This session explores how race, or more specifically how being nonwhite in America, has formed the identities and lives of our three memoirists. Sejal Shah, in her meditative memoir in essays, This Is One Way to Dance, explores how we are all m

Memoir: Extraordinary Beginnings

Sep 26th, 2020 42m 4s

These three authors were launched from situations and families that were out of the ordinary. Poet, playwright, and memoirist Honor Moore, after having written a memoir about her extraordinary father, turns to examining her relationship with he

Memoir: Secrets, Lies, and the Mysteries of Youth

Sep 24th, 2020 49m 11s

Secrets: almost every family has them. The three memoirists in this audio session will talk about the secrets and mysteries that haunt their lives. Helen Fremont, in The Escape Artist, explores the psychological fallout stemming from her parent

Memoir: Intellectual Histories

Sep 22nd, 2020 1h

A novelist and essayist, a computer scientist, and a scholar of human development discuss their lives and intellectual development. Claire Messud is the beloved author of many works of fiction and criticism. In Kant’s Little Prussian Head and O

What We Talk About When We Talk About Sex

Mar 30th, 2016 58m 32s

We live at a time when sex is no longer taboo to talk about (or have), when repression is banished, and no one has issues. Or not. Turns out, there are still powerful unspoken norms, cultural expectations, and widespread confusion about sex. Le

But Enough About Me: Reimagining the Memoir

Mar 30th, 2016 53m 25s

As the memoir continues its reign, it has also continued to surprise and captivate us, raising provocative questions about truth, memory, and the different ways we tell the story of ourselves. Novelist Heidi Julavits’s collection of personal es

Racial Justice And Community Activism In The Age Of Black Lives Matter

Mar 3rd, 2016 1h 3m

Join the conversation about black political and social activism with leading scholars of the subject. Jason Sokol, author of All Eyes Are Upon Us: Race and Politics from Boston To Brooklyn, specializes in politics, race, and civil rights. Laure

YA: Boys to Men

Mar 3rd, 2016 1h 2m

There are more possible definitions of “masculinity” than ever before—but does that make the journey from boyhood to manhood easier, or just more confusing? In their recent novels, these four authors for teens offer their own fictional road map

Hits, Hooks, And Jam Bands

Feb 24th, 2016 59m 22s

What is the secret to making a hit song? In Let’s Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain, Alan Light, a former writer at Rolling Stone, looks at how Prince’s song, album, and movie became a musical juggernaut since audiences first heard

The Supremes. A Towering Giant And A Pint-Sized Powerhouse

Feb 24th, 2016 55m 18s

In Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America, Wil Haygood, author of The Butler, delivers the definitive biography of the man who, as a lawyer, won a string of landmark Supreme Court cases that dismantled

Art, Architecture, and Design Keynote: Moshe Safdie

Dec 17th, 2015 1h 1m

This year’s American Institute of Architects Gold Medal winner, Moshe Safdie, has devoted a lifetime to the issue of dense urbanism beginning with Habitat, his low-rise, high-density housing complex introduced at the 1967 Montreal World’s Fair.

The Trial Of Abraham

Dec 17th, 2015 58m 40s

We invite you to serve on the jury in the sensational trial of Abraham for the attempted murder of his son, Isaac. Alan Dershowitz, author of Abraham: The World’s First (But Certainly Not Last) Jewish Lawyer and no stranger to complex cases and

2015 Fiction Keynote: Colum McCann

Dec 17th, 2015 55m 39s

Irish-born author Colum McCann’s novels are known for a stunning use of language, empathic power in describing loss and grief, and an almost cathartic effect on readers. His National Book Award–winning novel Let the Great World Spin is consider

2015 Nonfiction Keynote: Atul Gawande

Dec 17th, 2015 1h 1m

In Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, surgeon and New Yorker staff writer Atul Gawande confronts head-on an inconvenient truth: we are all going to die, and even modern medicine can’t change that, at least not yet. Gawande take

2015 YA Keynote: Libba Bray

Dec 17th, 2015 53m 39s

Whether she’s writing about mad cow disease, Victorian-era sorceresses, or marooned beauty pageant contestants, Printz Award–winning novelist Libba Bray consistently melds smart writing, powerful themes, and genuine wit in her books for teen re

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