Beyond 250: Find Your Conversation

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...

The Antidote to Despair Is Finding our Role in Community Building Hyperlocal organizing, mutual aid and community care can help transform political despair into collective action.

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...

Stories that Change Us with Colum McCann and Nelson High School Students In this episode we hear from Colum McCann, a National Book Award–winning novelist and cofounder of Narrative 4, a nonprofit organization that uses personal storytelling to build empathy between young ...

"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/...

Beyond 250: Conversations About Democracy and Community Throughout 2026, Oregon Humanities will get Oregonians together to talk about democracy, freedom, and what it means to be an American—today and into the future.

Learn more about how to bring this conversation to your community. oregonhumanities.org/programs/con...

Aron Klein leads Democracy in Motion, a Beyond 250 community conversation that explores these questions and more, inviting us to reflect on how transportation fosters participation and how it could be improved.

🚌 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?

What Democracy Needs with Hélène Landemore A conversation with political theorist Hélène Landemore on what democracy must become to meet the complexity, speed, and scale of today’s world.

Come and hear Hélène discuss citizens' assemblies and other ways to build a better democracy tonight at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland.

Join us in person—or online via livestream—starting at 7 p.m.!
oregonhumanities.org/programs/con...

Opinion | No Shy Person Left Behind

"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...

Bend’s Ellen Waterston will serve a second term as Oregon’s Poet Laureate Governor Tina Kotek has appointed Ellen Waterston of Bend to a second term as Poet Laureate of Oregon.

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...

What would you add to this list?

The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant Research professor Brené Brown and organizational psychologist Adam Grant are partnering on a new weekly podcast grounded in an unflinching commitment to learning and unlearning. At a time when public...

BONUS: The Curiosity Shop podcast with Adam Grant and Brené Brown

www.youtube.com/@thecuriosit...

High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley
www.amandaripley.com/high-conflict

Priya Parker Books — Priya Parker The Art of Gathering is a highly acclaimed best selling book by Priya Parker on how to transform our gatherings from lackluster and unproductive to ones full of connection and purpose. And coming Sept...

The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict (forthcoming in fall 2026) by Priya Parker
www.priyaparker.com/priya-parker...

Loving Corrections (2024) by adrienne maree brown

www.akpress.org/loving-corre...

From Conflict to Community: Transforming Conflict Without Authorities (2022) by Gwendolyn Olton

microcosmpublishing.com/blog/2022/12...

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:

Beyond 250: Conversations About Democracy and Community Throughout 2026, Oregon Humanities will get Oregonians together to talk about democracy, freedom, and what it means to be an American—today and into the future.

For the next several weeks, we're going inside our Beyond 250 conversations in a new online series we're calling Conversation Starters.

Follow along to explore questions, meet the facilitators getting people talking, and hear from those who've participated.

oregonhumanities.org/programs/con...

Beyond 250 is a special lineup of sixteen conversations, each led by a trained facilitator, where people can share, listen, and think together about the future of our democracy and communities.

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...

Thanks for the shoutout!

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...

When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities

Recent court discoveries show how DOGE officials used ChatGPT to determine which grants to cancel, bypassing Congressional authority and raising concerns over viewpoint discrimination.

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/a...

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...

How to Move About the World with Meg Wade Meg Wade rarely drives. There are, in Meg's view, so many other ways to move about in the world, and most or all of these other modes—walking, taking the bus, taking the train, and more—have a lot to ...

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/...

Why Print? <p>For the past several years, there’s been talk of a “print revival”—but did print ever really go away? Join local independent and nonprofit Portland publishers for a conversation about the role of p...

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...