Lectures, Interviews, Intellectuals

Azar Nafisi On Malala at Johns Hopkins

Lord Byron’s death on 19 April, 1824, ‘in Greece, and for Greece’, created a legend that is still with us. Professor Roderick Beaton traces the real story behind Byron’s mission to help the Greeks in their revolution against Ottoman Turkish rule and shows its effects are still with us.

Roderick Beaton is Professor of Modern Greek & Byzantine History and Director at the Centre of Hellenic Studies at King's College, London. He is also Chair of the Academic Committee overseeing the International Byron Conference this year. His research interests are Greek literature since the 12th century; the history of the novel; and nationalism in Modern Greece.

What Byron really did for Greece and why it still matters

Renowned author and former PEN American Center President Salman Rushdie, who founded the World Voices Festival in 2005, will discuss the importance of freedom of expression with his friend and colleague Timothy Garton Ash, a scholar and tireless advocate of free speech and the advancement of literature. Timothy Garton Ash is currently writing a major book on free speech in the age of mass migration and the internet. Please visit his Free Speech Debate website: http://freespeechdebate.com/en/

In Conversation: Timothy Garton Ash and Salman Rushdie

This week, the NYPL Podcast welcomes Marjane Satrapi, the graphic novelist, illustrator, film director, and children's book author who brought us Persepolis. She speaks to NYPL's Paul Holdengraber about the liabilities of learning English from American movies, the intelligence required for a sense of humor, and more.

Marjane Satrapi - Narratives of Social Protest

This week, we honor Pulitzer Prize winner and former US poet laureate Mark Strand, who passed away over the weekend at the age of 80. The beloved poet and author joined us this October to discuss art, imagination, and the life of the mind.

Mark Strand on Artistic Imagination

The bestselling author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” a portrayal of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and its effects on one university professor and her students, Azar Nafisi comes to NYPL to celebrate the success of her most recent book, “The Republic of Imagination.” Nafisi joins NYPL’s Paul Holdengraber for a conversation on the importance of literature, freedom, and originality in today’s global society.

Azar Nafisi on the Freedom to Read

The author discusses her latest book, "The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited," with NYPL's Jessica Strand. These eloquently-told stories of the witnesses and participants in the Tiananmen Square uprising reveal a history that’s been censored for over a quarter century. Lim’s book is one of five finalists for The New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Learn more at http://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/05/15/nypl-chooses-best-journalism-2015

Louisa Lim on "The People's Republic of Amnesia"

If you don't have anything nice to say, say it like Shakespeare: Thou unhandsome smush-mouthed mush-rump! Thou obscene rug-headed hornbeast! The Shakespeare Insult Generator helps you craft creative zingers by mixing and matching the Bard's own words--perfect for the wanton swag-bellied underskinker in your life.  Plus, how do you feel when you say "Thank you" and the person replies "No problem"? That response bothers many people--but should it? Plus, what happens when a married couple doesn't gee-haw together. Also: the origins of shimmy and smidge, ham-and-egger, a techie word quiz, double possessives, and enough food to feed Coxey's army.

Shakespeare's Insults (Full Episode)

How ISIS Changed Middle East Reporting: featuring Jeffrey Goldberg and Farnaz Fassihi

How ISIS Changed Middle East Reporting | Shorenstein Center

Journalist, novelist and travel writer Pico Iyer has become one of our most eloquent explorers of what he calls the "inner world" — in himself and in the 21st Century world at large. He travels the globe from Ethiopia to North Korea and lives in Japan. But he also experiences a remote Benedictine hermitage as his second home, retreating there many times each year. In this intimate conversation, we explore the discoveries he's making and his practice of "the art of stillness.”

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/pico-iyer-the-art-of-stillness/7615


Pico Iyer — The Art of Stillness

NYPL's Gwen Glazer reads from "Murder in the Dark," a short story by Margaret Atwood.

Find it at NYPL: https://nypl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/11976022052907_good_bones_and_simple_murders

Music: Blue Dot Sessions, "The Stasis"

"Murder in the Dark" by Margaret Atwood

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/novel-thoughts-2-clare-bryant-on-as-byatts-possession 

Professor Clare Bryant from Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine explains how reading AS Byatt’s Possession at a crucial point in her early career reminded her of the excitement of research and persuaded her not to turn her back on her life as a scientist.

Here she talks about this favourite book as part of ‘Novel Thoughts’, a series exploring the literary reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists. From illustrated children’s books to Thomas Hardy, from Star Wars to Middlemarch, we find out what fiction has meant to each of the scientists and peek inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.

‘Novel Thoughts’ was inspired by research at St Andrew’s University by Dr Sarah Dillon (now a lecturer in the Faculty of English at Cambridge) who interviewed 20 scientists for the ‘What Scientists Read’ project. She found that reading fiction can help scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks. 

Novel Thoughts #2: Clare Bryant on AS Byatt’s Possession

Recipients of the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship discuss their research. Julia Fan Li talks about research for pressing global health challenges; Divya Venkatesh discusses research on African sleeping sickness and biotechnology; and Alexandra Grigore describes her role in creating a fingerprint identity system for accessing medical records in developing countries.

Global health in the 21st century by Julia Fan Li, Divya Venkatesh, Alexandra Grigore

Defenders of free speech sometimes express the hope that bad speech can be fought with good. But there can be constraints on our power to talk back. Race and gender slurs present distinctive challenges, as do the related phenomena of hate speech and propaganda.

Can bad speech always be fought with good? by Professor Rae Langton

What can we learn from the ancient Romans and Greeks about the impact of migration on language and how is this relevant to contemporary concerns about immigration and language change?

Migration and language: ancient perspectives by Dr James Clackson

Leading novelists Nicola Barker and Deborah Levy discuss how the Internet has impacted today's literature and what the future might hold. Chaired by Dr Malachi McIntosh.

Literary fiction in the age of information by Nicola Barker and Deborah Levy

The decision to go to war in 1914 had catastrophic consequences for Russia, resulting in revolution, civil war, famine and decades of Communist rule. Prof Lieven explains why this suicidal decision was made and offers a radically different view of why Europe descended into disaster, overturning assumptions about the War, with major implications for world history today.

Empire, war and the end of Tsarist Russia by Professor Dominic Lieven

A PhD student in cell biology at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Guy Pearson draws a link between the pursuit of Fancy Day in Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree and the pursuit of scientific discovery.

Here he talks about this favourite book as part of ‘Novel Thoughts’, a series exploring the literary reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists. From illustrated children’s books to Thomas Hardy, from Star Wars to Middlemarch, we find out what fiction has meant to each of the scientists and peek inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.

‘Novel Thoughts’ was inspired by research at St Andrew’s University by Dr Sarah Dillon (now a lecturer in the Faculty of English at Cambridge) who interviewed 20 scientists for the ‘What Scientists Read’ project. She found that reading fiction can help scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks. 

Novel Thoughts #6: Guy Pearson on Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree

Azar Nafisi discusses Czeslaw Milosz and reads his poem “An Honest Description of Myself with a Glass of Whiskey at An Airport, Let Us Say, in Minneapolis” at Czeslaw Milosz and the Conscience of Literature, part of the 2005 PEN World Voices Festival.

Azar Nafisi Reads “An Honest Description of Myself …” by Czeslaw Milosz

[PT] Entrevista com a escritora iraniana Azar Nafisi. Esta entrevista foi realizada por Vanessa Rodrigues, em 2010, no âmbito da Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty, Brasil. 

[ENG] Interview with iranian writer Azar Nafisi. This interviewed was conducted by Vanessa Rodrigues, in Paraty, Brazil, in 2010, in the context of FLIP - Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty, a literary event that gathers worlwide writers. 

Lectures, Interviews, Intellectuals

Sara Barrera