Honors Blog Post 1: Uncle Nearest Retreat
Honors Blog Post 1: Uncle Nearest Retreat
Introductory Note
In the Honors Program, we read not only for knowledge but for engagement. Our work together is rooted in the belief that reading should move beyond the page and into the world, shaping how we see, act, and imagine. Ideas are not abstractions for us; they carry weight, they call us to respond, and they challenge us to live differently.
This retreat to the Uncle Nearest Distillery, alongside Fawn Weaver’s Love & Whiskey, asks us to practice that model of reading. We are visiting a place where history, entrepreneurship, and ethics converge, and we are invited to consider how a text and a site can work together to deepen our thinking. While the guiding questions below focus on Love & Whiskey, outstanding reflections will also make connections to other texts we’ve read together—Danielle Allen’s Our Declaration, Robin D.G. Kelley’s Freedom Dreams, and Frank X Walker’s Turn Me Loose—to show how our reading culture informs engagement with the world.
On-site Activity:
Brand Myth vs. History: Documenting the “Love Story”
Fawn Weaver, CEO of Uncle Nearest, describes this distillery as telling a love story of friendship — a complicated narrative about the relationship between Black and white people in American history.
But this site is also a brand. Its story honors Nearest Green while selling whiskey. Our task is to look closely at how those two purposes come together — and sometimes pull apart.
Today, use your phone as a lens for observation. You are not here to debate or critique aloud; you are here to gather evidence we will analyze and discuss back home.
Your Assignment
In pairs or trios, take 3 photos that respond to the prompts below:
- Love Story Evidence
Capture something that feels central to the “love story” being presented — friendship, harmony, or legacy. - Complication or Tension
Capture something that signals complexity — unresolved histories, uneasy details, or simplifications. - Brand vs. History
Capture something that shows where marketing overlaps (or conflicts) with history. What looks packaged for us? What feels more like recovery of fact?
Blog Post Reflection—Guiding Questions
Historical Consciousness
What can being in this place—the Uncle Nearest Distillery in Tennessee—teach you about history and legacy that reading alone could not? How does traveling from Atlanta to Tennessee shape the way you think about the past and its ties to the present?
Ethical Discernment
What does it mean to succeed through something that delights even as it wounds? When does entrepreneurship cross into responsibility for what you sell?
Curated Inwardness
What is the value of stepping outside the classroom and into a setting like this? How might this retreat invite you to see yourself differently—as an honors student, as part of a community, or as part of a larger story?
Blog Post Requirements
Word Count: 500–750 words
Due Date: Friday, September 19, 2025 (one week after the retreat)
Format: Publish as your first blog post for the Honors Program. Title your post thoughtfully to capture the focus of your reflection.
Evaluation: Posts will be read for depth of engagement with the guiding questions, connection to our Habits of Mind, and evidence of linking reading to lived experience.
Comments
Post a Comment