“The Titanic”

“The Titanic” April 30 at Camden Public Library

For the final event in the Camden Public Library’s “Maritime Month” speaker series, Dr. Erin Bishop will present an illustrated talk on “Titanic: A Century of Myth and Memory,” on Thursday evening, April 30, at 7:00 pm. On April 15, 1912, the luxury ocean liner Titanic on her maiden voyage to New York City, struck an iceberg and sank into the cold North Atlantic. Now just over 100 years old, the story of Titanic, as riveting today as it was in 1912, cannot break its hold on our collective psyche.

Bishop asks, “If you were on the Titanic, would you be a survivor?” Mark the anniversary of this event with a 90-minute exploration of the cultural significance of this tragedy and learn how Titanic began a “contest over meaning,” a contest very much alive today, linking problems, tensions, and conflicts of the past 100 years to a disaster that took the lives of some 1500 people on a cold night in April 1912. It is not how or why she struck an iceberg and sunk. It is the hold she still has over us. Therein lies a powerful story.

Erin I. Bishop, PhD, is a Museum Consultant with over fifteen year’s experience in Museum Education, Exhibits, and Interpretive Programming, and the founder of Clio, a firm specializing in interpretative development, educational programming, historic research, and commemorative event planning. She serves as the Director of the Association of Maine Archives and Museums, a membership organization of some 300+ collecting institutions throughout Maine.