Environmental Economics with Bianca Getzel, Marlowe Hood, and Juan Pablo Arellano
2023-05-25 19:00 - 20:30 (Europe/Paris) | The American Library in Paris
Whether degrowth or green growth, the circular economy or the end of the capitalist economy as we know it, environmental economics, the study of how we use and manage finite resources, help us understand negative externalities, public goods, and market failures.
This event is organized in partnership with News Decoder and the Climate Academy at the European School of Brussels.
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:
Bianca Getzel is a Research Officer in the Development and Public Finance Programme at global affairs think tank ODI.
Marlowe Hood is Senior Editor at Agence France-Presse, covering science, environment, and the climate crisis.
Juan Pablo Arellano is a former content director at ClimateScience, specializing in creating accessible and trustworthy content on climate change solutions. He studied economics and environmental science at university and is currently pursuing a master’s degree on degrowth.
Important information: This conversation will be hybrid, taking place both in person at the American Library in Paris and online.
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.

History Tour at the Library
2023-05-26 11:00 - 12:00, 2023-06-02 11:00 - 12:00, 2023-06-09 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.

Battle of the Books (ages 6–12)
2023-05-27 11:00 - 12:00 | The American Library in Paris
Join us for a morning of friendly competition! Children and their grown-ups will be placed in teams to complete trivia challenges all about children’s books—from picture books by Eric Carle to novels-in-verse such as Brown Girl Dreaming, and graphic novels like Guts.
Prizes will be awarded!
Caregivers are encouraged to participate in this event with their children. Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. Caregivers 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.

BookTok Trivia (ages 12–18)
2023-05-28 14:00 - 15:00 | The American Library in Paris
Join Assistant Children’s and Teens’ Services Librarian Jason Hazard for an hour of trivia based on the biggest books on TikTok and Instagram. Important information:
This event is free for Library members, and 15€ per teen for non-members. 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.

(Hybrid) Felwine Sarr on Africa’s Struggle for its Art
2023-05-30 19:30 - 20:30 | https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83752125235
In recent years, following social justice movements, the question of the place of stolen African art in European museums has become increasingly urgent. In France, a reassessment of French universalism has brought the question of restitution to a possible turning point: Macron’s headline-making 2017 declaration that France must recognize its colonial past was followed by an equally landmark report on the restitution of stolen African art, written by art historians Bénédicte Savoy and Felewine Sarr. In conversation with journalist Rachel Donadio, Sarr will discuss the monumental report and its consequences. What were the consequences of its publication? Were Macron’s words just empty speech? What happens now? From the Smithsonian to the Louvre, Sarr will explain how substantial change, from the contents of permanent collections to the ways we define art, is coming for major cultural institutions.
About the speakers:
Felwine Sarr is a Senegalese writer and academic. He is Anne-Marie Bryan Distinguished Professor of Romance Studies at Duke University in North Carolina, after having taught at University Gaston Berger at Saint-Louis in Senegal, where he is adjunct professor of Economics. In 2018, the French president commissioned him to write a report, with the art historian Benedicte Savoy, on the restitution of African heritage present in French museums. He has authored thirteen works and is the co-publisher with his publishing house Jimsaan of the Prix Goncourt 2021, La plus secrète mémoire des hommes by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr.
Rachel Donadio is a Paris-based writer and journalist, a contributing writer for the Atlantic, and a former Rome Bureau Chief and European Culture correspondent for the New York Times. She regularly publishes textured profiles and features at the intersection of culture and politics, as well as literary criticism. Since 2022 she has been the administrator of the American Library in Paris annual Book Award.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Sarr and Donadio 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.

Story Hour: Money Matters (ages 3–5)
2023-05-31 14:30 - 15:30 | The American Library in Paris
For this Story Hour, we’ll read stories about money, saving, estimating, and how to imagine numbers. Each Story Hour program features short picture books such as A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams, as well as songs and rhymes.
This Story Hour will be hosted by Children’s and Teens’ Services staff and volunteers. They will read books and lead you and your little one in songs and hand-rhymes during a live, interactive session. This participatory program is intended to encourage children to actively engage with stories. Plan to join in, sing along, and move around, and model movement and listening for your little one. We ask that all caregivers put away their phones and other electronic devices for the duration of this program. Important information:
Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. Caregivers 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.

Toddler Time (ages 1–3)
2023-06-01 11:00 - 11:30 | The American Library in Paris
Stories featured during our Toddler Time programs include short picture books and board books, such as Please, Baby, Please by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee, illustrated by Kadir Nelson which will be included in this 1 June event.
Our Toddler Time is for children ages 1–3 and their caregivers, and lasts 30 minutes. This session will be hosted by Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads. Each child must be accompanied by an adult chaperone, and chaperones are required to remain with their children for the duration of the program. Parents and caregivers are expected to sit with their children beside them, or in their laps, and participate in the program. Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. Caregivers 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.

Teen Night: Mystery Writing with Noah Weisz (ages 12–18)
2023-06-02 19:00 - 21:00 | The American Library in Paris
In this workshop with Noah Weisz participants will learn about structure, suspicion, and suspense while exploring the craft secrets of clues and red herrings. You’ll get to plan out and draft part or all of your own mystery short story—and before the workshop’s over, we’ll try to crack each other’s cases!
About Noah Weisz: Noah Weisz is a fiction writer and dedicated educator with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and over nine years’ experience helping students of all ages unleash the stories they have inside. Noah’s own writing for children and young adults has been widely published in literary magazines and has won the Sydney Taylor Manuscript Award, the Katherine Paterson Prize for middle-grade fiction, the SCBWI Magazine Merit Award, and the F(r)iction Short Story Contest. He is also a three-time finalist for the Bath Children’s Novel Award. Originally from Washington, DC and a recent arrival in Paris, he currently teaches creative writing workshops and courses at several venues including the International School of Paris and Collège Sévigné. You can find out more about him here.

Important information:
This event is free for Library members, and 15€ per teen for non-members. 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.

Saturday Series: Design-Your-Own Book Cover (ages 6–12)
2023-06-03 11:00 - 12:00 | The American Library in Paris
Create an original book cover for a story you love! Front of House Assistant Sinamen MaGee will host this event with Library volunteers. All supplies will be provided by the Library.

Children between the ages 6–12 may participate in Library programs on their own, while their chaperone remains inside the Library. Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. Caregivers 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.

(Hybrid) Ben Miller on the Bad Gays of History
2023-06-06 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Pride month is populated by LGBTQ iconography, celebrating the figures across history who demanded the right to live and love freely. Yet how is gay history oversimplified when we only spotlight the heroes of the movement? In Bad Gays, authors Ben Miller and Huew Lemmey have the courage to complicate things. Recounting the lives of people who made mistakes, harmed others, acted in contradictory ways, and happened to be queer, they reveal hidden, human nuances across queer history. At the Library, Miller will offer a more critical perspective on the current status of LGBTQ politics, asking who has been excluded from the political terrain, how previous political failures have been glossed over, and how introducing nuance into our understanding of queer identity can lead to a more just queer future.
About the speaker:
Ben Miller is a writer and historian living in Berlin. With Huw Lemmey, he hosts Bad Gays, a podcast about evil and complicated queers in history, which has been downloaded nearly a million times; a book based on the show and passionately arguing for a more complex and political queer public history, Bad Gays: A Homosexual History, was published by Verso in 2022. Since 2018, he has been a member of the board of the Schwules Museum, the world’s largest independent institution devoted to archiving and preserving LGBTQI* histories and visual cultures.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Miller 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.

Story Hour: Winged Wonders (ages 3–5)
2023-06-07 14:30 - 15:30 | The American Library in Paris
For this Story Hour, we’ll read stories about birds and other winged wonders. Each Story Hour program features picture books such as Hummingbird by Nicola Davies and illustrated by Jane Ray, as well as songs and rhymes.
This Story Hour will be hosted by Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads and Children’s and Teens’ Services Intern Kelly Cummings. They will read books and lead you and your little one in songs and hand-rhymes during a live, interactive session. This participatory program is intended to encourage children to actively engage with stories. Plan to join in, sing along, and move around, and model movement and listening for your little one. We ask that all caregivers put away their phones and other electronic devices for the duration of this program. Important information:
Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. Caregivers 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.

(Hybrid) Entre Nous: The Times of our Lives with Kate Briggs and Yasmine Seale
2023-06-07 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
In Kate Briggs’ The Long Form, a day takes place. A mother wakes up with her daughter, and proceeds to undertake her quotidian tasks. At the same time, she embarks upon a reflection upon the ways the everyday is made. As the rhythms of motherhood prove fertile ground for rumination upon care, love, and creation, the making of the day becomes analogous to the making of a novel, which becomes the material of the novel itself. Briggs seizes upon a lack of action in order to build a space for the slow and spontaneous wanderings of the mind. Navigating multiple levels of storytelling, time, modes of writing, and modes of thought, she elegantly sweeps through the space of the text and the history of the written word as her character sweeps through the house.
About the speakers:
Kate Briggs is the translator of two volumes of Roland Barthes’s lecture and seminar notes at the Collège de France: The Preparation of the Novel and How to Live Together, both published by Columbia University Press. She teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. The Long Form, her debut novel, follows This Little Art, a genre-bending essay on translation. In 2021, Kate Briggs was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize.
Yasmine Seale is a writer and translator based in Paris. Her essays on literature, art and film have been published in Harper’s, The Nation, Paris Review, and elsewhere. She is the author, with Robin Moger, of Agitated Air: Poems after Ibn Arabi (Tenement Press). Her translations from the Arabic include The Annotated Arabian Nights (W. W. Norton) and Something Evergreen Called Life, a collection of poems by Rania Mamoun (Action Books). She is currently a fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, where she is completing a translation of The Dove’s Necklace by Ibn Hazm, an essay on the nature of love written in 11th-century Cordoba.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Briggs and Seale 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. The Entre Nous series is co-organized by Columbia Global Centers | Paris, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, and the American Library in Paris.

(In person) Summer 2023 Writing Workshop: Form & Craft Meeting One
2023-06-08 19:00 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Join 2022-23 American Library in Paris Visiting Fellow and author Adrienne Raphel for a two-part writing workshop dedicated to form and craft.
In this conversation and generative session, we’ll be joined by author and professor Andrew Altschul to discuss the writing process from soup to nuts. Altschul and Raphel will lead a reading, a conversation, and a Q&A. Then, they’ll lead a writing exercise, with time to draft in the session and discuss as a group.
About the workshop:
A piece of finished writing can seem like it’s always already been in its perfect form, polished from the moment it sprung out of its author’s head. But behind the scenes, as every writer knows, the final product is only the tip of an extremely complicated iceberg.
In this two-part workshop, we’ll be exploring form and craft, focusing on demystifying the process from first draft through revision and publication. Once you have a draft of something, how do you revise it? How do you keep revising? And how do you know when it’s done?
The workshop will unfold over two main sessions. In the first session, we’ll have a reading and conversation with author and professor Andrew Altschul. In the second session, we’ll continue generating new ideas, and we’ll also focus on how to keep re-thinking prior writing. Each draft will become a touchstone for a new conversation.
This series will take place in person at the Library on 8 June and 22 June from 19h00 to 20h30 CEST and is open to both Library Members and non-members.
About the workshop leaders:
Adrienne Raphel is the author of Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them, named an Editor’s Choice by the New York Times Book Review; What Was It For, winner of the Rescue Press Black Box Poetry Prize; and Our Dark Academia (2022). Her writing appears in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Poetry, and many other publications. She has been a featured speaker at events such as the National Book Festival at the Library of Congress, and she serves as a mentor with the Periplus collective. Raphel holds a PhD from Harvard, an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a BA from Princeton. She is currently a Lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program and teaches with the Berlin Writers’ Workshop.
Andrew Altschul is the author of three novels, including most recently The Gringa. His stories and essays have appeared in Esquire, McSweeney’s, The Wall Street Journal, Ploughshares, and anthologies including Best New American Voices and O. Henry Prize Stories. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford, he now teaches at Colorado State University.
Advance payment and registration is required:
Members rate: 40€ per participant. (Members please register here.)
Non-members rate: 60€ per participant. (Non-members register here.)
Please email Emilie Biggs, Programs Assistant, biggs@americanlibraryinparis.org with any questions.

Teen Night: Improv with Angelica Brewis (ages 12–18)
2023-06-09 19:00 - 21:00 | The American Library in Paris
No acting experience is necessary to join this theater workshop! Unlock your creativity and get to know other teens in the community as you try out improv games and theater exercises with coach Angelica Brewis. All abilities welcome!

Drinks and light refreshments will be provided by the Library.
About Angelica Brewis: Born in Jamaica, Angelica is a global citizen who has traveled extensively and lived in Canada, the U.S.A., Australia, England, and now Paris. While in high school she took an interest in photography where one of her black and white portraits gave her recognition winning first place. During this time she learned how to develop and enlarge her black and white photography in a darkroom. She went on to obtain a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in Photography in Toronto, Canada. After a year working as a freelance photographer, Angelica went back to school to obtain a Graduate Diploma in Education to become an elementary school teacher. She currently teaches at a bilingual school in Paris. Motivated by her desire to continue learning, Angelica recently returned to university to complete an MEd in Developmental Psychology in Education while working full time. This led her to founding an English after school theater activity, Paris Improv for Kids, for students to develop social-emotional learning. Find out more here. Important information:
This event is free for Library members, and 15€ per teen for non-members. 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.

Saturday Series: Super Comics (ages 6–12)
2023-06-10 11:00 - 12:00 | The American Library in Paris
Join Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads and Library volunteers for a morning dedicated to comics. Learn the language of comics, comic books, and graphic novels and then create your own.
Children between the ages 6–12 may participate in Library programs on their own, while their chaperone remains inside the Library. Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. Caregivers 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.

Athletic Recruiting in American Universities (ages 14–Adult)
2023-06-11 14:00 - 16:00 | The American Library in Paris
Playing varsity sports in college can create a sense of belonging, help forge an important sense of identity, increase executive functioning as well as academic performance, and—in some cases—help in the admissions and scholarship process. But athletic recruiting for collegiate sports can seem like a maze: intentionally confusing with plenty of unforeseeable turns. In this presentation, with Brooke Libby of College Goals, we will discuss the landscape of American college sports, the academic and athletic requirements for recruitment, as well as some of the steps to begin the process—from attending summer ID camps to registering with the NCAA Eligibility Center. Students and parents with an interest in pursuing this path to American colleges and universities are welcome.
About Brooke Libby: Brooke Libby loves working with teenagers and has over 25 years of experience in admission and academic advising in both high schools and colleges. She has helped hundreds of student athletes pursue opportunities to compete in varsity sports at the collegiate level — from alpine ski racing to Division 1 basketball, sailing to baseball. Brooke is a member of NACAC, NEACAC, NPEA, and IECA.
About College Goals: College Goals is a university admission consulting practice specializing in counseling families interested in higher education opportunities in the US and in English-medium universities around the world. The team of counselors collectively offers decades of professional experience in higher education. College Goals provides expert counsel and support throughout the college search and application process, including choice of appropriate institutions, test requirements, recommendations and interviews, essay writing, and the preparation of distinguished applications. Find out more at www.collegegoals.com Important information:
This event is free for Library members, and 15€ per teen for non-members. 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.

An Evening of Poetry with Adrienne Raphel and Megan Fernandes
2023-06-13 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Join 2022-23 Visiting Fellow Adrienne Raphel and poet Megan Fernandes for a special evening dedicated to poetry. Celebrated as two of the most exciting poets of their generation, both Raphel and Fernandes experiment across form, language, and sound to generate fragmented, fleeting images of the current moment. From Fernandes’ transposition of poetry’s most traditional subject–love–to contemporary urban wastelands to Raphel’s adoption of the paranoid, compulsive registers of the Internet, the two diagnose cultural maladies of contemporary society and play with poetry as a means of reconciliation. They will discuss the uses, abuses, and varied appearances of poetry in a frantic world.
About the speakers:
Adrienne Raphel is a 2022-23 American Library in Paris Visiting Fellow. She is the author of Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them, named an Editor’s Choice by the New York Times Book Review; What Was It For, winner of the Rescue Press Black Box Poetry Prize; and Our Dark Academia, forthcoming this fall. Her writing appears in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, and many other publications. She has been a featured speaker at events such as the National Book Festival at the Library of Congress, and she serves as a mentor with the Periplus collective. Raphel holds a PhD from Harvard, an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a BA from Princeton.
Megan Fernandes is a writer living in New York City. Fernandes has published in the New Yorker, POETRY, the Kenyon Review, the American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, among others. Her book, Good Boys, was published with Tin House Books in 2020. Her forthcoming collection, I Do Everything I’m Told, will also be published by Tin House in summer 2023. Fernandes is an Associate Professor of English and the Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette College where she teaches courses on poetry, environmental writing, and critical theory. She is a former Yaddo fellow, holds a PhD in English from the University of California, and an MFA in poetry from Boston University.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Raphel and Fernandes 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.

Story Hour: Beach Party (ages 3–5)
2023-06-14 14:30 - 15:30 | The American Library in Paris
For this Story Hour, we’ll read stories about the beach, the sea, and ocean creatures. Each Story Hour program features picture books such as Hot Dog by Doug Salati, as well as songs and rhymes.
This Story Hour will be hosted by Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads and Children’s and Teens’ Services Intern Kelly Cummings. They will read books and lead you and your little one in songs and hand-rhymes during a live, interactive session. This participatory program is intended to encourage children to actively engage with stories. Plan to join in, sing along, and move around, and model movement and listening for your little one. We ask that all caregivers put away their phones and other electronic devices for the duration of this program. Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. Caregivers 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.

(Hybrid) The Cathedrals of France with R. Howard Bloch
2023-06-14 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
Saint-Denis, Chartres, Sainte-Chapelle, Reims, Amiens and Notre-Dame: in Paris and her Cathedrals, art historian R. Howard Bloch approaches each of these celebrated sites with renewed curiosity, historical rigor, and aesthetic enthusiasm. From thrilling historical intrigues to luxurious architecture and sacred relics, Bloch reanimates the past of the cathedrals, revealing their centrality to French life and identity across epochs. Join Bloch in conversation with architecture expert Barry Bergdoll at the Library as they walk us through the vaulted arches and stone passages of France’s most iconic structures, showing glimpses along the way into ways of life lost to time.
About the speaker:
R. Howard Bloch is the Sterling Professor of French and Humanities at Yale University. He is the author of numerous award-winning books on French literature and art.
Currently a fellow at the Institute for Ideas & Imagination, Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History at Columbia University. A specialist in the history of modern architecture, he served from 2007 to 2014 as Chief Curator of Architecture & Design at the New York Museum of Modern Art. He has also organized exhibitions at the Musée d’Orsay, the Caisse des Monuments Historiques and the Centre Canadien d’Architecture. He is the author of European Architecture: 1750-1890 in the Oxford History of Art series and monographs on Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Mies van der Rohe, Léon Vaudoyer, and (as editor) Marcel Breuer: Building Global Institutions.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Bloch and Bergdoll 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.

Toddler Time (ages 1–3)
2023-06-15 11:00 - 11:30 | The American Library in Paris
Stories featured during our Toddler Time programs include short picture books and board books, such as Monday is One Day by Arthur A. Levine, illustrated by Julian Hector, which will be included in this 15 June event.
Our Toddler Time is for children ages 1–3 and their caregivers, and lasts 30 minutes. This session will be hosted by Children’s and Teens’ Services Manager Celeste Rhoads, with the help of Assistant Children’s and Teens’ Services Librarian Jason Hazard. Each child must be accompanied by an adult chaperone, and chaperones are required to remain with their children for the duration of the program. Parents and caregivers are expected to sit with their children beside them, or in their laps, and participate in the program. Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. Caregivers 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.

Critical Conversations Meeting Eight: Solitude
2023-06-15 19:00 - 21:00 | The American Library in Paris
The past century has seen an explosion of single-person dwellings, rare in the previous millennia of human history. But given the ease and ubiquity of communication nowadays, our era may be one not of solitude but rather of solitude avoidance. Humans always had what we might refer to as the “contemplative gap”—accidental time when the lack of distraction, the lack of technology, brought us regularly, however reluctantly, in touch with our own inner thinking and feeling selves.
Now, with constant connectivity, interpersonal connection, and global media only ever a click away, are we eradicating solitude and becoming an externalized species? Has solitude become an act of social dissent? What becomes of the human being when solitude––as opposed to aloneness––is entirely absent? 9 This month we consider different forms of solitude and ask ourselves how important they are. What might we be missing without them?
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.

(Hybrid) The International Library Part II: Translating Traditions
2023-06-15 19:30 - 20:30 | The Center for Fiction, 15 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11217, United States
A striking example of translation and its many layers—of language, of myth, of tradition—Samantha Schnee’s new English translation of Mexican author Carmen Boullosa’s The Book of Eve (El libro de Eva) twists, challenges, and ultimately revises a classic tale for a contemporary moment. As Eve, fueled by “fiery disobedience,” tells her own version of the Book of Genesis, she brazenly rejects the stories that have oppressed women across millennia. No, she was not created from Adam’s rib; no, she was not expelled from the Garden of Eden for nibbling a forbidden apple; and no, humanity was not deluged by a great flood. In person at the Center for Fiction (Brooklyn, NY) and over Zoom, join Schnee and Boullosa for a conversation about translation twice (and sometimes thrice) over.
About the speakers:
Carmen Boullosa is one of Mexico’s leading novelists, poets, and playwrights. She has published over a dozen novels, two of which were designated the Best Novel Published in Mexico by the prestigious magazine Reforma—her second novel, Before, also won the renowned Xavier Villaurrutia Prize for Best Mexican Novel; and her novel La otra mano de Lepanto was also selected as one of the Top 100 Novels Published in Spanish in the past 25 years. Her most recent novel, Texas: The Great Theft won the 2014 Typographical Era Translation Award, was shortlisted for the 2015 PEN Translation Award, and has been nominated for the 2015 International Dublin Literary Award. Boullosa has received numerous prizes and honors, including a Guggenheim fellowship. Also a poet, playwright, essayist, and cultural critic, Boullosa is a Distinguished Lecturer at City College of New York, and her books have been translated into Italian, Dutch, German, French, Portuguese, Chinese, and Russian.
Samantha Schnee is a 2023 National Endowment of the Arts Literature Fellow in Translation, supporting her work to render Boullosa’s Gijon Prize winning novel, El complot de los románticos, into English as Dante Hits the Road. Her translation of Boullosa’s Texas: The Great Theft was shortlisted for the PEN America Translation Prize. She is the founding editor of Words Without Borders.
Important information: The discussion will take place at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York. The conversation will be streamed at the Library and on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
If you’d like to attend on Zoom OR in person in Brooklyn, please click the BLUE “ZOOM REGISTRATION BUTTON.” If you would like to attend the livestream of the event at the Library, please click the RED “GOING” BUTTON above.
About The International Library
Conversations across time, place, and language
Join the American Library in Paris, the Center for the Art of Translation, and The Center for Fiction for conversations across time, place, culture, and literary tradition, with live audiences in San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Paris.
At the intersection of theory and practice, past and present, as well as story and history, The International Library celebrates the live diffusion of in-person conversations in the hope of conjuring new possibilities and connecting new audiences across land and sea for a collective, intercultural experience.
Over the course of these conversations, we hope to broach the following questions about writing and translation: Who gets to translate? To be translated? How to translate? And for whom to translate? More broadly, the series will guide readers to think critically about how stories are told, investigating the points of view, the timing of the translations, and the intended or assumed audiences as well as inspiration, philosophy, and craft.
All meetings will be hybrid, taking place in person at The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn (1:30pm ET) with audiences at the American Library in Paris (in Paris; 19h30 CEST) and the Center for the Art of Translation in San Francisco (10:30am PT) for a live streaming experience. Events will run for about an hour.
Please write to Alice McCrum (mccrum@americanlibraryinparis.org), Melanie McNair (melanie@centerforfiction.org), or Leslie-Ann Woofter (leslie-ann@catranslation.org) with any questions or thoughts.

Young Authors Fiction Festival Celebration 2023: Kindergarten/Grande Section–5th Grade/CM2
2023-06-16 18:00 - 19:00 | The American Library in Paris
The 2023 Young Authors Fiction Festival culminates with a celebration event on Friday 16 June 2023 at the American Library in Paris. Come join us as we celebrate the stories that were selected for top honors and all the young authors who participated in this year’s YAFF. Each finalist will be awarded a certificate and personalized bookmark. YAFF celebration booklets with the stories of all the 1st to 5th place winners will be available for 20€ per booklet at the celebration event.

The YAFF celebration event is in two parts: lower grades and upper grades.
Lower Grades 18h00–19h00: The finalists in the lower grades (CP/1st–CM2/5th Grade) are asked to arrive for registration at 17h45, with the ceremony beginning at 18h00.
Upper Grades 19h30–20h30: The finalists in the upper grades (6ème/6th Grade–Terminale/12th Grade) are asked to arrive for registration at 19h15, with the ceremony beginning at 19h30.

About the Young Authors Fiction Festival
The American Library in Paris is proud to be the organizer of the Young Authors Fiction Festival. YAFF aims to strengthen community among English-speakers in the Paris area through the art and craft of storytelling. YAFF is open to all students ages 5 to 18 in France who write in English. Submission to YAFF 2023 closed on 1 April 2023. For more information about YAFF please visit americanlibraryinparis.org/yaff/
For questions regarding the YAFF celebration event, please contact the YAFF team at yaff@americanlibraryinparis.org.

The Library would like to thank the sponsors of YAFF 2023: The British Council in France, and Union School. Important information: Advance registration is required to attend this event. All Library visitors, including caregivers, 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 the Library’s 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.

Young Authors Fiction Festival Celebration 2023: 6th Grade/6ème–12th Grade/Terminale
2023-06-16 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris

Saturday Series: Constellation Exploration (ages 6–12)
2023-06-17 11:00 - 12:00 | The American Library in Paris
Join Children’s and Teens’ Services Intern Kelly Cummings and volunteers for a morning dedicated to exploring the stars and constellations. After learning about the stars, participants will each create their own paper star viewer.
Children between the ages 6–12 may participate in Library programs on their own, while their chaperone remains inside the Library. Important information: This event is for Library members, and advance registration is required. Caregivers 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.

Teen Night: 11th Annual Literary Reaping (ages 12–18)
2023-06-17 19:00 - 21:30 | The American Library in Paris
Show off your fabulous memory of all things related to teen literature!
For this event, you’ll be placed in teams to answer trivia questions, and complete challenges based on young adult literature—both classic and contemporary. In the past, participants were asked to shoot an arrow as straight as Katniss, prove a knowledge of the gods that rivals Percy and Magnus, demonstrate a knowledge of the small science to rival a Heartrender, and decide on the perfect spell faster than a magical maji. Wands, arrows, and other supplies will be provided. All participating teens will win a brand new book to take home and keep. You can download the book list of titles included in this event here.
This event will be hosted by Children and Teens Services Manager Celeste Rhoads with the help of Literary Reaping Gamemakers Amy Plum, Clarence Tokley, Kirsty McCulloch Reid, and Pauline Charruyer.
Pizza and drinks will be provided by the Library.
May the odds be ever in your favor… 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.

(Online) The Case for Forgetting with Lewis Hyde
2023-06-20 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
From smartphones with unlimited storage to memorials scattered across cities to pseudo-scientific techniques for maintaining brain plasticity, memory is of central importance to our society. Author Lewis Hyde asks: has memory been over-valued? Under what conditions might it be preferable to forget? Considering philosophy, art, and mythology; working through autobiography and cultural criticism, citing writers from from Hesiod to Nietzsche to Borges, Hyde develops a spiritual, therapeutic, and political case for forgetting. Ultimately, he offers a manifesto for creativity: out of oblivion, Hyde proposes, comes the artistic capacity for the radically new. Join Hyde as he walks us through his own forgotten life and instructs us in forgetting our own.
About the speaker:
Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination. Best known for The Gift, a defense of the non-commercial portion of artistic practice, Hyde recently published A Primer for Forgetting, an exploration of the many situations in which forgetfulness is more useful than memory. A MacArthur Fellow, Hyde taught creative writing and American literature for many years at Kenyon College. Now retired, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife, the writer Patricia Vigderman.
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.

Annual General Meeting for Library Members
2023-06-20 19:30 - 20:30 | The American Library in Paris
All members of the American Library in Paris are invited to the Annual General Meeting of the American Library in Paris, Inc., a membership corporation organized under the laws of Delaware and operating in France. The Library Director, Chairman of the Board, and Board Trustees will report on activities in 2022.
Registration not required. This event will take place in person, and is only for Library members.
Members will be asked to show their Library cards to enter.
