Race is an issue that, in daily life, can feel like a daunting one to approach. Yet Davenport's Putnam Museum & Science Center is addressing the subject head-on in its new, interactive, and accessible traveling exhibition RACE: Are We So Different? Open to museum guests from January 26 through June 23, RACE aims to help visitors of all ages better understand the origins and manifestations of race and racism in everyday life by investigating race and challenging its misconceptions through the framework of science. And as Putnam President and CEO Kim Findlay says, it's an exhibit designed “to explore race through history, science, and culture – which happen to be the three things the Putnam focuses on.”

Appearing locally with familiar traveling companions such as Peanut, José Jalapeño, Bubba J., Sweet Daddy Dee, and Achmed the Dead Terrorist, comedian and ventriloquist Jeff Dunham brings his national “Passively Aggressive” tour to Moline's TaxSlayer Center on January 23, the performer's comic talent and audience rapport establishing why he holds the Guinness World Record for “Most Tickets Sold for a Stand-Up Comedy Tour.”

One of America's most popular comedians brings his latest touring event to Davenport's Adler Theatre on January 10, with Blue Collar Comedy Tour star Ron White sharing the humorous observations and quick-witted routines that have earned him three Grammy Award nominations and comedy-album sales of more than 10 million to date.

Praised by the Sunday Times as “extraordinary and brilliant,” and by the Seattle Times as “fierce and funny … a satire as sharp as it gets,” author Aravind Adiga's debut novel The White Tiger serves as the discussion point for the latest Get Lit event at the Bettendorf Public Library, with attendees exploring the work that earned Adiga the 40th Man Booker Prize and a New Yorker rave for "his appealingly sardonic voice and acute observations of the social order.”