In 2016, Tania June Sammons — Senior Curator at the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, and recipient of the 2014 Kahlil Gibran International Award — taught an eight-week course exploring the extraordinary life of Mary Haskell Minis: the woman who shaped, funded, and spiritually sustained the writing of The Prophet.
Kahlil Gibran Collective · 16 September 2016
Tania June Sammons — Senior Curator, Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia.
Writer and curator Tania Sammons taught an eight-week course exploring how Mary Haskell Minis — The Prophet's devoted patron, editor, and muse — transcended her southern roots, her cultivated New England lifestyle, and the gender limitations of her era to influence world history.
As patron, educator, and traveller, Mary Haskell Minis engaged the lofty goal "to make or mar the cosmos" through her financial and editorial support of artist-writer Kahlil Gibran, whose work The Prophet became one of the most influential texts of the twentieth century. Using Mary Haskell Minis as a lens, the course surveyed major American historical events from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, including Reconstruction, women's rights, and immigration, as well as the social history of travel, philanthropy, and education.
The course concluded with a visit to Laurel Grove Cemetery in Savannah — where Mary Haskell Minis is buried — to pay homage to this remarkable woman whose name has for too long remained in the shadow of the poet she helped to bring to the world.
The course was offered through the Learner Circle programme in Savannah, Georgia. For more information about Tania Sammons' research on Mary Haskell and Kahlil Gibran, and the collection of Gibran's artworks held at the Telfair Museums, visit telfair.org.
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