28. attend a Chautauqua

Reader question.

A reader asked if Chautauqua is the same as the one that Robert M. Pirsig discusses in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I had forgotten that, but found this great site on the topic. Now that I re-read that passage, I think that may have been where I first heard of Chautauqua as well. Pirsig, of course, is talking about the second definition of Chautauqua on my list. The modern revival of the Chautauqua didn't exist until a good decade or so after Pirsig's book was published. I learned today that the modern Chautauqua began with the Great Plains Chautauqua in the 1980s. Missouri's Heartland Chautauqua was modeled on that one and it began 13 years ago.