A Guide to Hiking the Liberal Arts: The Washington College Kiplin Hall Program
The Bookplate is happily continuing their popular Authors & Oysters event series at The Retriever Bar in 2023. Academy Award-Winning author Ernest Thompson featured in the most recent Authors & Oysters event on January 18th. Next up on Wednesday, February 8th at 6pm, all are invited to The Retriever to hear local author Rich Gillin present “A Guide to Hiking the Liberal Arts”.
A Guide to Hiking the Liberal Arts is the highly engaging story of an annual travel abroad experience for students at Washington College, the twelfth oldest college in the United States, and the oldest in Maryland. Fittingly, students visit Kiplin Hall, the ancestral English home of the Calvert family, who founded Maryland. From there, they explore the surrounding countryside of North Yorkshire and that of West Cork, Ireland.
Tracking the evolution of the program over twenty years, Gillin vividly details the ways in which daily hiking excursions enable students to deeply connect the experience of landscape to the study of English literature. As students push themselves physically, they are asked to consider how the specific environment informs and textures the poetry and prose they read. Moreover, the visceral struggle of climbing a mountain in cold, wet, windy weather enriches each student’s self-awareness and heightens their connection to the world at large. Students also gain a sense of personal achievement and learn first-hand how to get along with others in often difficult and uncomfortable circumstances. Ultimately, these hikes serve as touchstones that enable students to journey within and without to source tangible insight into the relationship between literature, landscape, and place.
“Professor Richard Gillin was my senior advisor and taught my English Lit-Romanticism class at Washington College, and it was such an eye-opening and interesting course. His lectures were famously popular and incredibly articulate, thought-provoking, curious, and insightful… This wonderful book on hiking is escapism for 2021.”
– Laura McIntyre, Washington College class of 1989
For more event details contact The Bookplate at 410-778-4167 or contact@thebookplate.net. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. The next Authors & Oysters event is scheduled for 3/8 with Allyson Rice. All events are held in the back room of The Retriever, located at 337 ½ High Street in Chestertown, Maryland.
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.