Common Read

Since 2009. Bringing campus and community members together around a common text and its themes.

12/24/2024

We hope you're still engaging with this year's Common Read, "The Invention of Wings." Each week, we will be sharing a discussion question from author Sue Monk Kidd's online discussion guide to help you dive deeper into this year's reading.

Kidd portrays an array of male characters in the novel: Sarah's father, Sarah's brother Thomas, Theodore Weld, Denmark Vesey, Goodis Grimke, Israel Morris, Burke Williams. Some of them are men of their time, some are ahead of their time. Which of these male characters did you find most compelling? What positive and negative roles did they play in Sarah and Handful's evolvement?

12/17/2024

We hope you're still engaging with this year's Common Read, "The Invention of Wings." Each week, we will be sharing a discussion question from author Sue Monk Kidd's online discussion guide to help you dive deeper into this year's reading.

Contrast Handful's relationship with her mother with the relationship between Sarah and the elder Mary Grimke. How are the two younger women formed - and malformed - by their mothers?

12/10/2024

We hope you're still engaging with this year's Common Read, "The Invention of Wings." Each week, we will be sharing a discussion question from author Sue Monk Kidd's online discussion guide to help you dive deeper into this year's reading.

What are some of the examples of Handful's wit and sense of irony, and how do they help her cope with the burdens of slavery?

12/03/2024

We hope you'll continue engaging with this year's Common Read, "The Invention of Wings." Each week, we will be sharing a discussion question from author Sue Monk Kidd's online reading guide to help you dive deeper into this year's reading.

Some of the staunchest enemies of slavery believed the time had not yet come for women's rights and pressured Sarah and Angelina to desist from the cause, fearing it would split the cause of abolition. How do you think the sisters should have responded to their demand? At the end of the novel, Sarah asks, "Is it ever right to sacrifice one's truth for expedience?"

11/26/2024

We hope you'll continue engaging with this year's Common Read, "The Invention of Wings." Each week, we will be posting a discussion question from author Sue Monk Kidd's website to help you dive deeper into this year's reading.

How would you describe Sarah and Angelina's unusual bond? Do you think either one of them could have accomplished what they did on their own? Have you known women who experienced this sort of relationship as sisters?

11/19/2024

We hope you'll continue engaging with this year's Common Read, "The Invention of Wings." Each week, we will be posting a discussion question from author Sue Monk Kidd's website to help you dive deeper into this year's reading.

Were you aware of the role that Sarah and Angelina Grimke played in abolition and women's rights? Have women's achievements in history been lost or overlooked? What do you think it takes to be a reformer today?

11/12/2024

We hope you'll continue engaging with this year's Common Read, "The Invention of Wings." Each week, we will be posting a discussion question from author Sue Monk Kidd's website to help you dive deeper into this year's reading.

Are there ways in which Kidd's novel can help us see our own lives differently? How is this story relevant for us today?

11/11/2024

Happy Veterans Day, and thank you to our faculty, staff, students, alumni, friends, community members, and all those who have served and continue to serve.

11/05/2024

We hope you'll continue engaging with this year's Common Read, "The Invention of Wings." Each week, we will be posting a discussion question from author Sue Monk Kidd's website to help you dive deeper into this year's reading.

The story "The Invention of Wings" includes a number of physical objects that have a special significance for the characters: Sarah's fleur de lis button, Charlotte's story quilt, the rabbit-head cane that Handful receives from Goodis, and the spirit tree. Choose one or more of these objects and discuss/reflect on their significance in the novel.

11/03/2024

Instagram takeover! Explore our chosen themes through selected works from the our friends at the South Dakota Art Museum.

Loyalty: Oscar Howe, "The Council," n.d. casein on paper. SDAM Collection, 1980.05.01. Transfer from Bureau of Indian Affairs.

How do we express loyalty? Throughout his whole life, Yanktonai artist Oscar Howe used his Dakota heritage to provide subject matter for his works, depicting Native American traditions through a modernist aesthetic painting style. Howe was on the cutting edge of his generation in the exploration of ways to break out of the stereotypes imposed on Indian artists, while still seeking contemporary ways to communicate Indian values and ideas.

His work has since provided inspiration for generations of Indigenous artists. “This is our art,” Howe once said, “and here is where we are making our last stand. . . . The least we can do is to fight this last battle, that Indian Culture may live forever.”

10/29/2024

We hope you'll continue engaging with this year's Common Read "The Invention of Wings." Each week, we will be sharing a prompt to help you dive into the reading a bit more. Each prompt comes from the author Sue Monk Kidd's website.

In what ways does Sarah struggle against the dictates of her family, society, and religion? Can you related to her need to break away from the life she had in order to create a new and unknown life? What sort of risk and courage does this call for?

10/27/2024

Theme spotlight: last but not least, LOYALTY...

definition: a strong feeling of allegiance; the quality of being loyal - giving or showing firm and constant support to a person, institution, or idea.

"Wherever me and Sky were, that's the only place mauma would be."
-Hetty "Handful" Grimke, The Invention of Wings

We'll explore LOYALTY further with our final Art Museum takeover next week!

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Brookings, SD

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