Boston Athenæum

December 13, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” These words have become as well known and as deeply embedded in American patriotic lore as those of the Pledge of Allegiance, the Gettysburg Address, or the Declaration of Independence. But few remember that these lines are excerpted from an 1883 sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus. Though the lines were meant to interpret the Statue of Liberty, they transformed the statue’s original purpose, turning it into a welcoming symbol for wave after wave of immigrants to the United States. The poem and the statue have a tangled history, for both are contemporaneous with a virulent anti-immigration movement that started in Boston. Drawing from the Athenæum’s collections, this presentation explores resentment of immigrants in turn-of-the-century Boston, as well as poetic responses sympathetic to the immigrant cause.

December 11, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. The national electoral map has split into warring regional bastions of Republican red and Democratic blue, producing a deep and enduring partisan divide in American politics. In Red Fighting Blue, David A. Hopkins places the current partisan and electoral era in historical context, explains how the increased salience of social issues since the 1980s has redefined the parties' geographic bases of support, and reveals the critical role that American political institutions play in intermediating between the behavior of citizens and the outcome of public policy-making. The widening geographic gap in voters’ partisan preferences, magnified further by winner-take-all electoral rules, has rendered most of the nation safe territory for either Democratic or Republican candidates in both presidential and congressional elections—with significant consequences for party competition, candidate strategy, and the operation of government.

December 5, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. At the risk of stating the obvious: we exist in the world in bodies. How our bodies interact in cultural spaces shapes us and shapes our cultural spaces. This talk examines how the "body politics" of women's land—communal living spaces created by and for women—shape individual experiences and larger expectations about gender, race, identity, and virtue. How does nudity change how bodies are perceived and policed? What does being connected to the landscape have to do with excretion? And how do eating, food, and gender intertwine in women-only spaces? This talk will explore the complex cultural intersections of body/gender and self/community.

December 4, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. Immigration, terrorism, the dangers of nationalism, the promise and peril of technological innovation: these forces shaped the life and work of Joseph Conrad at the dawn of the twentieth century. Joseph Conrad described the beginnings of globalization as we recognize it today. As an immigrant from Poland to England, and in travels from Malaysia to Congo to the Caribbean, Conrad traced an interconnected world and described it in a literary oeuvre of prophetic power. His life and work offer a history of globalization from the inside out, and powerfully reflect the aspirations and the challenges of the modern world. Through an expert blend of history, biography, literary criticism, and travelogue, Maya Jasanoff will discuss the strands of Conrad’s experiences and the stories of his four greatest works—The Secret Agent, Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, and Nostromo. The Dawn Watch casts new light on Conrad’s era, and offers fresh insight into our own.

November 15, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. Chatsworth has been home to the Cavendish family and the hereditary dukes of Devonshire since the original Elizabethan house was built on the site purchased by Sir William Cavendish in 1549. A famous historic house in England, Chatsworth is renowned as much for its fashionable history—its majestic dresses and tiaras, magnificent lace, and splendid uniforms—as its unrivaled collection of art, palatial gardens, and celebrated family dynasty. From the sixteenth-century Inigo Jones drawings of stage costumes to comical pieces, like the eleventh Duke’s jumper embroidered with “Never Marry a Mitford,” Lady Burlington will offer a personal perspective, as well as discuss Chatsworth’s well-known fashionable residents.

November 14, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. With the insight, eloquence, and erudition that have thrilled hundreds of thousands of readers of his books about Shakespearean England and the Italian Renaissance, Stephen Greenblatt breathes new life into the ancient story of Adam and Eve. He tracks the story’s origins back into humanity’s deep past and its first written form to the Hebrews’ exile in Babylon. Returning to us a precious cultural inheritance, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve is an exploration of the value of the humanities through the life of one of humankind’s greatest stories.

November 7, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. In 1942, reeling from Japan’s devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States military launched a secret program to recruit young, female college graduates to act as code breakers in the newly ramped up war effort. In Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Liza Mundy reveals for the first time the revolutionary achievements and patriotic service of the remarkable young women who cracked German and Japanese military codes. As Mundy shows, their astonishing code-breaking triumphs helped secure an Allied victory before their vow of secrecy nearly erased their vital contributions from US history.

November 2, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. One of the most private decisions a woman can make, abortion is also one of the most contentious topics in American civic life. Protested at rallies and politicized in party platforms, terminating pregnancy is often characterized as a selfish decision by women who put their own interests above those of the fetus. This background of stigma and hostility has stifled women’s willingness to talk about abortion, which in turn distorts public and political discussion. To pry open the silence surrounding this public issue, Sanger distinguishes between abortion privacy, a form of nondisclosure based on a woman’s desire to control personal information, and abortion secrecy, a woman’s defense against the many harms of disclosure.

October 31, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler's new anthology brings together the most cunning, ruthless, and brilliant criminals in mystery fiction, for the biggest compendium of villains ever assembled. Join us on Halloween for his spooky book talk. Penzler gathers the iconic traitors, thieves, con men, sociopaths, and killers who have crept through the mystery canon over the past 150 years, captivating and horrifying readers in equal measure. The 72 handpicked stories in this collection introduce us to the most depraved of psyches, from iconic antiheroes like Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin and Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu to contemporary delinquents like Lawrence Block's Ehrengraf and Donald Westlake's Dortmunder.

October 26, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. For the reader, the world of books may seem a simple one: go to the local library or bookstore, select a title that suits our taste, open, and turn the pages. The story of the editors who shape the works we cherish is rarely told. What choices and challenges do these editors face? How do they perceive themselves and their role in the world today? How does their mission drive the works they publish? Join us for this rare opportunity to spend an evening with editors from New England’s most mission-driven publishing houses and journals. The panel— composed of Michael Reynolds, Editor-in-Chief of Europa Editions (the publishing house of Elena Ferrante); Helene Atwan, Director of Beacon Press; and Ladette Randolph, Editor-in-Chief of Ploughshares—will offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the creation of books and discuss the motivations and aspirations propelling those books into the marketplace. The panel will be moderated by Mehgna Chakrabarti, host of WBUR’s RadioBost

October 21, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. In her new historical novel, Katherine Paterson tells a moving coming-of-age story, shedding light on a little-known moment in history. Inspired by true accounts, the narrative follows a Cuban teenager as she volunteers for Fidel Castro’s national literacy campaign and travels into the impoverished countryside to teach others to read, sharing in the danger posed by counterrevolutionaries hiding in the hills nearby. The novel includes an author’s note and a timeline of Cuban history.

October 18, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. The 2016 election of Donald Trump to the presidency was a devastating blow to the country’s marginalized populations—immigrants, Muslims, the LGBTQ community, and Black Americans, to name a few. Intersecting with each of these groups were women, who despaired as their rights as equal citizens were called into question. Women of all walks of life bore witness as one of the most qualified candidates in history, Hillary Clinton, lost to an inexperienced reality star and real estate mogul who boasted about his predatory behavior. Has the country become more misogynistic, or simply shown its true face? If 53% of white women voted for Trump and 94% of black women voted for Hillary, can women unite in America? Can we conceive of “women” as a cohesive group? In the face of overwhelming challenge, how can we work together to persist, resist, and enact lasting change? These are some of the questions addressed in Nasty Women, an anthology of original essays from leading femini

October 17, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. This panel, led by Tunney Lee with Shauna Lo and Lisong Liu, will cover the changing nature of Chinese immigration to Boston from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (CEA) through its repeal in 1943 to today. Although the main driver for the CEA was West Coast conflicts between European settlers—recently arrived via transcontinental railroad—and Chinese immigrants, Boston and Massachusetts played key roles in the passage and enforcement of the law. Panelists will address Massachusetts political reactions to the CEA, Chinatown raids, East Boston’s immigration station, and more, continuing the conversation with the growth of the Chinese community in Boston and beyond following WWII. This panel considers nationals laws through a local political and cultural lens to shed light on an aspect of immigration history that continues to this day.

October 11, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. In his book reThink, preventive medicine and public health expert Donald Louria argues that “societally connected systems thinking” can allow us to solve problems where conventional methods have failed. By analyzing an entire issue through systems diagrams rather than its component parts, problem solvers are able to examine causes and consequences, understand patterns and themes, and identify leverage points. Societally connected systems thinking offers the perspective necessary to address the big issues of our time, such as healthcare, addiction, overpopulation, and epidemic disease. rethink examines critical public issues, offering specific, provocative recommendations for solving or mitigating issues based entirely on systems diagrams.

October 10, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. Harry S. Truman was one of the most unpopular presidents in American history. Heir to a struggling economy, a ruined Europe, and ever-increasing tension with the Soviet Union, on no issue was the path ahead clear and easy. General Douglas MacArthur, by contrast, was incredibly popular, as untouchable as any officer has ever been in America. The lessons he drew from World War II were absolute: appeasement leads to disaster and a showdown with the communists was inevitable. In his new book, Henry William Brands presents their contest of wills against a turbulent backdrop of terrors, both overseas and at home, to evoke the making of a new American era.

October 5, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. In conjunction with the Boston University Center for the Humanities Fall Forum, Recording Lives: Libraries and Archives in the Digital Age, we are pleased to host a conversation on local cultural organizations’ use of digital technologies to expand access to their collections. In this program, representatives from six cultural organizations charged with the material past will give a “lightning round” of presentations on how they are embracing the digital present to plan for the future. Audience members will be invited to join the discussion.

September 26, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. President Trump’s immigration rhetoric has elicited outrage in Massachusetts, and especially in the vicinity of Harvard Yard (where Trump won just 4% of the vote). So, in Greater Boston, it may turn more than a few faces crimson to learn that—like basketball, the microwave oven, and public education—the intellectual playbook for anti-immigration policy was drafted right here in Massachusetts, by a small group of Harvard-educated Brahmin intellectuals led by Prescott Farnsworth Hall. Their work, which began in 1894, culminated exactly 100 years ago with the passage of the federal Immigration Act of 1917, opening a new epoch of national immigration policy. In this lecture, author Neil Swidey will discuss the roots of Trump’s anti-immigration fervor and the surprisingly influential local characters behind it. He explored these connections, and their implications, in his Globe Magazine cover story earlier this year.

September 20, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. On March 29, 1849, the ten-year-old Maharajah of the Punjab handed over to the British East India Company in a formal Act of Submission to Queen Victoria not only swathes of the richest land in India, but also arguably the single most valuable object in the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond. Using original eyewitness accounts and chronicles never before translated into English to craft the first comprehensive and authoritative history of the object, William Dalrymple and Anita Anand trace the true history of the diamond, dispelling the myths that have long surrounded this awe-inspiring jewel.

September 14, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. Author and historian William Kuhn discusses his recently published satirical war novel, a lighthearted work of fiction that recounts Prince Harry’s wartime experiences in Afghanistan. A former historian in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, Kuhn will share personal anecdotes, including his impressions of a Christmas party at Buckingham Palace.

September 6, 2017 at the Boston Athenæum. The first great portrait photographer, a pioneering balloonist, the first person to take an aerial photograph, and the prime mover behind the first airmail service, Nadar was one of the original celebrity artist-entrepreneurs. A kind of 19th-century Andy Warhol, he knew everyone worth knowing and photographed them all, conferring on posterity psychologically compelling portraits of Manet, Sarah Bernhardt, Delacroix, Daumier and countless others—a priceless panorama of Parisian celebrity. The Great Nadar is a brilliant, lavishly illustrated biography of a larger-than-life figure, a visionary whose outsized talent and canny self-promotion put him way ahead of his time.