Emory’s second Ideas Festival offers the public new perspectives

Grammy-winning country music star Rosanne Cash will deliver the keynote address on October 18 at 5 p.m. at the second Ideas Festival Emory on its Oxford College campus. Other notable speakers will be participating in forums throughout the day to promote new conversations about modern issues. Cash’s keynote will inspire people to consider the impact that artists have on their communities.

The free all-day event is offered by the college’s Center for Public Scholarship and Engagement. It was founded by psychology professor Kenneth Carter.

“It’s really a way to share knowledge with the community,” Carter said in an interview. “I think of it like a mini South by Southwest or Aspen Ideas Festival — but one that’s free for the public.”

New ideas and information should be readily available to everyone, he said.

“A lot of times, the public has a thirst for knowledge and what’s going on in the world, and we thought it would be a great way to be able to share that,” he said. “Universities are places that create and share knowledge. We were trying to do more of that by inviting the community onto our campus to hear from great speakers and artists and to have an experience like that.”

Kevin Young, the poetry editor of The New Yorker and the former director of the National Museum of African American History & Culture, will participate in a discussion with author Jessica Handler called “You Can Fall in Love in a Museum: Why Libraries and Museums Still Matter.” Young served as a professor at Emory University until 2016.

Handler, whose next novel The World to See comes out in 2026, said she hopes the conversation will show the audience that libraries, museums and archives aren’t just for academics.

“What I want to focus on with Kevin is the vitality and the central need for libraries and museums in our culture now,” she said. “I think that libraries and museums are a tool for understanding ourselves and each other. What is history if we can’t look at it and if we can’t look at the material culture that comes from it? What if it’s being kept from us? Or even if it’s not being kept from us and we’re just not using it?”

Another panel featuring Randy Gue and muralist Krista M. Jones will discuss the importance of street art to the public.

And in a discussion with musician Kim Ware and author Mickey Dubrow will explore the importance of music at times of chaos.

For a Halloween treat, Carter and artist-writer Clint Fluker will discuss the science of horror in another free panel, exploring the visceral reactions and thrills that are stirred when audiences explore scary stories.

“We are going to talk together about why he loves that genre and why I can’t watch it,” Carter said with a laugh.

He said that the audience will hopefully come away with new points of view because of Ideas Fest.

“I’m hoping they’ll get a new perspective about themselves, a new perspective about the world and be able to see that throughout all the different sessions,” he said. 

Where & When

The Ideas Festival is at Emory’s Oxford Campus on Saturday, October 18. Admission is free.
801 Emory St., Oxford, Georgia

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Benjamin Carr is an ArtsATL editor-at-large who has contributed to the publication since 2019 and is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Club and the Horror Writers Association. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and online in The Guardian. His debut novel, Impacted, was published by The Story Plant.

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