Boston Athenaeum

Boston Athenaeum

By Boston AthenaeumSociety & Culture
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Boston Athenaeum episodes

  • Lawrence Hill, “The Illegal: A Novel”
    February 10, 2016 at Boston Athenæum.
    The Illegal is the gripping story of Keita Ali, a refugee―like the many in today’s headlines―compelled to leave his homeland. All Keita has ever wanted to do is to run. Running means respect and wealth at home. His native Zantoroland, an imagined country whose tyrants are eerily familiar, turns out the fastest marathoners on earth. But after his journalist father is killed for his outspoken political views, Keita must flee to the wealthy nation of Freedom State―a fictionalized country engaged in a crackdown on all undocumented people, bearing a striking resemblance to modern America. There, Keita becomes a part of the new underground. He learns what it means to live as an illegal. This tension-filled novel casts its eye on race, human potential, and what it means to belong.
    41 min
  • John T. Matthews, “To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman, and the ‘Discovery’ of Racism”
    February 3, 2016 at the Boston Athenæum.
    Early last summer came the surprising news that Harper Lee was about to publish a second novel, more than half a century after her iconic To Kill a Mockingbird had appeared in 1960. Mockingbird, the story of a young girl’s initiation into the reality of Southern racism, is among the most cherished coming-of-age stories in American literary culture, and its portrait of the noble Atticus Finch, a lawyer who risks everything to defend a black man falsely accused of a crime in the segregated South of the 1930s, has inspired generations of admirers. For all its defense of such fundamental democratic principles, however, Mockingbird also has been criticized for its narrowing of questions of racial justice to a drama of white conscience, of historical change to a matter of individual attitude.
    Harper Lee took several years to revise the original draft of the novel that eventually appeared as To Kill a Mockingbird. Her original manuscript, entitled “Go Set a Watchman,” was known to exist, but only recently did the author agree to its publication after it was rediscovered in her papers. In this lecture, John T. Matthews will discuss with audience members how this “new” work alters our understanding of what Lee wanted to say about the racial crisis in the U.S. South during the decades of the modern civil rights movement.
    41 min
  • Erica Hirshler, “Childe Hassam: At Dusk: Boston Common at Twilight”
    January 19, 2016 at the Boston Athenæum.
    In this talk, leading American art specialist Erica E. Hirshler will share excerpts of her vivid account of one of Boston's best-loved paintings, Childe Hassam’s “At Dusk (Boston Common at Twilight)”. She will discuss with audience members the context of Childe Hassam's 1880s city scene. With its rosy rust tones, intimate familial vignette, and quiet expanse of snow-laden park, today “At Dusk” seems to encourage reflection and represent a decidedly old-fashioned city. Yet Hirshler will reveal the ways in which the painting visually signaled the emerging modern city, from subtleties about women's place in the urban landscape to the uproarious clang of the streetcars that would have been heard on the busiest block in Boston. She will discuss her carefully researched and elegantly presented book, which offers a new perspective to those already acquainted with the painting as well as an evocative look at a singular moment in Boston history.
    57 min
  • George Hovis, “Thomas Wolfe and the Lost Generation”
    December 10, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    This lecture is sponsored by the William Orville Thomson Endowment.
    Despite his protests to the contrary, American novelist Thomas Wolfe, whose writings are well represented in the Athenæum’s collections, is remembered as a representative of the “Lost Generation,” a generation of artists who renounced the outmoded verities of their forebears as useless in the Modern age. With the advent of the Great Depression, Wolfe confronted widespread suffering, especially in New York City, where he was living at the time, and this newfound concern for the plight of others made him reconsider not only the solipsism that had threatened his earlier fiction but the Modernist aesthetic that had informed it. In his posthumous novel, You Can’t Go Home Again (1940), Wolfe grew away from the bildungsroman to write proletarian fiction on a global scale. After exposing the unjust distribution of wealth in Manhattan and Brooklyn, he exposes the class system of England and the rise of Nazi oppression in Berlin. Just as he had earlier broken with the conventional truths of his hometown to become an artist, he now found it necessary to outgrow his own youthful assumptions and to understand more fully that his own material and spiritual health were tied up with that of his fellow man.
    1 hr
  • Ilan Stavans, “Quixote: The Novel and the World”
    December 9, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    This year marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the Second Part of Miguel de Cervantes’ classic Don Quixote of La Mancha. With the exception of The Bible, no other book has been translated into English more frequently—a total of twenty-two times. Indeed, accumulatively this is the world’s most popular novel. The Boston Athenæum’s circulating and special collections reflect the cultural significance of Don Quixote over the last 200 years with scores of related volumes, including Spanish and English editions of the novel, responses and analyses of the great work, and works inspired by Cervantes’ masterpiece.
    What makes Don Quixote such a success? Why have readers over the centuries found in it a type of humanity seldom encountered elsewhere? Distinguished cultural critic Ilan Stavans brings us back to the way Cervantes conceived the work and the response he has received from the 17th century to the present across languages and geographies.
    49 min
  • R. Nicholas Burns and John McKesson Camp II, “Conversations on Democracy”
    November 30, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    In celebration of the 135th anniversary of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, R. Nicholas Burns and John McKesson Camp II will discuss the ancient Greek roots of democracy, the current crisis in Greece, and U.S.-Greek relations.
    The American School of Classical Studies at Athens is a leading research and teaching institution dedicated to the advanced study of all aspects of Greek culture, from antiquity to the present. Founded in 1881, the School provides students and scholars from over 190 affiliated North American colleges and universities with the opportunity to explore the full range of scholarly resources in Greece.
    57 min
  • Christopher Morgan "Alice in Wonderland & Lewis Carroll's Games & Puzzles:The Surprising Connection"
    November 18, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    The Athenæum is an ideal setting for the scholar in that it boasts a robust collection, reference services, and a serene environment for study. Indeed, Christopher Morgan researched the subject for his book, “Alice in Wonderland and Lewis Carroll's Games and Puzzles: The Surprising Connection”, within our walls!
    2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”. To celebrate the event, puzzle designer and Lewis Carroll collector Christopher Morgan will take us down the rabbit hole to discuss Carroll's little-known game and puzzle pamphlets, now gathered together for the first time in his new book, “The Pamphlets of Lewis Carroll: Games, Puzzles, and Related Pieces”. Morgan will discuss the surprising connections between Carroll's charming game and puzzle inventions and his books, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”. Also included are Carroll’s word game columns from the British magazines Vanity Fair and The Lady, never before published and revealing his droll humor. Audience members will be able to join in the fun by trying their hands at solving some of Carroll's word games.
    48 min
  • Jack Bishop-America's Test Kitchen "100 Recipes: The Absolute Best Ways to Make the True Essentials”
    The Athenæum holds an impressive collection of menus from Boston’s fine-dining establishments from the mid-nineteenth century, offering a glimpse into the tastes and trends of the past. Visit our Digital Collections page to view these elegant menus. Join Jack Bishop, editorial director of America’s Test Kitchen, for a discussion of the tastes and trends in food today as he talks about “100 Recipes: The Absolute Best Ways to Make the True Essentials”.
    If you could only have 100 recipes at your disposal, what would they be? In “100 Recipes”, the editors at America’s Test Kitchen present what they consider to be the recipes everyone should know how to make—these are the dishes that will give anyone the culinary chops they need to succeed in the kitchen.
    From everyday basics like tomato sauce, pork roast, and brownies to innovative classics like slow-roasted beef, poached chicken, and cheese soufflé to inspiring global dishes like Thai basil chicken, pho, and Spanish beef stew, cooks at all skill levels will find accessible recipes in this collection.
    47 min
  • David Lough, “No More Champagne – Churchill and His Money”
    November 12, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    David Lough’s No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money contributes to the Boston Athenæum’s impressive collection of biographies, including several on Winston Churchill. The volume also deepens the Athenæum’s collection of books that offer multiple perspectives on United States and European history.
    The popular image of Winston Churchill is of a life of champagne and cigars but, behind the scenes, he struggled to prevent his personal financial problems from engulfing his political career. Only fragments of this story have previously emerged, but Lough has now pieced it together with the help of unprecedented access to the private records of Churchill and his associates.
    Lough will discuss Churchill’s personally expensive lessons on the American economy and body politic. Churchill’s American financial losses almost brought his political career to an end in Britain and required several rescues. Yet they also gave him a unique perspective on the country’s resources and resilience, which helped him shape his strategy when he was handed Britain’s wartime leadership in 1940. In one of his greatest financial successes, Churchill shielded most of his proceeds from tax authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, allowing him to fund his extravagant lifestyle and leave his heirs a valuable legacy.
    53 min
  • Mary Beard, “S.P.Q.R.: A History of Ancient Rome”
    November 11, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    Boston Athenæum began collecting Neoclassical art shortly after its establishment in 1807. At the time Neoclassicism was a hugely popular artistic movement, due in part to the romanticized view of the United States’ system of government being modeled on Greco-Roman and Enlightenment ideals. Mary Beard’s S.P.Q.R.: A History of Ancient Rome provides insight into the realities of the ancient Roman world and thereby context for understanding the 19th-century Neoclassical movement.
    By 63 BCE, the city of Rome was a sprawling, imperial metropolis of more than a million inhabitants. But how did this massive city—the seat of power for an empire that spanned from Spain to Syria—emerge from what was once an insignificant village in central Italy? In S.P.Q.R., Beard changes our historical perspective, exploring how the Romans themselves challenged the idea of imperial rule, how they responded to terrorism and revolution, and how they invented a new idea of citizenship and nation, while also keeping her eye open for those overlooked in traditional histories: women, slaves and ex-slaves, conspirators, and losers. Like the best detectives, Beard separates fact from fiction, myth and propaganda from historical record. She introduces the familiar characters of Julius Caesar, Cicero, and Nero as well as the untold, the loud women, the shrewd bakers, and the brave jokers. S.P.Q.R. promises to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come.
    49 min

About Boston Athenaeum

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The Boston Athenaeum, a membership library, first opened its doors in 1807, and its rich history as a library and cultural institution has been well documented in the annals of Boston’s cultural life.…