Nan Goodman, University of Colorado Boulder professor of English, will lead a discussion about Anne Hutchinson and her famous colonial banishment at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 10 at the Louisville Library, 951 Spruce Street.
Known as a Puritan rebel, Anne Hutchinson was famously tried before secular and religious courts where she was banned from Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 and excommunicated from the church. As part of her modern-day legacy, Hutchinson is seen as a symbolic leader of religious freedoms and women’s rights.
The library program, entitled “Anne Hutchinson and Banishment,” is free and open to the public. Goodman will answer the questions: why was Hutchinson banished and what defense did she mount against her persecutors?
“In this talk, I will answer these questions through an exploration of the trial transcript from Hutchinson’s first secular trial and a discussion of banishment in early New England in general,” she said.
Goodman is the author of the book “Banished: Common Law and the Rhetoric of Social Exclusion in Early New England,” which looks at the law and rhetoric enacted by 17th Century New England Puritans who were themselves exiled from one society, but who ruthlessly invoked the law of banishment in colonial society.
The April 10 program is jointly sponsored by the Louisville Public Library and the CU-Boulder Office for University Outreach as part of a series called CU at the Library. It is one of many public programs offered through CU-Boulder partnerships with local libraries. For more information about CU at the Library, visit http://conted.colorado.edu/library/.
-CU-Boulder Office for University Outreach-