Adults

Writer, translator, and Oulipo member Daniel Levin Becker has turned his explorations of words and sound toward a new field: rap music. Join him for a discussion on art, lyricism, and language.

The Odyssey meets On the Road meets Huckleberry Finn: Amor Towles presents his newest release, The Lincoln Highway. A whirlwind railway ride through 1950’s Americana, the work is an exhilarating ode to storytelling.

The birth of scientific racism has been increasingly associated with the Enlightenment era. If this is true, how did the Enlightenment era invent race? Andrew S. Curran speaks about this as well as his new book (co-edited with Henry Louis Gates Jr.), Who’s Black and Why? A Hidden Chapter in the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race.

Two of the most prominent voices in contemporary fiction convene as part of Festival America to discuss interplays of visibility and invisibility in society and literature. Faced with the wounds of injustice, could writing act as a cure?

Join the Library in exploring the multifaceted and iconoclastic life and work of celebrated author Joyce Maynard.

From missteps of Western policy to the mythology of the Soviet empire, expert in modern Russian political history Peter Conradi speaks with TIME correspondent Vivienne Walt on the invasion of Ukraine, what led up to it, and what it means for the future.