Let's Talk About It

Let's Talk About It (LTAI) is a library discussion series that brings scholars and community members together to explore how selected books, films, or poetry illuminate a particular theme.

Let's Talk About It is available as a book, film or poetry series.

Book Series: A nine-week reading and discussion series that includes five books that is held every other week and led by a new scholar each week.

Film Series: A six-week film and discussion series that is held weekly and led by one scholar.

Poetry Series: A six-week reading-audio/video-discussion program that is held weekly and led by one scholar.

Apply for a program!

The Let's Talk About It series is sponsored by the North Carolina Humanities Council in cooperation with the North Carolina Center for the Book.

The Sixties: A Film History of America's Decade of Crisis and Change

The decade of the 1960s was the most turbulent, perhaps the most memorable, and no doubt the most controversial in the twentieth century. The debate over its legacy has by no means been resolved; it...

Post-War Years, Cold War Fears: American Culture and Politics, 1946 - 1960

This documentary film, reading, and discussion series picks up America's story where "From Rosie to Roosevelt" leaves off. Exploring both the political and social history of the post-war period, "Post War Years" examines how America'...

Poets In Person

This audio series is composed of National Public Radio interviews with 13 of today's most engaging and influential poets including Allen Ginsberg, Karl Shapiro, Maxine Kumin, Gwendolyn Brooks and Gary Soto. In addition to listening to...

Mad Women in the Attic

What happens to a woman whose behavior defies social and domestic expectations? Perhaps she is locked in an attic; more often she is a woman involved in a quest to discover her identity. These works may help us redefine "mad women."

Destruction or Redemption: Images of Romantic Love

In this series, we will explore one of the most puzzling features of the human condition - romantic love. Whether destructive or redemptive, romantic love has the potential to transform us in some way, however briefly.

Exploring the American West...Whose West?

The American West offers not one story but many. Together as we read these books, we will examine some of those stories - violent or nostalgic, tragic or heroic. This series will offer us a way of exploring a more honest creation myth,...

Imagining the Future: Scientific Revelations in Fiction

This series will offer us the opportunity to reflect on "scientific" predictions that often can be disturbingly accurate and to examine our attitudes toward science and its societal by-products.

Myth-Making in Popular Fiction

Attempting to form generalizations about so broad a topic as "best-selling fiction" is tricky business. However, the mass appeal of many such works seems to come from the combination of mythic characters and realistic, historically...

Rebirth of A Nation: Nationalism and the Civil War

By 1861, ideas about what America was and what it meant to be an American - the essence of nationalism - led to civil war. In this series, we will consider the price of sectional reconciliation as well as what the Civil WarÕs legacy is...

Fast Forward: Science, Technology, and the Communication Revolution

This exciting series uses award-winning documentary films and text to involve the public in a study of the impact of science and technology in the 20th century. Programs focus on the rapid introduction of...