Spotlight

Free Discussion About Friendship in a Changing World

Friendship is a foundational relationship in human life and society. Some of us of us have friends we have known for many years while others of us form new and intimate friendships throughout our lives. There are different kinds of friendships as well, including, as Aristotle noted some twenty-five centuries ago, friendships of pleasure, utility, and virtue. Some people call anyone with whom they have regular contact a friend, while others reserve the term for a very particular kind of relationship. Has the idea of friendship changed in contemporary society, especially given the role that social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace play in creating and maintaining friendships today?

This is the focus of "Friend Me? Notions of Friendship in a Changing World" - a free conversation with Oregon State University professors Courtney Campbell and Lani Roberts on Saturday, February 6^th at 2:00 p.m. at the Sherwood Library. This program is hosted by the Library and sponsored by Oregon Humanities (formerly Oregon Council for the Humanities) as part of the statewide Conversation Project: A New Chautauqua. Through the Conversation Project program, Oregon Humanities (OH) offers statewide opportunities for civic dialogue and humanities learning with an emphasis on discussing contemporary issues through interactive, facilitated conversations.

Campbell is Hundere Chair in Religion and Culture and professor of philosophy at Oregon State University. His primary teaching and research interests focus on ethical issues in medicine, concepts of peace and war, theories of death and dying, and comparative religious ethics. Roberts is a fifth-generatin Oregonian who grew up near The Dalles in a house her great-great grandfather built in 1868. She has been teaching philosophy at Oregon State University since 1989.

"How I Quit My Day Job and Became a Killer and a Thief" with April Henry

Join us at the Sherwood Library on Thursday, February 25^th at 6:30 p.m. for a fun and informational evening with local, award-winning author April Henry.

Excerpted from www.aprilhenrymysteries.com:

Noted author Roald Dahl helped April Henry take her first step as a writer. When April was eleven, she sent the famous children's author a short story about a frog who loved penut butter. The day he received it, Dahl had lunch with the editor of an international children's magazine and read her the story. She contacted April and asked to publish it.

April's first book, Circles of Confusion, was short-listed for the Agatha Award and the Anthony Award, and was nominated for the Pacific Northwest Bookseller's Award...Other books in the Claire Montrose series are Square in the Face, Heart-Shaped Box, and Buried Diamonds...The stand-alone thriller Learning to Fly was April's fourth book...Shock Point, April's first young-adult thriller, was published by Putnam in 2006...Her next young-adult book, Torched, a thriller about a girl who goes undercover in an environmental extremist group, was published in March 2009.

April lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and daughter and writes full time. Previous jobs include working in public relations, and as a German translator, cook, housekeeper, hospital admitting clerk, life drawing model, and a brief stint as the girl who jumps out of a cake.