Sewanee Event Highlights

Festival of Lessons and Carols will be celebrated Saturday, Dec. 3, and Sunday, Dec. 4. Two services—Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m.—feature walk-up seating. With seats for more than 1,000 guests, we anticipate being able to seat every person who comes to worship in All Saints' Chapel. The Saturday service at 7 p.m. will be streamed live.

Music Director and Conductor Mario Alejandro Torres present

In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, Debra Magpie Earling, author of Perma Red and the forthcoming novel The Lost Journals of Sacajewea, will give a reading in Convocation Hall on Wednesday, Nov. 16, at 4:30 p.m. A book signing will follow. She has received both a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Join the combined voice studios for an exciting evening of song ranging from musical theater to classical, folk, jazz, and pop! Featuring students of Dr. Kerry Ginger and Erik Gustafson, with Vicki Collinsworth and Dr. Ray Gotko, piano. Free admission

Dennis Kezar, who has taught Renaissance Literature at both Vanderbilt University and the University of Utah, will give a lecture entitled, Seeing Feelingly - The Alchemy of Shakespeare's Skeptical Empathy, at 4:30 PM, November 9, in Gailor Auditorium.

The University of the South invites you to attend the Fifth Annual Tom G. Watson Memorial Event. This year, we are offering a play, An Evening with Lewis & Tolkien, written and directed by David Payne. The public is invited to attend and there is no admission charge.

This exuberant theatrical adaptation was written by Kate Hamill, and the production is directed by Sarah Hamilton. The show will run Oct. 26-29 at 7:30 p.m., and Oct. 30 at 2 p.m. at the Tennessee Williams Center.

PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novelist Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi will read from her work at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 8. Her 2018 novel Call Me Zebra won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the John Gardner Award, was an Amazon Best Book of the Year, and was a Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller.

The School of Theology will host a performance by the American Spiritual Ensemble in All Saints’ Chapel. The Sewanee community is invited to attend. Note: Masks are required.

Radney Foster, C’82—Nashville singer, songwriter, author, and actor—will be back on campus as the Babson Center’s 2022 Humphreys Entrepreneur-in-Residence. He will share insights about his journey from West Texas to Sewanee to Music City and his success navigating the fluid nature of the music industry. All are invited to this fascinating discussion with a singer and songwriter who “made it” in Music City with hard work and a constant flow of creativity.

Behind the SEEN: Process, Performance, and Practice in the Work of Fahamu Pecou is on view in the University Art Gallery through March 9. Performance—specifically the performance of Black masculinity—is at the heart of Atlanta-based artist Dr. Fahamu Pecou’s artistic practice. His compelling images invite and challenge the viewer, and work, in his words, “to subvert the gaze,” that is, to make us think about our own act of looking. All are invited to hear Pecou present his work in conversation with Emmanuel Asiedu-Acquah.

MLK Day events postponed due to inclement weather. Monday, Jan. 17, a reception celebrating the life of Martin Luther King Jr. will be held at 5:30 p.m. in Cravens Hall. It will be preceded by a concert by renowned choral ensemble Kinnara at 4 p.m. in All Saints' Chapel.

Renowned poet Nikki Giovanni will receive an honorary degree from the University during Winter Convocation on Friday, Jan. 14, and will give a reading from her work Thursday, Jan. 13, in Convocation Hall. Open to the public; masks are required.