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/...

We're mentioned in Jill Lepore's recent New Yorker story on how cultural + historical orgs are programming around the nation's 250th anniversary—amid sweeping funding cuts, censorship, and more. The piece describes our Beyond250 series as "one of the better stories." tinyurl.com/y5byba9u

We're accepting pitches and feature-length submissions from Oregon writers for our Spring issue, Labor. Looking for: essays, journalism, and criticism between 1,500 and 4,000 words. Pay is $750–1,500, depending on length and complexity. Read more: oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine...

Are you ready for test your knowledge of Portland's literary scene? Hope to see you tomorrow at Dear Sandy!

The energy was electric for our first Consider This of the season! You all really showed UP in Portland and at watch parties in La Grande, Salem, and Clatskanie. Thanks to everyone who joined and to Akhil for an in-depth, important conversation. Catch it in full: www.youtube.com/live/BiX5PGR...

Tonight! We're looking forward to tonight's conversation with constitutional law scholar Akhil Reed Amar. The Portland event has sold out, but you can still join our free live stream—or one of our watch parties in La Grande, Clatskanie, and Salem. oregonhumanities.org/programs/con...

Less than a week to go until our new #ConsiderThis series kicks off with Akhil Reed Amar! We'll explore what the notion of equality has meant for our laws, history, and national identity—and consider how we strive toward this ideal today. Learn more: oregonhumanities.org/programs/con...

In a recent episode of his podcast ,"Amarica’s Constitution," @akhilreedamar.bsky.social dives into the question of whether major tariffs are constitutional—drawing on history, legal precedent, and the text of the Constitution itself. akhilamar.com/podcast-2/

Attn book + trivia nerds 📚 We're teaming up with Buckman Publishing for a night of local literary trivia in Portland. Come celebrate our region's storied history and win bookish prizes! Organized in partnership with Literary Arts' Cover to Cover series. oregonhumanities.org/events/liter...

Tomorrow in Corvallis, our executive director Adam Davis will host a panel discussion, The Future of Indigenous Food in the Kalapuya Ilihi, part of the Champinefu Lecture Series at OSU's PRAx. Free and open to all: prax.oregonstate.edu/events/champ...

"Our written constitution, though far from perfect, remains the basis of our republic, but that terse text will not save us. Without a national narrative, our republic cannot long endure.” A recent essay from author and constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar: www.thefp.com/p/the-consti...

We loved seeing our 2024 Community Storytelling Fellow Sarah Fox and her fellowship project—The Watershed Rock Opera—featured in a recent article for @sierraclub.org magazine! www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2025-...

We're excited to share several local watch parties for our first Consider This conversation of the season! On October 27, join folks in La Grande, Clatskanie, and Salem for a live screening of our onstage conversation with Akhil Reed Amar: Details: oregonhumanities.org/programs/con...

Theater artist and educator Paul Susi spends his evenings and weekends helping people recover lost driver’s licenses and birth certificates. In the "Real" issue, he writes about what it takes to navigate the bureaucratic maze of legal documentation. oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine...

Now online: Natchee Barnd investigates how public art installations around Oregon are engaging in Indigenous Placekeeping. oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine...

"What does it mean to routinely move through the places we live in a machine designed to encourage escapism?" In the "Real" issue, Meg Wade explains how car culture has led to the erasure of public transit in rural Oregon, disconnecting people in the process. oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine...

In 1978, the company-owned logging town of Kinzua closed for good. “It was like your family died,” says Marilyn Garcia, born there in 1939. In our new issue, Bennett Hall shares how a volunteer-run golf course keeps the memory of this remote community alive. oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine...

In our latest issue, Jamila Osman examines how a 2010 FBI sting operation led to the imprisonment of 19-year-old Mohamed Mohamud and left behind a legacy of grief, suspicion, and fractured trust that still lingers in Oregon’s Somali community—her own—today. oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine...