Lamplight Conversations celebrate the intellectual curiosity that is the hallmark of the Honors College. We bring friends, acquaintances, and strangers together to discuss a wide range of topics, in the process cultivating our humanity through curiosity

and conversation. Led by experts in a casual setting, these conversations include a culinary adventure meant to spark your taste buds as well as your brain.

The city of Mobile sits along the Mobile–Tensaw River Delta, the largest river delta and among the most extraordinary biologically diverse sites in North America. In the north, the delta starts at the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers, and then moves south through the Mobile, Tensaw, Apalachee, Middle, Blakeley, and Spanish Rivers. Mobile native and renowned biologist E. O. Wilson has said “It is arguably the biologically richest place,” and calls it America’s Amazon.

Our theme, “Delta as Place, Delta as Change,” highlights the experience of change through place, culture, and time. In mathematics, the Greek letter “Delta” indicates change.

As the theme of Lamplight Conversations, this phrase highlights the complexities of the river delta next door through topics that address this theme, extending from Africatown to Liberia, from poetry to prose, from the courts to the causeway.

Our hope is to cultivate not only curiosity, but also what philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, writer of the New York Times “Ethicist” column, calls the “endless shared conversation” of friendship that creates foundation for social and cultural understanding. As we talk, we cast our lamplight not only on the topics, but also on our varied heritages, cultures, and experiences.