LEWISTON — The Maine Humanities Council will present an evening reception and discussion at 5 p.m. Thursday, June 12, at the Lewiston Public Library.

Anna Sims Bartel will speak on “Feeding the Human Animal, or Reflections on Some U.S. Agrarian Novels.”

“What is the point of reading novels?” Bartel asks. “To better understand the world, of course. To see ourselves in different lights, in different places, in different relationships. To imagine other ways of being and to try out other ways of seeing.

“The process of living, then, demands the novel. And the process of living wisely and well, in ways that feed us and sustain the world we depend upon, demands the agrarian novel.”

The Maine Humanities Council invites participants to explore critical insights from a selection of U.S. agrarian novels that negotiate how we feed — or don’t — the fullness of ourselves. Bartel’s talk and her facilitated discussion will include light refreshments.

Anna Sims Bartel is a consultant, parent, teacher and writer. She has taught and built programs for campus-community partnerships and community-based teaching and research at Cornell University, Wartburg College and Bates College.

Her AB and PhD are both in comparative literature, from Princeton and Cornell respectively, though her work has centered broadly on making higher education useful in the world.

She parents two young boys; works as a consultant to build and strengthen organizations in a variety of ways; serves as vice chairwoman of the board of Community Concepts Inc.; serves on the editorial board of the national Journal for Community Engagement and Scholarship; and leads a number of projects in public humanities and civil discourse for the Maine Humanities Council, including Let’s Talk Local, Let’s Talk About It and New Books, New Readers.

The Maine Humanities Council is an independent, statewide, nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the people of Maine deepen their understanding of themselves, their communities and the world.