Spirit & Place

Annual Indianapolis event will focus on the opportunities and risks of ‘Breaking Silence’

Gordon

Hooks

Sanders

The theme will be examined in public venues that relate in diverse ways to the arts and humanities, religion and spirituality, and as a civic response. Workshops meant to engage the community in the theme will be held throughout the festival. “Breaking silence” will be examined in the context of an acknowledgment of a hidden truth or a lesser-known aspect of spiritual, artistic or cultural histories. The premise? The breaking of any silence is a risk in support of a belief, value or cause.

Three nationally recognized commentators who have “committed the act of breaking silence,” through their work and through their views of the world, will discuss the consequences of speaking out and coming to terms with the information revealed. They also will discuss what silences should not be broken, the “open secret” that is known but unspoken.

Novelist Mary Gordon, journalist Barbara Ehren-reich, and poet and critic bell hooks will meet for a “conversation,” moderated by IU writer and Distinguished Professor of English Scott Russell Sanders at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 3, at Clowes Memorial Hall in Indianapolis.

The conversation is free, but an admission ticket is required. For information, call the Polis Center at 317-274-2455 or go to this Web site:

http://www.spiritandplace.org/