A pair of “road scholars” from the Alabama Humanities Foundation will be speaking in Helena and Calera over the next few weeks.

Through the Humanities Foundation’s Road Scholars speaking program, the state’s “most enlightening university and independent scholars” visit locations throughout Alabama to speak about a variety of humanities topics.

Joyce Cauthen, executive director of the Alabama Folklife Association, will present a speech titled “Please Pass the Folklore: Family and Community Traditions in the Kitchen and Around the Dinner Table” at 6 p.m. March 30 at the Calera Public Library.

Cauthen’s program will focus on the importance of food in preserving family and creating a regional and community identity. Her talk will cover everything from holiday feasts to superstitions surrounding eating.

On April 1, Nancy Anderson will present “The World of Childhood: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Kite Runner” at 6 p.m. at Helena’s Jane B. Holmes Public Library.

Anderson, a member of the English faculty at Auburn University-Montgomery, will explain how stories about childhood can be “entertaining, informing and even instructive,” according to an Alabama Humanities Foundation press release.

For more information about the free events, visit AHF.net.