Forum Network

Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

Funding provided by:

Boston Athenaeum

The Boston Athenaeum, one of the oldest and most distinguished independent libraries in the United States, was founded in 1807 by members of the Anthology Society, a group of fourteen Boston gentlemen who had joined together in 1805 to edit The Monthly Anthology and Boston Review. Their purpose was to form "an establishment similar to that of the Athenaeum and Lyceum of Liverpool in Great Britain; combining the advantages of a public library [and] containing the great works of learning and science in all languages." The library and Art Gallery, established in 1827, were soon flourishing, and grew rapidly, both by purchase of books and art and by frequent gifts. For nearly half a century the Athenaeum was the unchallenged center of intellectual life in Boston, and by 1851 had become one of the five largest libraries in the United States. Today its collections comprise over half a million volumes, with particular strengths in Boston history, New England state and local history, biography, English and American literature, and the fine and decorative arts. The Athenaeum supports a dynamic art gallery, and sponsors a lively variety of events such as lectures and concerts. It also serves as a stimulating center for discussions among scholars, bibliophiles, and a variety of community interest groups.break

http://www.bostonathenaeum.org

Colm Toibin on Mothers and Sons

Thu, Mar 20, 2008

Colm Toibin reads from his new collection of short stories, *Mothers and Sons*. Professor James Smith of Boston College introduces the author. **Colm Toibin** was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of five novels, including the Booker shortlisted *The Blackwater Lightship* and *The Master*, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He has been a Stein Visiting Writer at Stanford University and a visiting writer at the Michener Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He lives in Dublin.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Mameve Medwed: Of Men and Their Mothers

Tue, Jun 10, 2008

Mameve Medwed reads from her latest novel Of Men and Their Mothers, an exploration of class difference, notions of men and women, and being a wife, a friend, and a nonjudgmental mother. When Maisie Grey finally gets rid of her mama's-boy husband and happily settles down with her teenage son, Tommy, she's still stuck with an irascible mother-in-law. Maisie vows that when Tommy brings someone home, she will be empathetic and supportive, and envelop the young woman in a loving embrace. But along comes September Silva, with her piercings, short skirts, black nail polish, and stay-out-all-night attitude. Eventually Maisie is forced to take a clear-eyed look at class differences, preconceived notions of men and women, and what it means to be a wife, a friend, and a nonjudgmental mother. When do you let go? And how do you let go if you're sure your son is making a very big mistake?

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825

Thu, May 14, 2009

Translator Alan Hoffman discusses Auguste Levasseur's book *Lafayette in America*, which recounts how the 67-year-old hero of the American Revolution and apostle of liberty in Europe was welcomed in an adoring frenzy by the American people. With its panoramic view of the young country, its burgeoning cities and towns, its technological innovations like the Erie Canal, and its industrious people, this book captures America on the cusp of its jubilee year. A decade before Tocqueville, Auguste Levasseur, private secretary to the Marquis de Lafayette, observed and reported on the state of the American Republic as he accompanied General Lafayette on his Farewell Tour of all 24 United States. Levasseur's journal describes the Americans' enormous pride in the republican institutions created by the revolutionary generation and the ensuing growth and prosperity. He recounts their intense feelings of gratitude towards those who had won the republic, among whom Lafayette was the sole surviving major general of the Continental Army. Levasseur also chronicles Lafayette's affectionate visits with his old friends John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams, and his encounter with Senator Andrew Jackson. A keen observer, Levasseur gives us a sense of the characters of these men who, with Lafayette's paternal friend George Washington, led the United States through its first six decades.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Picture Books: A Reading for Children

Sat, Oct 4, 2003

Children's book creators Barbara McClintock, Phyllis Root, and Helen Oxenbury read their stories aloud to a group of children at the Boston Athenaeum. Barbara McClintock reads from her book Dahlia. One morning Charlotte gets a package from her Aunt Edme. Inside is a delicate doll. Charlotte never wanted a doll, and she certainly doesn't want this one. She names the doll Dahlia and tells her that she and Bruno, her bear, "like digging in dirt and climbing trees. No tea parties, no being pushed around in frilly prams. You'll just have to get used to the way we do things." Dahlia doesn't seem to mind. What's more, she seems to like getting dirty while making mud cakes and racing wagons. But at the end of the day, Charlotte's aunt arrives for a visit and wants to see how Dahlia is doing and Charlotte gets another surprise. Phyllis Root and Helen Oxenbury read from their book Big Momma Makes the World. When Big Momma makes the world, she doesn't mess around. Earth, she says, get over here. And it does. With a little baby on her hip and laundry piling up, Big Momma asks for light and dark, sea and sky, creepers and crawlers, and lots of folks to trade stories with on the front porch. And when the work is done, Big Momma is pleased all right. "That's good," she says, "That's real good."

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
George Stubbs: Reapers and Haymakers

Thu, Jan 22, 2004

Richard Wendorf attempts to show how scholars who have addressed the paintings of George Stubbs have missed the central point of his work as an artist. The painter George Stubbs is perhaps best known for his dramatic and painstakingly accurate portraits of English horse flesh. In this illustrated lecture, Wendorf draws attention to Stubbs' equally remarkable attempts to paint agricultural workers in the English countryside, particularly in his pair of images entitled Reapers and Haymakers. These iconic pictures have been the focus of intense debate by literary critics, art historians, and social historians during the past thirty years. Do they accurately depict the cleanliness, health, and vitality of common laborers in the 1780's and 1790's, or do they camouflage the desperate, post-enclosure conditions in which these workers toiled?

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Maps and History: Constructing Images of the Past

Sat, Apr 26, 2003

Jeremy Black, professor of history at the University of Exeter, argues that historical atlases offer an understanding of the past that is invaluable, not only because they convey a previous age's sense of space and distance, but also because they reveal what historians and educators of those periods thought important to include or omit. Black explores the role, development, and nature of these important reference tools, from ancient to modern times.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Race and Place

Tue, Mar 2, 2004

Ted Landsmark discusses how demographic and educational changes affect Boston's near-term future, and the unanticipated ways in which our cultural identities are evolving. The formation of racial and ethnic identities were key aspects of 20th century American culture. As traditional racial dichotomies dissolve in the 21st century, some new, and some very old, elements of cultural identity are taking precedence in American life: artisanry, class, education, and a sense of place are emerging as significant shapers of identity. Even as media and commercial homogeneity aggregate and level our differences, immigration and rediscovered cultural roots are churning our perceptions of who we believe we are as Americans. Boston, a city generally viewed as both a portal for new populations and as a staid community where relatively few ethnic or racial minorities achieve high levels of political or cultural visibility, is undergoing some of the largest demographic and educational changes in its history.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London

Tue, Mar 9, 2004

Lisa Jardine draws a portrait of the gifted but cranky English scientist Robert Hooke, known to history as much for losing quarrels with more prominent scientists as for his achievements. He was one of the founding fathers of the Royal Society and teamed with Christopher Wren in rebuilding London after the Great Fire of 1666. Hooke is perhaps best, and certainly unjustly, remembered for losing to Newton in a challenge for credit as discoverer of the inverse-square law of gravitational attraction.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living (1900-1939)

Thu, Mar 11, 2004

Virginia Nicholson explores the way of life of the Bohemian artists of the early 20th century - the majority of them artists, poets, writers, and composers - who were brave enough to jettison Victorian conformity and to invent a whole new way of living. Rebels and free spirits, they pioneered a domestic revolution, carrying idealism and creativity into every aspect of daily life. From Dylan Thomas to Robert Graves, Katherine Mansfield to Dora Carrington, they rejected tea parties, chaperones, monogamy, and mahogany. Deaf to disapproval, they painted, danced, and wrote poetry with passionate intensity, they experimented with homosexuality and open marriages, and often sacrificed comfortable homes to take to the road or to move into Spartan garrets. Yet their choice of a free life led all too often to poverty, hunger, addictions, and even death. This lecture brings to life the flamboyant, eccentric pioneers to whom we owe so many of our freedoms today.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
American West: Lewis and Clark Expedition

Thu, Mar 18, 2004

Clay S. Jenkinson employs the Chautauquan methodology of a stand-up, unscripted monologue in his first-person portrayal of Meriwether Lewis. His educational, humorous, and delightful monologue is followed by an in-character question and answer session with the audience, and ends with Jenkinson sharing his own insights into the character of Captain Lewis and the expedition. The Federalist called the Louisiana Purchase "the wildest chimera of a moonstruck mind"; Thomas Jefferson referred to it as a "two ocean continental empire for liberty"; and Meriwether Lewis, captain of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition, thought it was the opportunity of a lifetime to be the first citizen of the United States to step foot on the unexplored wilderness of the American West.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum

Load More