WWI Speaker Series: Janice Harrington

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What did it mean to be an African American soldier in the front line trenches of World War I? How did one soldier use art and memory to heal wounds and remove the emotional shrapnel left by war? Join us for an audience-driven discussion of the art and war experiences of Horace Pippin, led by Janice N. Harrington. Participants will study Pippin's art and review his life with Harrington, author of Primitive: The Art and Life of Horace H. Pippin.

Janice N. Harrington’s first book of poems, Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone, won the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and the Kate Tufts Poetry Award. Her other collections are The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing Home (Boa Editions, 2011) and Primitive: The Art and Life of Horace H. Pippin (Boa Editions, 2016). Her recognitions include a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship for Poetry and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award for emerging women writers. Her children’s books The Chicken Chasing Queen of Lamar County and Going North have won many awards and citations, including a listing among TIME Magazine’s top 10 children’s books. A former public librarian, she now teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Illinois.

This event is part of our World War I Speaker Series that runs from September 2017 to December 2018. 

Series Schedule:

November 7, 7pm - Bill Kemp on McLean County Home Front During World War I

January 18, 7pm - Paul Holsinger on Normal and Illinois State Normal University during the war years

January 30, 7pm - Mike Matejka on the history of transportation in Normal and its ramifications on the war effort

February 27, 7pm - Janice Harrington on the art and war experiences of Horace J. Pippin

March 4, 2pm - Mark Wyman on Normal in the WWI era

November 8, 7pm - Bill Davison & Ruth Cobb on local community gardening and food needs during the Great War