Boston Athenaeum

Boston Athenaeum

By Boston AthenaeumSociety & Culture
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Boston Athenaeum episodes

  • Kirsten Downey, "Isabella: The Warrior Queen"
    April 30, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    In this book talk, Kirstin Downey, author of Isabella: The Warrior Queen, will speak about Isabella of Castile, the Queen of Spain who became one of the most influential female rulers in history. Just as Isabella was a queen in a world of kings, female members of the Athenæum have navigated what librarian Charles Knowles in the Athenæum Centenary called “a man’s institution” for the majority of its history. (Barbara Adams Hebard tackles this topic in her essay, "The Role of Women at the Boston Athenæum" in The Boston Athenæum Bicentennial Essays, which illuminates the hidden history of female contributions to the Athenæum since its inception.)
    Isabella’s life is not so hidden, sponsoring major historical events such as Christopher Columbus's journey to the New World and the Spanish Inquisition. Whether saintly or satanic, no female leader has done more to shape our modern world, in which millions of people in two hemispheres speak Spanish and practice Catholicism. Using new scholarship, Downey's luminous biography tells the story of this brilliant, fervent, forgotten woman, the faith that propelled her through life, and the land of ancient conflicts and intrigue she brought under her command.
    38 min
  • Jean Findlay, "Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy, and Translator"
    May 14, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    Since 1922, English-language readers have been able to leap into the prose of Proust thanks to translator C. K. Scott Moncrieff, who wrestled with Proust’s seven-volume masterpiece—published as Remembrance of Things Past—until his death in 1930. In her book, Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy, and Translator, Jean Findlay reveals aspects of Scott Moncrieff’s life which have remained hidden behind the genius of the man whose reputation he helped build. Catholic and homosexual; a partygoer who was lonely deep down; secretly a spy in Mussolini’s Italy; publicly a debonair man of letters; a war hero described as “offensively brave,” whose letters from the front are remarkably cheerful—Scott Moncrieff was a man of his moment, thriving on paradoxes and extremes. In Chasing Lost Time, Findlay gives us a vibrant, moving portrait of the brilliant Scott Moncrieff, and of the era—changing fast and forever—in which he shone.
    42 min
  • Jonathan Schneer, "Ministers at War: Winston Churchill and His War Cabinet"
    June 3, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    Prize-winning historian Jonathan Schneer investigates Winston Churchill and the role his cabinet played during the war in his book, Ministers at War. Churchill depended on a team of powerful ministers to manage the war effort as he rallied a beleaguered nation. Selecting men from across the political spectrum—from fellow Conservative Anthony Eden to leaders of the opposing Labor Party such as Clement Atlee—Churchill assembled a War Cabinet that would balance competing interests and bolster support for his national coalition government. The group possessed a potent blend of talent, ambition, and egotism, but Churchill masterfully kept the ministers’ rivalries and political challenges in check, paving the way for Britain’s victory.
    52 min
  • Laura Auricchio, "The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered"
    July 21, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered is an "absorbing" (The Wall Street Journal), "sharp and moving" (Kirkus, starred review) biography of the Marquis de Lafayette, French hero of the American Revolution. Laura Auricchio looks past the storybook hero who cast aside family and fortune to advance the transcendent aims of liberty and justice commemorated in America’s towns, streets, and parks that bear his name. Auricchio gives us a rich portrait of the man, from birth to death a man driven by dreams of glory and felled by tragic, human weaknesses.
    51 min
  • Austen Barron Bailly, "Thomas Hart Benton and the Modern American Woman"
    July 13, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    In Thomas Hart Benton and the Modern American Woman, Austen Bailly will speak about how American artist Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) pictured twentieth-century female experiences in America and saw American women as a means to make the mythic modern in his art. Benton met his Italian-born wife Rita Piacenza around 1917 on the heels of his early involvement with motion pictures in Fort Lee, New Jersey—America’s “first Hollywood.” The movies inspired Benton to chart a new artistic course to compete with the drama and power of movies. Rita, imagined as a glamorous leading lady in Benton’s self-portrait from about 1924, was key to the artist’s vision for presenting himself as new American art star. Like Hollywood directors, Benton cast women as leading and supporting players in authentic American stories and recognized their roles in American myths.
    57 min
  • Marc Shell, "Speaking from the Shore: Islands, Literature, and the Fate of Geography"
    June 10, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    Islandology is a fast-paced, fact-filled comparative essay in critical topography and cultural geography that cuts across different cultures and argues for a world of islands. Written by Marc Shell in view of the melting of the world's great ice islands, Islandology shows not only new ways that we think about islands but also why and how we think by means of them.
    59 min
  • Karen Corsano and Daniel Williman, "John Singer Sargent and His Muse: Painting Love and Loss"
    June 11, 2015 at the Boston Athenæum.
    Learn more about this American artist by joining Karen Corsano and Daniel Williman for a discussion of their book, John Singer Sargent and His Muse: Painting Love and Loss. This sensitive and compelling biography sheds new light on John Singer Sargent’s art through an intimate history of his family, especially of his niece and muse, Rose-Marie Ormond. Between 1906 and 1912, John Singer Sargent documented the idyllic teenage summers of Rose-Marie and his own deepening affection for her serene beauty and good-hearted, candid charm. When his niece died tragically in a bombed church vault, Sargent expressed his grief on canvas: he made his last murals for the Boston Public Library a cryptic memorial to Rose-Marie and her husband, Robert. The book braids together the lives and families of Rose-Marie, Robert, and John Sargent while drawing on a rich trove of letters, diaries, journals, and the Athenæum Archive.
    49 min
  • Ben Bradlee, Jr., "The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams"
    December 9, 2013 at the Boston Athenæum.
    Born in 1918 in San Diego, Ted Williams would spend most of his life disguising his Mexican heritage. During his 22 years with the Boston Red Sox, Williams electrified crowds across America—and shocked them, too: his notorious clashes with the press and fans threatened his reputation. Yet while he was a God in the batter’s box, he was profoundly human once he stepped away from the plate. Mr. Bradlee—the only biographer to have full access to Williams’s personal papers, letters, and home movies—has spent ten years gleaning new details about the athlete’s hardscrabble childhood; his spectacular baseball career; his years as a “Top Gun’’ pilot in two wars; a private life marked by affairs, explosion and dysfunction; and finally, the macabre cryonics affair that followed his death.
    35 min

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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.…