From Homer to #hashtags: Our Changing Language

Program Type:

Speaker or Forum

Age Group:

Adults, Seniors
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Program Description

Event Details

Though always evolving, language is undergoing an unprecedented shift, thanks to the digital age. Emojis, tweets, and hashtags are transforming how we write and converse. Some might argue that language has been diminished, but just as Homer’s epic Odyssey made sense of ancient Greece, a tweet can distill a feeling, a thought, or an idea.

Poet Christine Hemp explores these new forms of communication, connecting them with the language of the past. How do changes in language affect the way we think and feel about our world, our history, and ourselves?

Christine Hemp is an author, poet, essayist and art critic. She received her BA in Humanities from Willamette University and an MA in English from Middlebury College. Hemp is the recipient of a Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship for Literature and teaches poetry and nonfiction at Hugo House in Seattle. A poem of hers has traveled over 1.5 billion miles on a NASA mission to monitor the birth of stars. Her newly released memoir, WILD RIDE HOME: Love, Loss, and a Little White Horse, takes place on the Olympic Peninsula.

This program is made possible by Humanities Washington’s Speakers Bureau, which receives funding from the Secretary of State's Office.  For more information about Speakers Bureau, please visit https://www.humanities.org/program/speakers-bureau/.

This is an online event. To join you will need a computer, tablet or phone with a camera and microphone. The link to join the event will be emailed to registrants.  A phone number will be included to allow you to use a phone as speaker and microphone, if necessary.

Note

Library events and programs are open to the public and provided at no cost. Special accommodations may be requested using our Disability Accommodation Request Form no later than 15 days prior to the event.

Los eventos y programas de la biblioteca están abiertos al público y se brindan sin costo. Se pueden solicitar adaptaciones especiales utilizando nuestro formulario de solicitud de adaptaciones para personas con discapacidades (en inglés) hasta 15 días antes del evento.