Community Calendar

Learn about meditation and the Bozeman Dharma Center. Bring your questions! No registration necessary. In person and open to all! Free.

The Montana Constitution Roadshow: A Shared Heritage, with Rylee Sommers-Flanagan, invites you to explore the fascinating story behind Montana’s foundational legal document. After an introduction to constitutional democracy, Rylee Sommers-Flanagan offers glimpses into early Montana’s history, including growth through federal laws incentivizing investment in agriculture and the colorful history of the infamous Copper Kings’ domination of the 1889 State Constitution. From there, details about the 1972 Constitutional Convention are surfaced, followed by a look into how Montana values appear in our Constitution.

Through an informative set of narratives, as well as discussion of exciting and timely topics like government transparency and separation of powers, the audience will learn about:

What a constitutional democracy is
The rule of law
The ways in which the Montana Constitution is special and distinct

The Library Gala is Bozeman Public Library’s biggest fundraiser of the year! Join us for an unforgettable evening of food, drinks, entertainment, and community, all while supporting the programs and spaces that make our Library a place for everyone to learn, imagine, and connect.

Amy Harmon is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and New York Times Bestselling author. Amy knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story. Her books are now being published in more than twenty-five different languages, truly a dream come true for a little country girl from Levan, Utah.

Although the Treaty of Paris officially ended the Revolutionary War in 1783, in many ways, the battle over independence was just beginning. In the years following the conclusion of the war, Americans sought to not only forge a new nation from the ground up, but to develop an identity separate from the British. Although the Revolution could serve as a cultural touchstone to bring the diverse peoples of the new republic together, as often as not, the legacy of the Revolution came to serve as a source of division in the heated battles for partisan control in the early national period. This talk will explore the ways that Revolution was remembered and manipulated by political actors in the earliest years of the fledgling nation’s history and offer insight into the ways that, even today, the past serves a political purpose.

From 1791 to 1804, enslaved men and women in the French colony Saint-Domingue fought for and achieved both emancipation within the French colonial system (1794) and, eventually, their national autonomy (1804). Haiti became the first successful slave insurrection to create an independent republic and was one of numerous anticolonial revolutions during the Age of Atlantic Revolutions (1775-1825). That same time period saw the USA reorient itself politically with a new constitution, less than a decade after inaugurating independence movements throughout the Atlantic world with the Treaty of Paris (1783). This presentation will look at the impacts the Haitian Revolution had on the presidencies of George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson and will analyze the limits of revolutionary rhetoric as American citizens and politicians grappled with Black freedom, autonomy, and nationhood.

The Revolutionary War was a war for independence but also for self-government. Americans engaged in writing new constitutions for their states and the nation at the very same moments as they mobilized for war, fought a regular marital conflict against Great Britain, and managed all sorts of irregular violence. This lecture suggests that the experience of war and violence, and the desire to bring order of revolutionary chaos, informed Americans as they wrote constitutions as much as, if not more than, abstract political philosophy or historical experience.

Learn about meditation and the Bozeman Dharma Center. Bring your questions! No registration necessary. In person and open to all! Free.

Experience the dark skies and watch a dark skies short film at the Taylor Planetarium then join Paul Bogard, author of “The End of Night” for his talk, "Is It the End of Night?" to learn more about the wonder of dark skies and how to save them. A reception in the lobby before the talk will include free food/drink, book signing, tour of the Taylor Planetarium and exhibits.

Learn about meditation and the Bozeman Dharma Center. Bring your questions! No registration necessary. In person and open to all! Free.