopardy!* champion Ken Jennings poses brain-teasing questions from his new release, *Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac: 8,888 Questions in 365 Days*. Like a farmer's almanac, the trivia almanac devotes a page to every day of the year: but instead of predicting the weather, it offers trivia questions pegged to oddball historic events that occurred on that date.

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Margaret Mitchell House & Museum
How Religion Poisons Everything

Wed, May 16, 2007

Christopher Hitchens makes a case against religion. With a close reading of major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish. In God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope's awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix. Christopher Hitchens, a widely published polemicist and frequent radio and TV commentator, is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. Hitchens debates Timothy P. Jackson, Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Emory University's Candler School of Theology; the debate is moderated by Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker. Co-sponsored by The Center for the Study of Law & Religion at Emory University

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Margaret Mitchell House & Museum