The Common Read is a program designed to engage the university and Moscow community, its students, staff, faculty and community members, in a unified intellectual activity. For first-year students it introduces them to academic expectations, respectful discourse, and community building. The Common Read is supported by the Judith M. Runstad Lecture Series, which sponsors a keynote address by the author of the Common Read, or someone closely associated with the book.
The Common Read book is available for purchase through the U of I VandalStore and for check out at the University of Idaho Library.
The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon
In The Small and the Mighty, Sharon McMahon proves that the most remarkable Americans are often ordinary people who didn’t make it into the textbooks. Not the presidents, but the telephone operators. Not the aristocrats, but the schoolteachers. Through meticulous research, she discovers history’s unsung characters and brings their rich, riveting stories to light for the first time.
You’ll meet a woman astride a white horse riding down Pennsylvania Ave, a young boy detained at a Japanese incarceration camp, a formerly enslaved woman on a mission to reunite with her daughter, a poet on a train, and a teacher who learns to work with her enemies. More than one thing is bombed, and multiple people surprisingly become rich. Some rich with money, and some wealthy with things that matter more.
This is a book about what really made America – and Americans – great. McMahon’s cast of improbable champions will become familiar friends, lighting the path we journey in our quest to make the world more just, peaceful, good, and free.
~ from Penguin Random House
Sharon McMahon is a former high school government and law teacher who earned a reputation as “America’s Government Teacher” amidst the historic 2020 election proceedings for her viral efforts on Instagram to educate the general public on political misinformation. Through a simple mission to share non-partisan information about democracy, Sharon has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers online, affectionately called the “Governerds,” who look to her for truth and logic in a society plagued by bias and conspiracy.
~ text from Penguin Random House, photo from Facebook
This year’s University of Idaho Common Read kickoff event is set for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16, in the Vandal Ballroom of the Bruce M. Pitman Center.
The event is free and open to the public. English Professor Erin James will give the keynote address. Members of the University of Idaho community can use their UI credentials to register to attend the event via Zoom: https://uidaho.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0odeqgrj0iGNZZ6mSYkqucMbDvWHAjCyW_
James studies how we access new worlds through literature to foster positive environmental change. Combining narratology and ecocriticism into a theory she calls econarratology, James believes this approach to literature can help solve tough environmental problems. Her debut book, “The Storyworld Accord: Econarratology and Postcolonial Narratives,” dives into the fusion of ecocriticism, postcolonialism and narrative theory, earning accolades like the International Society for the Study of Narrative’s Perkins Prize for Best Book in Narrative Studies. Her second book, “Narrative in the Anthropocene,” further explores storytelling’s role in the climate crisis.
Teaching with the Common Read Brown Bag Series
The "Teaching with the Common Read Brown Bag Series" will cover topics related to integrating the Common Read into classes across disciplines. Collaborating with peers from different colleges, participants will leave the sessions with ideas for using the Common Read in their classes.
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