(Hybrid) Bruno Patino on the Age of Information
2023-03-15 19:30 - 20:30 (Europe/Paris) | The American Library in Paris
Are we living through an information overload? Constantly bombarded by images, facts, and opinions emanating from screens of varied shapes and sizes, one may begin to wonder what purpose staying up to date ultimately serves. In the words of ARTE President Bruno Patino, is it only natural to ask, “s’informer, à quoi bon?” Yet Patino insists upon the social imperative of remaining informed, providing a compelling case for knowledge as a public good. Patino will discuss new essay “S’informer, à quoi bon”, as well as his celebrated works on the attention economy and the failures of internet utopianism. Join him to learn how we can rework digital society to reclaim our relationship to our devices and re-enter the shared human world.
About the speaker:
Bruno Patino is an author and journalist. He has published five works on digital media with Grasset, including La civilisation du poisson rouge (2019) and its sequel, Tempête dans le bocal : la nouvelle civilisation du poisson rouge (2022). “S’informer, à quoi bon?” was published in 2023. Patino has been CEO of the French-German TV channel ARTE since 2021, after previously serving as Editorial Director of Arte France. He is Associate Professor at Sciences Po and an analyst of digital society.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Patino will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
Please note the Daylight Savings gap between the US and France. This event will take place at 19h30 CET / 14h30 EDT
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

(Hybrid) A Dispatch from the Fashion Archives with Marco Pecorari and Antoine Bucher
2023-03-21 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Fashion captures the historical moment, giving it shape and fixing it in fabric. We often turn to fashion as a record and reflection of its time. Yet how is fashion itself recorded? What tools do we have to document the design, production, and use of fashion? What constitutes a fashion object? When writing the history of fashion, what is worthy of the archive, and what is cast aside? When considering the legacy of the most famous luxury brands, what is included in the narrative, and what is deliberately left out? At the heart of this question is the idea of ephemera: from invitations, to press releases, to catalogs, minor and often forgotten documents provide an alternative means of envisioning the development of modern fashion within the contemporary marketplace. Experts in fashion history, practices of collection, and archival sciences discuss.
About the speakers:
Antoine Bucher graduated from the University of Lille and from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. He is the co-founder of Diktats, a bookstore specialized in rare books and documents related to fashion from the 16th century to the 20th century. As the manager of Diktats, Antoine Bucher has been working with international museums and libraries, private collectors and heritage departments of luxury brands for more than a decade.
Dr. Marco Pecorari is Assistant Professor and Program Director of the MA in Fashion Studies at Parsons Paris. He is co-editor of the volume Fashion, Performance and Performativity: The Complex Spaces of Fashion (2021) and author of Fashion Remains: Rethinking Fashion Ephemera in the Archive (2021). He is the co-founder of the festival and publication Printing Fashion and sits on the editorial boards of Fashion Theory, ZoneModa Journal, and Bloomsbury Fashion Central.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Bucher and Pecorari will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
Please note the Daylight Savings gap between the US and France. This event will take place at 19h30 CET / 14h30 EDT
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
This talk is supported by the Florence Gould Foundation and the American Center for Arts and Culture.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

(Hybrid) Macron's Second Term, Analyzed
2023-03-22 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Emmanuel Macron’s win in the 2022 French presidential election arrived at a moment of intense political polarization across France. The divided state of French politics has continued to limit Macron’s success, already undermined by the lowest turnout in a French presidential election since 1969 and a smaller-than-expected margin of victory. Is Macron, polling at 35% in October, falling out of favor with the French? How should we evaluate the first six months of his second term? What challenges does a minority government face in modern-day France? And what sort of prognoses can we draw from this about centrism in Europe today? In partnership with the Overseas Press Club of America (OPC), we invite a panel of experts to analyze the state of French politics, what led up to this, and what this means for the future. This discussion will be moderated by Vivienne Walt.
About the speakers:
Constant Méheut is a reporter in the Paris bureau of the New York Times, covering France. He joined the Paris bureau in 2020, after graduating from HEC Paris and MGIMO university in Moscow with a dual master’s degree in business and international relations. Méheut has reported the 2022 presidential campaign in France and the rise of the French far right.
Vivienne Walt is a Paris correspondent for TIME Magazine and Fortune Magazine. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, BusinessWeek, and more. She is governor of the Overseas Press Club of America.
Matthew Dalton is a reporter in the Wall Street Journal Paris bureau where he covers climate change, energy security and European politics and foreign policy. Before moving to Paris, he was a reporter in the Journal’s Brussels bureau for seven years, where his coverage ranged from the eurozone economic crisis to Islamist militancy in Europe.
Thierry Arnaud is currently international editor for French news network BFMTV. Thierry joined BFMTV in 2006 as its US Correspondent, and later served as the network political editor for six years. He was managing editor for sister network BFM Business from 2019 to 2022. Thierry started in career in print journalism, and was based for several of these years in London and New York.
Victor Mallet has covered France in three stints, and was the Financial Time‘s Paris bureau chief until last September. He has spent three decades covering Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and has written two books, on the Ganges River and the modernisation of south-east Asia.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Abboud, Méheut, Arnaud and Walt will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
Please note the Daylight Savings gap between the US and France. This event will take place at 19h30 CET / 14h30 EDT
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
This event has been organized in partnership with the Overseas Press Club of American (OPC).
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

Critical Conversations Meeting Five: A Life of Reading and Writing
2023-03-23 19:00 - 21:00 | The American Library in Paris
Given the pressure of constant connectivity today, forging a life of reading and writing may feel like a solitary or revolutionary pursuit. But how might such a life benefit the individual and society at large? What exactly doesa life of reading and writing demand of, and offer to, the individual? Do reading and writing complement or disrupt a digital lifestyle, and are words on the screen the same as words on the page? Like tasting wine or looking at a 5 painting, is there depth to reading and writing which we can only reach through honing our attention?
In partnership with Analog Sea, an offline publisher of printed books, we’re delighted to announce the fourth season of Critical Conversations, an expert-led discussion series that allows Library members to ponder the most important issues of our time. This season, we will reflect on how to lead a contemplative, vital, and unmediated life in an ever-faster digital world. We will discuss questions such as: What do we gain from disconnecting, and how can we do it? How can we sharpen our senses and redirect our attention in order to change our thoughts and actions? And most of all, how can we live in contemporary society with nuance and intention?
Some details: The 2022–23 series will unfold over nine sessions, from November 2022 to July 2023. Conversations will begin at 19h00 CET and run for two hours, in person, at the Library; technology of all description is happily forbidden. Each participant will receive copies of all four Analog Sea Review volumes published so far. Course reading and discussion will, for the most part, be based on work published in The Analog Sea Review. Jonathan Simons, founding editor of Analog Sea, will begin each meeting with some opening remarks, before guiding a group discussion.
About Critical Conversations: Whether in France or America, debate is central to healthy democracy. Critical Conversations encourages both disagreement and agreement through thinking, talking, reading, and actively participating in community. Since the series’ inception in 2020, we have tackled race in America, the climate crisis, and migration. Across seasons, participants have challenged themselves, their peers, and the world in which we live. Please write to Emilie Biggs at biggs@americanlibraryinparis.org with any questions.
About the Critical Conversations 2022-23 leader:
Jonathan Simons is the founding editor of offline publishing house Analog Sea and its literary journal, The Analog Sea Review. As a poet and essayist, he has written for publications including The London Magazine, PN Review, El País, subTerrain Magazine, and The Analog Sea Review. His work has been covered by, among others, the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, the Washington Post and La Vanguardia. He researched Buddhist poetics at Naropa University and McGill University and was formerly a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for Humans and Machines, in Berlin.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.

The Stages of Reading Development (for parents and caregivers)
2023-03-25 15:00 - 16:00 | The American Library in Paris
Join us for an afternoon discussion on reading and multilingualism. Dr. Allison Peck, in interview with Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads, will address how caregivers can help children strengthen reading skills at home, what to look for as red flags in reading development for children, how multilingualism plays into reading, what it might look like for beginning readers in multiple languages simultaneously, as well as what research-backed strategies and practices can be implemented at home to strengthen reading. The interview will be followed by an audience Q&A.

About Dr. Allison Peck: Dr. Allison Peck is currently the Chief Academic Officer at Neuhaus Education Center in Houston, Texas. She holds certifications as a Certified Academic Language Therapist-Qualified Instructor, Licensed Dyslexia Therapist for the state of Texas, and a Structured Literacy Dyslexia Specialist per the International Dyslexia Association. She is a special education, general education, and reading specialist teacher, with her experience being in the public school (middle school) and private school (elementary) realms for the last 18 years. She started her journey in the field of education after her oldest child was diagnosed with dyslexia. Allison has a BA in Political Science, an MLA in History, and an MEd in Curriculum and Instruction. She completed her Ph.D. in Literacy at St. John’s University in New York. Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. Attendees are expected to familiarize themselves with the Library Policy for Children and the Rules and Code of Conduct so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. Questions about collections and programs for children, teens and families can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

(Hybrid) Simone de Beauvoir: Living Philosophy with Kate Kirkpatrick and Marine Rouch
2023-03-28 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Nearly seventy-five years ago, Simone de Beauvoir published the monumental The Second Sex. An invaluable contribution to existential philosophy, the work laid the foundations for contemporary feminist thought. It led to the development of new disciplines, from gender studies to queer theory, all motivated by the central claim: that one is not born a woman, but rather becomes one. Who was the woman behind the text? How did her life feed into her philosophy, and in what ways were the two in contradiction? How did Simone de Beauvoir become herself? Join American Library in Paris Visiting Fellow and author of Becoming Beauvoir Kate Kirkpatrick and de Beauvoir expert Marine Rouch to discuss the biography of the woman who changed philosophy.
About the speakers:
Kate Kirkpatrick is a 2022-23 American Library in Paris Visiting Fellow. She is a philosopher based in Oxford, where she is Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy and Christian Ethics at Regent’s Park College. Kirkpatrick is author of Sartre on Sin (2017), Sartre and Theology (2017), and the internationally acclaimed biography Becoming Beauvoir: A Life (2019), which was selected as one of the best books of 2019 by the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, and the Telegraph, and is currently being translated into over a dozen languages. In 2021 she was awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship to write a philosophical commentary on Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex.
Dr. Marine Rouch is a researcher at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès and teaches in several universities. She wrote a thesis based on the thousands of letters Simone de Beauvoir received from her ordinary readers, mostly women. She is the editor of the research blog “Chère Simone de Beauvoir” and the Communication Coordinator of The International Simone de Beauvoir Society. She co-created the Beauvoir Webinar Series and published numerous articles.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Kirkpatrick and Rouch will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

(Hybrid) Preti Taneja on the Aftermath of Disaster
2023-03-29 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Novelist Preti Taneja’s second work, Aftermath, is a fragmented, aching, yet ultimately hopeful account of the immediate consequences of catastrophe. Following a fatal attack at a celebration for a prison education program in London which left a colleague of Taneja’s dead, the work details both the intimate experience of loss and a public reckoning with a fractured social structure. Touching upon violence, power, and poetry, the work considers the culture of trauma narratives and the limits of language in contending with disaster. Blending first, second, and third person, Taneja ultimately arrives at writing as a means of reconciling the personal with the shared.
About the speaker:
Preti Taneja is a British Asian writer and activist, and Professor of World Literature and Creative Writing at Newcastle University, UK. Her first book, We That Are Young (2017), won the 2018 Desmond Elliott Prize for the year’s best literary debut novel. Aftermath (2021) was a 2022 New Yorker best book of the year and a New Statesman book of the year. It won the Gordon Burn Prize for literature that is fearless in ambition and execution.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Taneja will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

Ecologues Meeting Three: The Energy Question
2023-03-30 19:00 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Volatile gas and electricity prices, accelerating energy diversification, and a cold winter ahead, the question of energy (and of the energy transition from fossil-based to zero-carbon by the second half of this century) is central to contemporary discussions about the environment.
In partnership with News Decoder and the Climate Academy at the European School of Brussels, we’re delighted to announce Ecologues, a series of interactive webinars featuring experts on various aspects of the environmental crisis. Attached to The Writing’s on the Wall (WoW), a year-long project helping students across the world grapple with the climate crisis through journalism, activism, and art, the series will allow participants of all ages to deepen understanding, tackle disinformation and, ultimately, inspire change in their communities. Reconciling science and art, knowledge and action, pragmatism and hope, the conversations will stir curiosity and encourage participation. The Library’s contribution to this joint program is supported by the Florence Gould Foundation and the American Center for Arts and Culture.
About the speakers:
Andreas Rüdinger coordinates IDDRI’s, a think tank which facilitates the transition towards sustainable development, activities on the French energy transition.
Tom Burke is the co-founding Director and Chairman of Third Generation Environmentalism, a climate change think tank.
Important information: The 2023 series will unfold over six sessions, from 26 January to 29 June. Conversations will begin at 19h00 CET and run for ninety minutes. Conversations will be hybrid, taking place both in person at the American Library in Paris and online. Though participants are encouraged to join all six sessions for a holistic overview, the discrete and diverse nature of topics will allow audience members to attend based on interest. Alice McCrum, head of cultural programming at the American Library in Paris, will begin each conversation with brief opening remarks, before guiding an in-depth group discussion.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.

(Hybrid) Reimagining Race with Mohsin Hamid
2023-04-04 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Award-winning novelist Mohsin Hamid’s newest work, The Last White Man, begins with a premise borrowed from Kafka: one day, his protagonist wakes up to find that he has undergone a transformation overnight. In this case, he has metamorphosed from a white man into a man of color. As similar transformations begin to occur to all white members of his town, the previously fixed social order begins to break down. Disorienting and thought-provoking, the work forces readers to confront the instability of racial identity in contemporary society. Wielding the absurd as a tool for political engagement, Hamid harnesses fiction’s capacity to inspire the imagination in order to propose alternative visions for the world.
About the speaker:
Mohsin Hamid was born in Lahore (Pakistan) in 1971. Known all over the world for The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), he has lived between Pakistan, United-States and London all his life.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Hamid will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

(Online) Returning to East Berlin with Jenny Erpenbeck and Claire Messud
2023-04-05 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
The Greek expression for timeliness or opportunity, kairos expresses the correspondence of an activity to its historical moment; an ephemeral alignment of situation and season. In celebrated writer Jenny Erpenbeck’s new work Kairos, this alignment is a relationship which emerges between a young woman and older writer amidst the dissolution of the GDR. The book contends with generational and political divides, anchored to the division of Berlin: having fortuitously found one another, the couple experiences the collapse of East Berlin from two different historical perspectives, unable to reach each other across the wall of time that separates them. Erpenbeck will discuss divided states, lovers, and ages with writer Claire Messud.
About the speakers:
Born in East Berlin in 1967, Jenny Erpenbeck is the author of many works of fiction. She won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for her 2012 novel Aller Tage Abend (The End of Days). Her novel Gehen, ging, gegangen (Go, Went, Gone) was shortlisted for the Deutscher Buchpreis in 2017 and has been nominated for the 2023 Prix Frontieres Leonora Miano. For her works, translated into 30 languages, she has won several awards such as the Thomas-Mann-Prize, the Premio Strega, and the Lee-Hochul-Prize.
Claire Messud is the author of six novels, including The Emperor’s Children (2006), a New York Times Book of the Year in 2006; The Woman Upstairs (2013); and The Burning Girl (2017), a finalist for the LA Times Book Award in Fiction. Her most recent novel is A Dream Life (2021). She was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2020. Messud teaches creative writing at Harvard University and writes a monthly books column for Harper’s Magazine.
Important information: This event is online. Attendees will receive a Zoom link upon registration. Participants will be able to pose questions through the Zoom chat function.
This event requires advance registration.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

History Tour at the Library
2023-04-07 11:00 - 12:00, 2023-05-05 11:00 - 12:00 | The American Library in Paris
The American Library in Paris invites you to register for a History Tour. Come visit us in person at 10 rue du Général Camou and discover:

Our origin story, when our Library warehoused a collection of books donated to the Doughboys fighting alongside Allied troupes in WWI
The establishment of the American Library in Paris as a private library
The famous writers of the Lost Generation (Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, and more) who explored our stacks during their time in Paris
Our Paris Library School, which brought American innovations to French libraries in the 1920s
The true stories of the brave Librarians who kept the Library open during the Occupation of WWII
How the Library has evolved over its 103-year history into the largest English-language lending library on the European continent

All tours are on Fridays at 11h00, last one hour, and take place in person at the American Library in Paris.
Tours are free of charge and open to the public. Pre-registration is required.
This initiative is made possible through the generous support of the Florence Gould Foundation and the American Center for Art and Culture.
Please email tours@americanlibraryinparis.org with any questions.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.

Priceless Education on a Budget with Richard Montauk (ages 12–adult)
2023-04-08 14:00 - 15:30 | The American Library in Paris
During this presentation with guest Richard Montauk, parents and teens will explore the options for financing a university education in top schools. We’ll take a look at the options (from graduating college early to attending free(ish) colleges).
This presentation will include an overview of co-op programs, starting at community college, undergraduate options in the U.S., undergraduate degrees abroad, combining programs, and more.
Although the focus of this presentation is strategic in nature, it will be filled with examples illustrating how to strategically plan for a university education, and how to plan financially.
Note: this presentation will not cover the usual, insufficient solutions to the problem: getting need-based financial aid, merit aid, or third-party scholarships, or saving for college in a tax-efficient manner. Instead, we’ll look at dozens of inexpensive options at both the undergraduate and graduate levels (while retaining our focus on elite universities).
Substantial time will be available at the end of the presentation for questions.

About Richard Montauk: Richard Montauk is the author of a series of best-selling guides, all published by Prentice Hall, including How to Get Into the Top Colleges and How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs. His most recent books include College Interviews: The Definitive Guide and Getting into Brown: Successful Applicants’ Essays, Resumes, and Interviews. He received a BA in literature from Brown University, an MA in government from Harvard, an MS in finance, and a JD from Stanford Law School. Pursuant to a graduate fellowship, he also studied at the London School of Economics and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of London). After graduating from Stanford, Richard worked as a corporate lawyer for Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles, then as a corporate strategy consultant for Bain & Co. in London, before devoting himself full-time to admissions consulting. Since 1991, he has consulted to candidates for the world’s top universities, for both undergraduate and graduate programs. He can be reached through his website: www.richardmontauk.com. Important information:
This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. All visitors are expected to familiarize themselves with the Library Policy for Children and the Rules and Code of Conduct so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons.
Questions about collections and programs for children and teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

Selecting Colleges: An Overview of U.S. Universities with Richard Montauk (ages 12–adult)
2023-04-08 16:00 - 17:30 | The American Library in Paris
In this presentation with guest Richard Montauk, teens and their parents will explore the options for a university education, and how to evaluate programs to find the best fit for an individual student. The presentation will cover: U.S. and foreign schools, the selection process in American universities, the role of parents in the application process, extracurricular activities and social factors that might influence a students admission, and more.
About Richard Montauk: Richard Montauk is the author of a series of best-selling guides, all published by Prentice Hall, including How to Get Into the Top Colleges and How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs. His most recent books include College Interviews: The Definitive Guide and Getting into Brown: Successful Applicants’ Essays, Resumes, and Interviews. He received a BA in literature from Brown University, an MA in government from Harvard, an MS in finance, and a JD from Stanford Law School. Pursuant to a graduate fellowship, he also studied at the London School of Economics and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of London). After graduating from Stanford, Richard worked as a corporate lawyer for Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles, then as a corporate strategy consultant for Bain & Co. in London, before devoting himself full-time to admissions consulting. Since 1991, he has consulted to candidates for the world’s top universities, for both undergraduate and graduate programs. He can be reached through his website: www.richardmontauk.com. Important information:
This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. All visitors are expected to familiarize themselves with the Library Policy for Children and the Rules and Code of Conduct so that we can provide a pleasant library environment for all patrons. After-hours events for teens, such as Teen Nights, require a signed permission slip, which can be downloaded here. One permission slip is needed per academic year (September–July).
Questions about collections and programs for children and teens can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

(Hybrid) Feminism Today with Kate Kirkpatrick and Manon Garcia
2023-04-11 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
The past decade has seen many significant moments in feminist history, amplified by the rise of social media. The consent revolution, from #MeToo to #Balancetonporc, led to a reevaluation of power dynamics in the workplace and in society at large. The Women’s March demonstrated the power of mass-mobilization, as well as its limits. Developments in queer studies have led to evolving notions of what womanhood means, complicating the contours of feminism and the groups it represents. Racial justice movements have brought the question of intersectionality to the forefront of feminist philosophies. As social life rapidly changes around us, Is a unified definition of feminism–as a set of principles, a practice, an approach to life–still possible? Was it ever? Join philosophers of feminism Kate Kirkatrick and Manon Garcia to discuss.
About the speakers:
Kate Kirkpatrick is a 2022-23 American Library in Paris Visiting Fellow. She is a philosopher based in Oxford, where she is Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy and Christian Ethics at Regent’s Park College. Kirkpatrick is author of Sartre on Sin (2017), Sartre and Theology (2017), and the internationally acclaimed biography Becoming Beauvoir: A Life (2019), which was selected as one of the best books of 2019 by the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, and the Telegraph, and is currently being translated into over a dozen languages. In 2021 she was awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship to write a philosophical commentary on Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex.
Manon Garcia teaches philosophy at the Free University in Berlin. Trained as a philosopher in France, she taught philosophy at the University of Chicago, Harvard, and Yale, before moving to Berlin. She is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and the author of We Are Not Born Submissive: How Patriarchy Shapes Women’s Lives (2021) partly devoted to Beauvoir’s philosophy. La Conversation des sexes, her second book, was awarded best philosophical work published in France in 2022 and is forthcoming in English in 2023 as The Joy of Consent: A Philosophy of Good Sex. Photo: Astrid di Crollalanza © Flammarion.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Kirkpatrick and Garcia will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

(Online) Entre Nous: Data’s Human History with Chris Wiggins and Matthew Jones
2023-04-12 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
The central question of the twenty-first century has become that of data. How is it gathered? How is it used? By whom and for whom? As society becomes increasingly digital, how can one opt out of the data machine, and in what ways are we all unwittingly opting in? Omnipresent and largely anonymous, data technology’s murky origins contribute to its near-mystical status. In new work How Data Happened, historians of science Chris Wiggins and Matthew Jones combat this opacity, revealing the fascinating and deeply political history of data. Considering economic, social, and diplomatic factors, Wiggins and Jones situate data within a matrix of states, companies, and individuals all seeking to transform knowledge into power.
About the speakers:
Matthew L. Jones is James R. Barker Professor of Contemporary Civilization in the Department of History at Columbia University. A Guggenheim Fellow and a Mellon New Directions fellow, he has published two works on the history of science, is completing a book on state surveillance of communications and, with Chris Wiggins, has just published How Data Happened, a history of the science, politics, and power of data, statistics, and machine learning from the 1800s to the present (2023).
Chris Wiggins is an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University and the Chief Data Scientist at the New York Times. At Columbia, he is a founding member of the executive committee of the Data Science Institute, and of the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics as well as the Department of Systems Biology, and is affiliated faculty in Statistics. He is a co-founder and co-organizer of hackNY, a Fellow of the American Physical Society and is a recipient of Columbia’s Avanessians Diversity Award.
The Entre Nous series is co-organized by Columbia Global Centers | Paris, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, and the American Library in Paris.
Important information: This event is online. Attendees will receive a Zoom link upon registration. Participants will be able to pose questions through the Zoom chat function.
This event requires advance registration.

Moving Up to C.P. (in partnership with AAWE) (for parents and caregivers)
2023-04-13 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
The Library is pleased to present this panel discussion in partnership with the Association of American Women in Europe (AAWE).
Within the French education system, the transition from maternelle (pre-school) to primaire (primary school) is an exciting step for most children. The Cours Préparatoire (or CP) is the first year of primary school (primaire), when children begin their formal education and learn to write and develop their reading skills. Our panel discussion with professionals and parents will cover: what to consider when making choices about the best C.P. options for your child; what is available in Paris in terms of private and public schools and how to apply to them; developmental insights into this age group; and practical advice for helping your children thrive during this crucial step in their education.
The speakers will include:
Elaine Bowman: mom to two bilingual boys who were both born in France. She is currently the Campus Director of the Bilingual Montessori School Paris in the American Church of Paris and member of the AAWE Education Committee.
Jessica Lament: a multi-certified teacher and coach specialized in integrating diverse learners and instruction that maximize student engagement. She is currently Vice President of SPRINT and co-founder of School Partner Consulting.
Michelle O’ Brien: is co-founder of A Good Start in France. She is a bi-national French/American born in Long Island N.Y who has lived and worked in many countries around the world and studied in both France and the US. She actively contributes to the social & educational Anglophone organizations in Paris helping new expatriates enjoy and benefit from their time in France.
Nancy Jochimek: began her career in New York, before moving to Paris where she is now a successful business woman. She is the mother of a bilingual son who has just moved up to C.P. She did a great deal of research into the best option for her son and will be sharing how she chose her son’s program, and why it was the best choice for him.
Susan Zeitouni: is an Italian/American, who was born and raised in Rome, Italy. She completed her university education in the U.S., and moved to Paris in 1981. She is married to a French national and raised her child in France. With her 26 years in the relocation industry she has extensive experience advising families from around the world on schooling choices for their children. She is the co-founder of A Good Start in Paris. Important information: This event is free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation). This event requires advance registration. Questions about collections and programs for children, teens and families can be sent to the Library’s Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager, Celeste Rhoads: celeste@americanlibraryinparis.org.

(In Person at the University of Chicago Center in Paris) Art Hiding in Paris
2023-04-14 19:00 - 20:00 | The University of Chicago Center in Paris, 6 rue Thomas Mann, Paris, Ile-de-France, 75003, France
Join the University of Chicago Center in Paris, in partnership with the American Library in Paris, for a Chicago Book Salon. Lori Zimmer and illustrator Maria Krasinski will present their new book, Art Hiding in Paris: An Illustrated Guide to the Secret Masterpieces of the City of Light published by Running Press, alongside the Louvre’s Cyrille Gouyette, author of A street history of art (Gallimard 2021), and stencil artist Logan Hicks, whose first monograph of photography, Still New York, was published in late 2022.
The great artworks of Paris are not limited to museum walls. Art Hiding in Paris takes readers out of the gallery and into the city to discover the creative legacy all around us, from Art Nouveau remnants to artist enclaves to iconic works of public art. In this book salon, Zimmer and Krasinski will be in conversation with Gouyette, whose most recent book discusses the relationship between contemporary street art and art history, and stencil artist Logan Hicks, whose murals can be found in Paris, to discuss how bridging classical masterpieces with modern masters of urban art can make art history more accessible, inclusive — and fun.
About the speakers:
Lori Zimmer is a New York-based writer and author of four books including the recently published Art Hiding in Paris: An Illustrated Guide to the Secret Masterpieces of the City of Light, which Forbes Magazine has called “The Perfect Companion for Exploring the City of Light.” Published by Running Press at the end of 2022, the book is the follow up to Art Hiding in New York: An Illustrated Guide to the City’s Secret Masterpieces, a love letter to the magic of art history in Zimmer’s home city that was published in 2020. Before focusing as a writer full time, Zimmer spent 12 years in the New York art world as an independent curator, critic, and advocate for artists’ rights. She has been a consultant and artist liaison for copyright infringement cases with the New York law firm Kushnirsky Gerber PLLC since 2015. Zimmer currently serves on the Board of Advisors for the Historic Districts Council of New York City.
Maria Krasinski is a Paris-based artist, educator, and the illustrator of the Art Hiding book series. Her creative work — described as “charming,” “whimsical,” and “playful” — has appeared in the Chicago Public Library, Muhammad Ali Center, The Onion A.V. Club, and the Oriental Institute Museum. Inspired by cultural exchange and storytelling, she’s worked in public diplomacy, digital arts, and museums and currently runs a nonprofit news platform for youth. She studied public policy, international relations, psychology, and visual art at the University of Chicago, and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Tbilisi, Georgia. More recently, she came in second on Jeopardy.
Art historian, author and exhibition curator, Cyrille Gouyette works in particular at the Louvre Museum where he has developed numerous educational programs for school children, students, and the disabled. Passionate about street art, he has extended his research to the relationship between street art and classical heritage. Author of two books, Under street art, the Louvre (Gallimard, 2018) and A street history of art (Gallimard 2021), he shows the legacy of the old masters among street artists. Curator of various exhibitions bringing street art to the museum, “Veni, Vidi, Vinci — Urban art facing genius,” “Wild Incursions,” at the Museum of Hunting and Nature in Paris, he founded the association M.U.R. Bastille to exhibit urban artists from diverse backgrounds and show a panorama of this planetary art.
Logan Hicks is a New York-based stencil artist and photographer, known for his photorealistic multi-layered stencil paintings and murals. With an old master’s approach to light, Hicks’ paintings are dimensional explorations that seek to find the soul of architectural scenes around the world. His murals can be found in prominent places such as Baltimore’s Camden Yards and Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. He is most known for “Story of my Life,” his 2016 piece for the famed Bowery Wall, and for painting the world’s largest stencil mural, which used 19,000 square feet of stencils, in New York City’s East Harlem. His next large-scale mural will be painted in Paris in early April 2023, along the Seine in front of Fluctuart. Hicks’ photographs continue to examine his fascination with desolation in dense urban areas. He has shown his photographs in galleries in New York, Paris, Miami and Brussels. Still New York (published 11/22) is the first publication of Hicks’ photographs.
Important information: This event will take place in person at the University of Chicago University of Chicago Center in Paris at 6 rue Thomas Mann, Paris 75013.
Advanced registration required.
To RSVP for in-person attendance, email Arnaud Coulombel at acoulomb@uchicago.edu.
To attend on Zoom, click on this link to register.

(Hybrid) Memoir As Medicine with Diane Shader Smith
2023-04-18 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
At the age of twenty-five, Diane Shader Smith’s daughter Mallory passed away following a lifelong struggle with cystic fibrosis. A passionate advocate for the cystic fibrosis community and an eloquent writer, Mallory recorded her intimate experiences for the final ten years of her life with the intent to have them published posthumously, thus rendering invisible illness visible. The result is Salt in My Soul, a celebration of an inspiring young life, a meditation upon health, and a document of sickness in the twenty-first century. The groundbreaking work offers a personal perspective on chronic illness, recentering medical discourse around the voice of the patient. Shader Smith, who has gone on to give more than 250 talks worldwide about Mallory’s story and developed the book into a documentary, will speak at the Library about medicine, memoir, and the power of storytelling.
About the speaker:
Diane Shader Smith has had a vibrant career as a writer, speaker, publicist, and fundraiser with an extensive roster of clients during her multi-decade career. When Diane’s daughter Mallory died at the age of 25, she brought Mallory’s memoir to publication as Salt in My Soul (Random House 2019), which led to the documentary of the same name (3Arts Entertainment) and has given 250+ talks worldwide about patient insights, the global health crisis called AMR, and phage therapy–everything Mallory wrote about and stood for.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Shader Smith will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

(Hybrid) Voices of Migration with Violaine Schwartz and Christine Gutman
2023-04-19 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
In Papers, author Violaine Schwartz gathers the numerous and varied experiences of those seeking asylum in France. Having survived arduous and often life-threatening journeys from their home countries, the voices of this collection arrived in France only to learn that their odyssey had not yet ended. This is the story of the second half of their travels: through impenetrable bureaucratic systems, senseless administrative demands, and time itself as their wait for official government recognition draws on. A modern epic of human movement and a critique of violence in all its forms, the work is a damning portrait of the conditions of contemporary immigration: the reduction of community to arbitrary borders, shared humanity to anonymous policy, and life to pieces of paper.
About the speakers:
Violaine Schwartz is a French novelist, playwright, singer, and stage actor. Her novel Le Vent dans la bouche was awarded the 2013 Prix Eugène Dabit du Roman Populiste. In addition to writing and performing, she leads writing workshops in a variety of settings. Papers is her first book to be published in English.
Christine Gutman is a French-to-English translator with a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Papers, by Violaine Schwartz (Fern Books, 2022), is her first book-length literary translation. Other translations of hers have appeared in The Georgia Review, 3:AM and Samovar.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Schwartz and Gutman will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

Critical Conversations Meeting Six: Leisure
2023-04-20 19:00 - 21:00 | The American Library in Paris
The terms free time and leisure are often used interchangeably. But are they the same? For the Ancient Greeks, leisure was scola (the origin of our word for school), which meant, more than recreation or relaxation, the pursuit of knowledge.
For Marx, leisure stood in opposition to the industrial worker’s alienation from the value of their own labor and represented time spent away from addressing the necessities of life.
German philosopher Byung-Chul Han speaks of the vita contemplativa being privileged over the vita activa well into the Middle Ages and that the overemphasis today on constant activity is engendering a “new barbarism” (ASR1, p. 83).
In this seminar, we will ask what defines leisure today: is it something greater than entertainment and relaxation? Do digital tools bring us more or less leisure? Do we feel as individuals that we have sufficient leisure in our lives? If not, what stands in the way, and what does the pursuit of true leisure teach us?
In partnership with Analog Sea, an offline publisher of printed books, we’re delighted to announce the fourth season of Critical Conversations, an expert-led discussion series that allows Library members to ponder the most important issues of our time. This season, we will reflect on how to lead a contemplative, vital, and unmediated life in an ever-faster digital world. We will discuss questions such as: What do we gain from disconnecting, and how can we do it? How can we sharpen our senses and redirect our attention in order to change our thoughts and actions? And most of all, how can we live in contemporary society with nuance and intention?
Some details: The 2022–23 series will unfold over nine sessions, from November 2022 to July 2023. Conversations will begin at 19h00 CET and run for two hours, in person, at the Library; technology of all description is happily forbidden. Each participant will receive copies of all four Analog Sea Review volumes published so far. Course reading and discussion will, for the most part, be based on work published in The Analog Sea Review. Jonathan Simons, founding editor of Analog Sea, will begin each meeting with some opening remarks, before guiding a group discussion.
About Critical Conversations: Whether in France or America, debate is central to healthy democracy. Critical Conversations encourages both disagreement and agreement through thinking, talking, reading, and actively participating in community. Since the series’ inception in 2020, we have tackled race in America, the climate crisis, and migration. Across seasons, participants have challenged themselves, their peers, and the world in which we live. Please write to Emilie Biggs at biggs@americanlibraryinparis.org with any questions.
About the Critical Conversations 2022-23 leader:
Jonathan Simons is the founding editor of offline publishing house Analog Sea and its literary journal, The Analog Sea Review. As a poet and essayist, he has written for publications including The London Magazine, PN Review, El País, subTerrain Magazine, and The Analog Sea Review. His work has been covered by, among others, the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, the Washington Post and La Vanguardia. He researched Buddhist poetics at Naropa University and McGill University and was formerly a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for Humans and Machines, in Berlin.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.

History Tour at the Library
2023-04-21 11:00 - 12:00 | The American Library in Paris
The American Library in Paris invites you to register for a History Tour. Come visit us in person at 10 rue du Général Camou and discover:

Our origin story, when our Library warehoused a collection of books donated to the Doughboys fighting alongside Allied troops in WWI
The establishment of the American Library in Paris as a private library
The famous writers of the Lost Generation (Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, and more) who explored our stacks during their time in Paris
The Paris Library School, which brought American innovations to French libraries in the 1920s
The true stories of the brave librarians who kept the Library open during the Occupation of WWII
How the Library has evolved over its 103-year history into the largest English-language lending library on the European continent

All tours are on Fridays at 11h00, last one hour, and take place in person at the American Library in Paris.
Tours are free of charge and open to the public. Pre-registration is required.
This initiative is made possible through the generous support of the Florence Gould Foundation and the American Center for Art and Culture.
Please email tours@americanlibraryinparis.org with any questions.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.

Entre Nous: Enter Ghost with Isabella Hammad and Yasmine Seale
2023-04-24 19:00 - 20:00 | Reid Hall, 4 Rue de Chevreuse, Paris, Paris, 75006, France
After years away from her family’s homeland, and reeling from a disastrous love affair, actress Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her older sister Haneen. While Haneen made a life here commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new.
When Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, she joins a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Soon, Sonia is rehearsing Gertrude’s lines in classical Arabic with a dedicated group of men who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, all want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer and the warring intensifies, it becomes clear just how many obstacles stand before the troupe. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home.
Timely, thoughtful, and passionate, Isabella Hammad’s highly anticipated second novel is an exquisite story of the connection to be found in family and shared resistance.
About the speakers:
Isabella Hammad is the author of The Parisian and her second novel, Enter Ghost, is forthcoming in 2023. She won a 2019 National Book Award “5 Under 35” and received the 2020 Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, MacDowell, the Santa Maddalena Foundation, and the Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation, and has taught creative writing in the graduate programs at New York University and Brown University.
Yasmine Seale is a British-Syrian writer and translator. Her poetry, essays, visual art, and translations from Arabic and French have appeared widely. She is the author, with Robin Moger, of Agitated Air: Poems after Ibn Arabi (Tenement Press, 2022). Other work includes Aladdin: a New Translation (2018) and The Annotated Arabian Nights(2021), both out from W. W. Norton. She has received a PEN America Literary Grant and the Wasafiri New Writing Prize for Poetry.
The Entre Nous series is co-organized by Columbia Global Centers | Paris, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, and the American Library in Paris.
Important information: This event will take place in person at Reid Hall | Columbia Global Centers at 4 rue de Chevreuse.
Access to this event requires registration through Columbia Global Centers | Paris. Click on the button below to reserve your place.

(Hybrid) Nina Gelbart on the Forgotten Women of the Enlightenment
2023-04-25 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
The most frequently-cited version of the Enlightenment is that of a group of brilliant men whose contributions to science and the humanities defined the contours of the centuries to come. These men’s names now decorate Parisian streets and metro stops, cementing their legacy as founders of modern France. Historian Nina Gelbart proposes we expand this vision of the eighteenth century. In Minerva’s French Sisters, Gelbart reveals the forgotten stories of six women whose contributions to science rival their most famous male peers. Gelbart breaks with traditional ways of writing history, offering a biography equal parts rigorous and imaginative. Join her to discuss new approaches to old narratives and the hidden women of the Enlightenment.
About the speaker:
Nina Rattner Gelbart is Professor of History and Anita Johnson Wand Professor of Women’s Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Her research on female journalists, midwives, scientists and revolutionaries of 18th century France has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and most recently by the Guggenheim Foundation.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Gelbart will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

(Hybrid) Changing our Approach to Change with Adam Phillips
2023-04-26 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Please note that in-person reservations for this event are now closed. We invite you to sign up to attend online by clicking the RSVP button.
Can people truly change? When one is unhappy or unwell, is it possible to get better? Adam Phillips, the UK’s foremost literary psychoanalyst, thinks that these may not be the right questions to ask. Rather, we should consider what we mean by the terms ‘change’ and ‘get better’, and how transformation and self-betterment have been mythologized. In bestselling works On Wanting to Change and On Getting Better, Phillips encourages us to rethink the ways we talk about mental health and the lives we lead. By redefining the terms of the conversation surrounding change, we may learn to think more clearly about ourselves. At the Library, Phillips will discuss the human mind and the tools we have to understand it.
About the speaker:
Adam Phillips, formerly Principal Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital, London, is a practicing psychoanalyst and a visiting professor in the English department at the University of York. He is the author of various works of psychoanalysis and literary criticism, including most recently The Cure For Psychoanalysis, On Getting Better, On Wanting to Change, Attention Seeking, and In Writing. He is General Editor of the Penguin Modern Classics Freud translations, a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature, and a contributor to the London Review of Books.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Phillips will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

George Monbiot, Sébastien Treyer, and Emma Heiling on Feeding the World
2023-04-27 19:00 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
While half of the world’s habitable land is used to produce our food, fertilizers, sewage, and pesticides contaminate large swathes of the rest. How to feed the world, we might ask, without destroying the planet?
The Library’s contribution to this joint program is supported by the Florence Gould Foundation and the American Center for Arts and Culture.
Please note the special start time of this event.
About the speakers:
George Monbiot, author of Regenesis:Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet, is a columnist, filmmaker, and essayist.
Sébastien Treyer is Executive Director of IDDRI, a think tank which facilitates the transition towards sustainable development.
Emma Heiling is the Founder & CEO of ClimaTalk, a youth-led non-profit organisation demystifying climate policy and empowering young people in the fight for climate action.
Important information: The 2023 series will unfold over six sessions, from 26 January to 29 June. Conversations will begin at 19h00 CET and run for ninety minutes. Conversations will be hybrid, taking place both in person at the American Library in Paris and online. Though participants are encouraged to join all six sessions for a holistic overview, the discrete and diverse nature of topics will allow audience members to attend based on interest. Alice McCrum, head of cultural programming at the American Library in Paris, will begin each conversation with brief opening remarks, before guiding an in-depth group discussion.

This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.

(Hybrid) Writing to the Moon with Fatoumata Kébé
2023-05-02 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
The moon has been the subject of human fascination since the dawn of recorded history. Celebrated in epic poetry and sacred texts, spanning ancient mythology and modern physics, it has been the object of awe, worship, investigation, and analysis across every era of civilization. In La lune est un roman, astronomer Fatoumata Kebe tells us the story of the moon. The moon’s story, we learn, is also the story of the humans looking at, studying, rhapsodizing, and loving it. We have always looked at the same moon. Kebe demonstrates that our ways of looking at it, and writing about it, have not changed all that drastically, either.
About the speaker:
Fatoumata Kébé is a doctor of astronomy at Sorbonne Université. She researches the impact of space activities on astronomical observations, and how such activities contribute to pollution around the Earth. She is also working on “Connected Eco,” an entrepreneurial project for water preservation in the farming sector, and is the founder of the Éphémérides organization, which promotes the practice and teaching of astronomy among the public.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Kébé will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

(Hybrid) High Hopes and Harlem’s Hidden Histories with Jake Lamar
2023-05-03 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Join author Jake Lamar, in conversation with professor Marcus Bruce, to discuss Lamar’s celebrated noir novel, Viper’s Dream. The story of an aspiring jazz musician’s descent into the Harlem drug trade, Viper’s Dream redefines the crime genre, infusing it with tension and depth. Readers are swept into a hero’s journey, motivated by the central question: how much can one sacrifice to achieve one’s dreams? Hailed by Deborah Levy as “moody, poetic, and immersing,” the novel is a rich and atmospheric portrait of mid-century Manhattan’s dark underbelly. Lamar navigates murder, betrayal, romance, and jazz with skill, masterfully crafting a book both politically charged and poetically written.
About the speakers:
Jake Lamar is the award-winning author of a memoir, seven novels and a play. His most recent work, Viper’s Dream, is a crime novel set in the jazz world of Harlem between 1936 and 1961. Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, Jake Lamar has lived in Paris since 1993. He is a professor of creative writing at one of France’s top universities, Sciences Po.
Marcus Bruce is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies in the Religious Studies Department at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. He is also a founding member of the American Studies and Africana Programs at the college. He has published Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Spiritual Biography, a study of the first African American painter to achieve international recognition at the Paris Salon. He is currently writing a book entitled The Ambassadors: African Americans, Paris and A New Birth of Freedom, a study of African Americans at the Paris Exposition of 1900.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Lamar and Bruce will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

(Hybrid) Behind the Scenes of the Opéra Comique
2023-05-09 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
We are delighted to welcome Missy Mazzoli, composer, and Royce Vavrek, librettist, alongside performer Sydney Mancasola, to discuss their highly-anticipated staging of Breaking the Waves at the Opéra Comique. Based on Lars Von Trier’s award-winning 1996 film, Mazzoli and Vavrek’s fresh take on the trials of a devout young woman from a strict Calvinist enclave in Northern Scotland was awarded the International Opera Award for Best World Premiere in 2017. Join them at the Library as they discuss the immense task of adapting age-old problems, from faith and morality to love and community, to the contemporary operatic stage.
The Opéra Comique is offering the Library community a generous 40% discount for tickets to Breaking the Waves.
To purchase your discounted tickets, click here.
About the speakers:
Missy Mazzoli’s music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, the Cincinnati Orchestra, the National Symphony, LA Opera, Scottish Opera, eighth blackbird, Kronos Quartet and many others. She is one of the first two women to receive a main stage commission from the Metropolitan Opera, and was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Classical Composition. From 2018-2021 she was Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and from 2012-2015 was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia.
Royce Vavrek is a Canada-born, Brooklyn-based librettist and lyricist who has been called “the indie Hofmannsthal” (The New Yorker) a “Metastasio of the downtown opera scene” (The Washington Post), “an exemplary creator of operatic prose” (The New York Times), and “one of the most celebrated and sought after librettists in the world” (CBC Radio). His opera “Angel’s Bone” with composer Du Yun was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Sydney Mancasola studied voice at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and later went on join Oper Frankfurt as a member of the ensemble. Sydney’s notable debuts have included her house debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Pamina in the Julie Taymor production of The Magic Flute, her company and role debut as Adina L’elisir d’amore at the Opéra de Paris, and Melisande Pelléas et Mélisande with LA Opera, and her debut as Bess in a new production of Breaking the Waves at the Adelaide Festival Centre in Australia and Edinburgh International Festival, where she was awarded a Herald Angel for her performance.
Nicolas Chesneau is a French pianist, vocal coach and conductor. He studied in Paris with Anne le Bozec. He worked in many opera houses in France (Bastille, Lille, Dijon, Strasbourg, Marseille) and as assistant in international festivals (Aix-en-Provence, Ruthrtriennale, Wienerfestwochen).
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Mazzoli, Vavrek, Mancasola, and Chesneau will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event is presented in partnership with the Opéra Comique, with the support of The Florence Gould Foundation and the American Center for Art and Culture.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

(Hybrid) A Hidden Figure of Wartime Paris with Livia Manera Sambuy and Tash Aw
2023-05-10 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
When journalist Livia Manera Sambuy discovered a striking portrait of princess Amrit Kaur in a Mumbai museum, she had no idea who the luminous figure was, much less the journey that lay ahead of her in excavating Kaur’s history. Fascination with Kaur led to a search across the globe for information on her past, which in turn uncovered Kaur’s participation in the resistance effort against the Nazis, her commitment to the fight for women’s rights, a complicated family life, and a tragic death following imprisonment in a concentration camp. Equal parts moving and riveting, Sambuy’s tale of Kaur’s inspiring life and living legacy is infused with remarkable, improbable stories of figures across history and the reminder that every individual is part of a cause bigger than themselves. Sambuy will appear in conversation with author Tash Aw.
About the speaker:
Livia Manera Sambuy is an Italian writer whose book of profiles of American writers, Don’t Write About Me, was published in 2015. She has been a staff writer at the literary pages of the Italian national daily Corriere della Sera for more than twenty years and is the author and co-director of two documentary films on Philip Roth. She divides her time between Paris and Tuscany.
Tash Aw is an award-winning author. His first novel, The Harmony Silk Factory (2005) was longlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize and won the 2005 Whitbread Book Awards First Novel Award. His 2013 novel Five Star Billionaire was longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize. In 2016, he published The Face: Strangers on a Pier, , which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His 2019 novel, We, The Survivors, was also a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His novels have been translated into 23 languages.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Sambuy and Aw will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.
