Let's get into it... The next installment of our Tough Shit conversation series is on for July 8! Join us at the Tomorrow Theatre with cultural and civic leaders JT Flowers, Kayla Kennett, and Sankar Raman—plus a fourth guest to be announced. Tickets and info: tomorrowtheater.org/movies/tough...

The Portland Indie Book & Art Fair is this Saturday—and we'll be there slinging (free) issues of our magazine from 11-6! We'd love to see you there!

Can reading about class struggle help us build a better world? Join us June 24 to read and discuss short pieces by working-class writers, facilitated by contributor Nicholas Hengen Fox. 🕒 6:00 p.m. 📍 Bold Coffee & Books Portland Free/No registration oregonhumanities.org/events/readi...

We always love seeing how our partners across the country describe the work of the public humanities. This piece from our friends at Humanities New York gets right to the heart of what we do and why. www.humanitiesny.org/news-stories...

We're so excited to announce the recipients of our first Humanities Action Fellowship! This fellowship supports young adults in developing or facilitating public humanities programs in their communities. Learn more: oregonhumanities.org/programs/fel...

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye joins us for the final Consider This conversation of the season this Thursday. The event is sold out, but you can watch live on YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/cc7NzEEnrug

Congratulations to Sarah Fox, whose Watershed Rock Opera recently won an Oregon Heritage Award of Excellence. Fox was an OH Community Storytelling Fellow in 2025. Read about the project: https://www.oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/currents-winter-2025/channeling-the-stories-of-the-local-watershed/

Is there any idea, any value, or any vision for the future we care about enough to commit ourselves to one another in its pursuit? To What Do We Pledge? is a Beyond 250 conversation facilitated by Wendy Willis. Learn how you can request it in your community: https://ow.ly/KNvy50YLpGk

Congratulations—and thank you!—to the team at Tonkon Torp LLP who were honored by the Multnomah Bar for their work holding the federal government to its commitment to fund humanities councils. https://tonkon.com/news/oregon-humanities-team-at-tonkon-torp-honored-with-mba-pro-bono-award-of-merit/

Last week, a federal court ruled that the cancellation of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities led by DOGE in 2025 was unlawful. This decision doesn't directly affect Oregon Humanities. We are plaintiffs in a separate lawsuit against the NEH and DOGE, which is still ongoing.

A poem from Oregon Poet Laureate Ellen Waterston, to close out this National Poetry Month. More from Ellen: https://www.writingranch.com/

Join us this Thursday for a conversation with labor organizers Reyna López and Ramón Ramírez and historian Joaquín Lara Midkiff. https://oregonhumanities.org/programs/consider-this/consider-this-labor-farmworker-organizing-and-histories-of-indigenous-communities-in-oregon/

Historian Joaquín Lara Midkiff considers how Indigenous farmworkers have shaped the history and environment of the Pacific Northwest. Now in our spring issue: https://oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/labor-spring-2026/a-place-of-no-nostalgia/

"We focus on the diversity of experiences that have always made up the working class—but haven’t always been part of the conversation about being working class." A new essay on reading working class literature: https://oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/labor-spring-2026/working-class-literature/

In a photo essay for our "Labor" issue, Lindsay Trapnell reflects on the fifteen-year process of trying to have a child with her wife, Melissa. https://oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/labor-spring-2026/trying/

Fatou Ouattara opened one of Portland's only West African restaurants. Anne Johnson brought Kenyan tea culture to Beaverton. Bright Alozie shares how their businesses act as forms of cultural stewardship. Read more: https://oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/labor-spring-2026/flavors-of-home/

Nearly 40% of U.S. newsrooms have closed in the past 20 years. In Oregon, a handful of one-person newsrooms are filling in the gap. In our spring issue, Branden Anderson talks to the solo journalists doing the work of an entire newsroom. Online now: https://ow.ly/uTNo50YLmYi

This Friday, we're taking over the Tomorrow Theater a candid conversation with Leah Sottile, Jonathan Maus, Kimiko Matsuda, and Heart Free Pham—four people who care a whole lot about Portland. Tickets here: https://tomorrowtheater.org/movies/tough-shit-with-oregon-humanities-2/

Women have fought for space in construction trades. Casey Chaffin shares stories from Oregon women building community and training the next generation. Now in our spring issue: https://oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/labor-spring-2026/womens-work/

In “Knowing the Water,” Caitlin Dwyer joins a pilot and the crew of a bulk carrier to learn what it’s like to do this very specific job. Read the story in our spring issue, out now: https://oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/labor-spring-2026/knowing-the-water/

Last month, Oregon Poet Laureate Ellen Waterston gathered in Carson, Nevada, with poets laureate from nine Western states to explore what it means to be an artist right now. Hear Nevada Poet Laureate Shaun Griffin reflect on the common humanity shared that day: open.substack.com/pub/awriters...

Do you have experience in editorial or publication design? Come work with us! We are hiring a contract art director who will work with our editorial team to design and art direct Oregon Humanities magazine.

Our Beyond 250 series features sixteen different conversations to choose from—which ones are right for your community? We've put together a short quiz with seven questions to help match your community's interests and concerns to conversations in our catalog. oregonhumanities.org/programs/con...

Thanks to our board chair Kerani Mitchell for reminding us that we don't need to look far to find inspiration, hope, people making a difference, and a path to join in. msmagazine.com/2026/04/01/c...

"If the theme is repair, the process to achieve repair is through storytelling, but even more than storytelling—story listening." Our latest podcast episode explores the meaning of other people's stories with author Colum McCann and local high school students. oregonhumanities.org/rll/podcast/...

🚌 How does the transportation system where you live shape your community, and vice versa? And how would you say it reflects our society's values or our democracy?

"Our current system routinely entrusts complex decisions to elected officials, on the basis of their confidence, ambition, and visibility. Citizens' assemblies create groups...where the value of humility & listening is privileged." A new op-ed from Hélène Landemore: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/o...

It's National Poetry Month, and a fitting time to celebrate our wonderful poet laureate Ellen Waterston being appointed for a second term. Learn about Ellen's upcoming projects involving public poetry installations and a youth anthology: www.klcc.org/news-briefs/...

Tomorrow! We hope you'll join us for a conversation on how faith communities in Oregon are adapting church-owned land & buildings to meet emerging community needs. Join us in person in La Grande, at our Salem watch party, or stream it online from anywhere! oregonhumanities.org/programs/con...

Our Beyond 250 conversation Softening Sharp Teeth: Getting Curious About Conflict explores the patterns and histories we bring to conflict and what's possible when we approach it with curiosity. Looking for other voices on this subject? Here are four books (+ a podcast) on conflict:

This year, all around the state, we're bringing people together to discuss democracy, freedom, and what it means to be an American, today and into the future.

Attention Oregon nonprofits 🚨 Our Public Program Grants are open to applications now through April 3! Learn more about this opportunity supporting cultural and community-based programs + events around the state: www.oregonhumanities.org/programs/gra...

Consider This is heading to La Grande! Join us March 31 at hq for a conversation on how faith communities across the state are adapting church-owned land and buildings to meet emerging community needs. Learn more: hq.eventive.org/schedule/698...

Last April, in addition to uniformly cancelling funding to all fifty-six state humanities councils, the National Endowment for the Humanities, under the direction of DOGE, abruptly terminated nearly all individual grants—over one thousand in total. [cont'd]

Join us this Staturday for a special screening of this new short documentary, highlighting stories of Mayan Americans in Oregon. A Q&A with filmmakers Caty Lucas and Elizabeth Lucas-Lucas will follow.

Announcing the Humanities Action Fellowship—a new opportunity for Oregonians ages 18–25 interested in designing and leading public humanities projects in their communities! Learn more, share, and apply! oregonhumanities.org/programs/fel...

FREE SCREENING: Join filmmakers Caty Lucas and Elizabeth Lucas-Lucas for a screening of their new documentary "El Camino de los Pueblos Maya a Oregon," featuring stories of Mayan Americans and their journeys to the US. 3/7 at the Clinton Street Theater RSVP: oregonhumanities.org/events/scree...

Do you consider driving a car to be a collective act? Meg Wade does. In this month’s episode of #TheDetour, we talk w/ Meg about forms of transit—and how our personal choices can have far-reaching impacts on our wider communities and possibly our democracy. oregonhumanities.org/rll/podcast/...

Next week in Portland, we're bringing together editors and designers from local independent magazines to talk about print media, storytelling, and community building. Join us! Feb. 16 Why Print? Panel discussion + mixer 7:00 | Mother Foucault's Bookshop oregonhumanities.org/events/why-p...

Still a few tickets left to our very first 'Tough Shit' event, tonight at the Tomorrow Theater. We're looking forward to getting into some tough questions, together.

Four Oregon artists have been named Fields Artist Fellows, each receiving $150,000 over two years to advance their creative practice and deepen their community impact. • Amber Kay Ball (Portland) • Yanely Rivas Maldonado (Salem) • Talilo Marfil (Portland) • Ernesto Javier Martínez (Eugene) +more

On Friday, January 23, we're gathering for Tough Shit, an onstage conversation about the most challenging questions Portlanders are facing. Join us at 7:00 p.m. at PAM CUT Tomorrow Theater. Tickets + info: tomorrowtheater.org/movies/tough...

This month on The Detour, we're talking with Akhil Reed Amar about equality and the Constitution: what it means, where we live up to our hopes and where we fall short, and how understandings of equality have changed throughout our nation's history. Listen here: oregonhumanities.org/rll/podcast/...

It was me! As we digest more and more incredibly shitty news, I wrote this for @oregonhumanities.org as an offering for each of us to take in and learn all that we can from the resiliency of the ocean.

At the end of a challenging year, our staff shares a few of the conversations, stories, and moments that stood out from our work, helped us think differently, and strengthened our sense of community. Thanks for being part of our work in 2025. oregonhumanities.cmail19.com/t/t-e-wlkdhu...

We were thrilled to hear the news this week that two essays published in Oregon Humanities magazine were listed among the "Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2024" in the most recent 'Best American Essays' anthology.

Throughout 2026, Oregon Humanities will get Oregonians together to talk about democracy, freedom, and what it means to be an American—now and into the future. We’re offering sixteen facilitated conversations, open to communities around the state. Learn more: oregonhumanities.org/programs/con...

The High Desert Museum is launching the Schnitzer Prize of the West, a new annual prize awarding $50K to an individual or small group whose work addresses environmental & conservation challenges of the American West. Nominations are open through 1/30/26. highdesertmuseum.org/schnitzer-pr...

In our newest issue, now online, Dawn Marie Knopf traces the growth of the US highway network that disrupted communities and displaced thousands—and asks whether it can be made more humane. oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine...

Traveling over the next few days? Cue up a few episodes of This Place, our short podcast featuring audio postcards from around the state, spoken by the people who live there. Here's where we've been so far this year: oregonhumanities.org/rll/podcast/...