Boston Book Festival: Full Schedule

PLEASE NOTE: BBF and this online system do not take reservations or registrations. All sessions are first come, first served. Space permitting.

10:00am EDT

Mohamed Amer Meziane: Why Are We Disenchanted? The States of the Earth

Saturday October 26, 2024 10:00am - 11:00am EDT

15 - French Library - Upstairs Room

Philosopher, performer, and professor, Mohamed Amer Meziane will present his book The States of the Earth, offering a rereading of the history of Western modernity during the 19th century through the lenses of both its colonial matrix and its environmental consequences. In a world where material technology was considered divine, religious and secular forces both tried to achieve Heaven on Earth by destroying Earth itself. The author will be interviewed by Aliko Songolo and there will be an opportunity for audience Q&A.

Presenters

Mohamed Amer Meziane

Mohamed Amer Meziane holds a PhD in Philosophy and Intellectual History from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. After teaching at Columbia University as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life, he joined Brown University as... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 10:00am - 11:00am EDT
15 - French Library - Upstairs Room

Nonfiction

11:45am EDT

Science and Society Keynote: Francis Collins

Saturday October 26, 2024 11:45am - 12:45pm EDT

06 - Boston Public Library - Rabb Hall

Francis Collins has a distinguished career by any standard. He was the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and, more recently, was head of the National Institutes of Health. He is a man of science and a man of faith. In his new book, The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust, he proposes a philosophical and scientific framework to address the plague of distrust, cynicism, partisanship, and racism that our country is experiencing. He makes a case for four core sources of judgment and clear thinking: truth, science, faith, and trust. He believes these values can work together and not in conflict and that with courage and humility, we can embrace what we all have in common and rebuild a fractured society. Join us for a probing and enlightening discussion led by Boston Public Library President, David Leonard. Sponsored by the Boston Public Library.

Moderators

David Leonard

David Leonard is President of the Boston Public Library, a thriving 170-year-old institution and one of Boston’s great educational, cultural, and civic treasures. David began working at the BPL in 2009, bringing a wealth of experience from the technology, management, and consulting... Read More →

Presenters

Francis Collins

Francis S. Collins is a physician and geneticist. His groundbreaking work has led to the discovery of the cause of cystic fibrosis, among other diseases. In 1993 he was appointed director of the international Human Genome Project, which successfully sequenced all 3 billion letters... Read More →

Sponsors and Partners

Boston Public Library

Saturday October 26, 2024 11:45am - 12:45pm EDT
06 - Boston Public Library - Rabb Hall

Nonfiction

11:45am EDT

The Temper of Revolution, The Wardrobe of Liberation

Saturday October 26, 2024 11:45am - 12:45pm EDT

08 - Boston Public Library - Commonwealth Salon

This session takes a fresh look at the French Revolution from the perspective of public opinion and fashion. Robert Darnton’s The Revolutionary Temper: Paris 1748 – 1749, considers the period prior to the Revolution, showing how public opinion among ordinary Parisians was fueled by real and fake news from diverse sources including pamphlets, engravings, and rhyming doggerel. Anne Higonnet’s Liberty, Equality, Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution, describes the sartorial revolt of fashion influencers Joséphine Bonaparte, Térézia Tallien, and Juliette Récamier. The story of these women’s styles and celebrity is a study in creativity, liberation, and female empowerment. Join us for a rip-roaring look at the French Revolution, led by Rachel Slade, author of Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S.A. (And How It Got That Way.) Vive la révolution!

Moderators

Rachel Slade

Rachel Slade is the acclaimed author of Into the Raging Sea, a national bestseller, New York Times Notable Book, and winner of the Maine Literary Award for nonfiction. She spent a decade in the city magazine trenches at Boston—first as the design editor, ultimately as executive... Read More →

Presenters

Robert Darnton

Robert Darnton is the author of many award-winning works in French cultural history, and taught for years at Princeton and Harvard. He is a chevalier in the Légion d’Honneur, and winner of the National Humanities Medal.

Anne Higonnet

Anne Higonnet is professor of art history at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she teaches a course called “Clothing.” She has received many awards, including Guggenheim and Harvard Radcliffe Institute fellowships.

Saturday October 26, 2024 11:45am - 12:45pm EDT
08 - Boston Public Library - Commonwealth Salon

Nonfiction

12:00pm EDT

Foundational American Stories

Saturday October 26, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT

13 - Boston Public Library - Guastavino

Each of the astonishing books discussed in this session tells America’s origin stories by examining the histories of specific families. In Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier, Robert Parkinson describes the decidedly unheroic, bloody savagery of the frontier through the tragic story of an Iroquois clan and a family of frontiersmen. John Kaag follows the fortunes of the Blood family from their involvement in the British Civil Wars of the seventeenth century through the founding of the colonies, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and first-wave feminism in American Bloods: The Untamed Dynasty That Shaped a Nation. Lori Ginzberg, in Tangled Journeys: One Family’s Story and the Making of American History, traces the descendants of one slave, whose complicated blood kin relationships demonstrate the impact of Black life on every aspect of American history. The conversation among these stellar scholars will be led by Megan Marshall, whose biography, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014.

Moderators

Megan Marshall

Megan Marshall is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast, and The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her biographies have been awarded the Frances... Read More →

Presenters

Lori Ginzberg

Lori D. Ginzberg is Professor Emeritus of History and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University. A historian of nineteenth-century American women with a particular interest in the intersections between intellectual and social history, her research has... Read More →

John Kaag

John Kaag is a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He is the author of American Philosophy: A Love Story and Hiking with Nietzsche, both of which were named best books of the year by NPR. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine... Read More →

Robert Parkinson

Robert G. Parkinson is associate professor of history at Binghamton University. He is the author of The Common Cause and Thirteen Clocks. He lives in Charles Town, West Virginia.

Saturday October 26, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
13 - Boston Public Library - Guastavino

Nonfiction

12:00pm EDT

Threats to Democracy: Elections and Algorithms

Saturday October 26, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT

01 - Old South Church - Sanctuary

Constitutional law scholar Lawrence Lessig believes that the effort to overthrow the results of the 2020 election employed the “dumbest possible strategy.” In How to Steal a Presidential Election, Lessig lays out seven far more plausible ways that the vote could be overturned. If the Republicans lose the 2024 election, they may make use of loopholes in the Constitution that you could drive a truck through, most of them by way of statehouses and governors’ mansions. Can these efforts be foiled? Renée DiResta, in Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, refers to an “asymmetry of passion” on social media which leads to small, rabidly dedicated groups having outsize influence on public discourse, causing a “crisis of social consensus.” This has been especially true of the COVID-19 deniers, election deniers, and anti-vaxxers. The algorithms behind the social media platforms exaggerate and amplify the views of these right-wing influencers. Learn about these very real threats to democracy and how they can be countered in this important session moderated by Adam Reilly, GBH political reporter and host of Talking Politics.

Moderators

Adam Reilly

Adam Reilly is a politics reporter and the host of GBH’s Talking Politics.Before joining GBH, Adam covered media and politics for the Boston Phoenix. He is a graduate of Carleton College and Harvard Divinity School.

Presenters

Renee DiResta

Renée DiResta’s work examines rumors and propaganda in the digital age. She has analyzed geopolitical campaigns created by foreign powers such as Russia, China, and Iran; voting related rumors that led to the January 6 insurrection; and health misinformation and conspiracy theories... Read More →

Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School.

Saturday October 26, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
01 - Old South Church - Sanctuary

Nonfiction

12:15pm EDT

Trends in Technology: Devilish or Divine?

Saturday October 26, 2024 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT

05 - Trinity Church - Undercroft

Both the internet and AI are in many ways a boon to society, and yet the threats they pose are undeniable. This session looks at both the benefits and perils and offers a nuanced approach to managing these powerful technologies. Internet maven Jeff Jarvis defends the internet in The Web We Weave: Why We Must Reclaim the Internet from Moguls, Misanthropes, and Moral Panic. The internet is only as good as the people who use it, he argues, and the regulations that have been proposed will fail to fix hate speech, but may imperil freedom. AI researcher and computer scientist Daniella L. Rus, co-author of The Mind’s Mirror: Risk and Reward in the Age of AI, highlights the enormous benefits to society of AI, while also addressing how to mitigate the potential dangers. Andrew Smith explores how algorithmic code works by learning how to write it. In Devil in the Stack: Searching for the Soul of the New Machine, he explores the fascinating history of coding and the threats to privacy and human autonomy that fuel this ultimately anti-social technology. Join us for a provocative discussion led by Dan Lothian, Editor-in-Chief of GBH News and The World.

Moderators

Dan Lothian

Dan Lothian is the Editor-in-Chief of GBH News and The World. He also lectures on Journalism, ethics and news literacy at Northeastern University in Boston. Prior to joining The World, Lothian was a White House Correspondent at CNN where he also covered political campaigns and breaking... Read More →

Presenters

Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis is the Tow Professor of Journalism Innovation Emeritus at CUNY's Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of six books, including The Web We Weave as well as The Gutenberg Parenthesis and Magazine. He cohosts the podcasts "This Week in Google" and "AI Inside... Read More →

Daniela Rus

The author of The Mind's Mirror and The Heart and the Chip, Daniela Rus is a pioneering roboticist and a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, where she is the director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. A global leader in robotics... Read More →

Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith has worked as a critic and feature writer for the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Observer, and The Face, and has penned documentaries for the BBC. He is the author of the internationally bestselling book Moondust, about the nine remaining men who walked on the moon between... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
05 - Trinity Church - Undercroft

Nonfiction

1:15pm EDT

Hidden Histories

Saturday October 26, 2024 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT

08 - Boston Public Library - Commonwealth Salon

This session examines shocking episodes in American History that are little known yet have an extraordinary impact on contemporary society. In Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum, award-winning journalist for NBC News, Antonia Hylton, tells how so-called “feebleminded” Blacks were rounded up and placed in asylums where they were put to work as indentured servants. To add insult to injury, insanity was blamed on freedom, not subhuman conditions. The lack of understanding and treatment of the mental health of Black people is a theme throughout. Pulitzer Prize winner and Yale historian David Blight, in Yale and Slavery: A History, brings to light Yale’s long and complex involvement in slavery and racism. Northeastern professor Caleb Gayle wrote We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power, to reveal the story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that both owned slaves and accepted Blacks as full citizens, at least until tribal leaders revoked that citizenship in the 70’s. Join GBH’s Executive Producer of American Experience, Cameo George, for an eye-opening exploration of little known episodes from American history that illustrate that the past is ever-present.

Moderators

Cameo George

Cameo George is the Executive Producer of American Experience, PBS' longest-running and most-watched history documentary series.

Presenters

David Blight

David W. Blight is a teacher, scholar, and public historian. At Yale University he is Sterling Professor of History and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. He is the author of many books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography... Read More →

Caleb Gayle

Caleb Gayle is an award-winning journalist who writes about race and identity. A professor at Northeastern University, he is a fellow at New America, PEN America, Harvard's Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies, and a visiting scholar at New York University. Gayle’s writing has... Read More →

Antonia Hylton

Antonia Hylton is a Peabody and Emmy-award winning journalist at NBC News reporting on politics and civil rights, and the co-host of the hit podcast Southlake and Grapevine. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, where she received prizes for her investigative research... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
08 - Boston Public Library - Commonwealth Salon

Nonfiction

1:15pm EDT

Memoir: Creating Identity

Saturday October 26, 2024 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT

03 - Old South Church - Guild Room

Three memoirists offer an intimate look at their literary and life paths as they contemplate how identity is created. Anne Anlin Cheng, a noted scholar of race and identity, gives us a fresh look at being an Asian American woman in her recent book, Ordinary Disasters. Jerald Walker, recipient of the PEN New England Award for nonfiction and finalist for the National Book Award, presents his new book, Magically Black, where he shares Black life and culture with equal parts humor and empathy. Frighten the Horses takes us inside Oliver Radclyffe’s journey from what appears to be a perfect life, into the world of queerness as he comes out and then transitions. Join us for a candid and revealing discussion about the memories and desires that influence our lives and ultimately help us define our futures. James Bennett II, arts and culture reporter for GBH News, will lead the conversation.

Moderators

James Bennett

James Bennett II is an arts and culture reporter for GBH News (and a contributor in the music land known as CRB). Bennett cut his public media teeth with New York Public Radio before joining this particular Boston outfit. At any given point in time, you can find him frantically catching... Read More →

Presenters

Anne Cheng

Anne Anlin Cheng was born in Taiwan, grew up in the American South, and is author of three books on American racial politics and aesthetics. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Cheng is the 2023-2024... Read More →

Oliver Radclyffe

Oliver Radclyffe is part of the new wave of transgender writers unafraid to address the complex nuances of transition, examining the places where gender identity, sexual orientation, feminist allegiance, social class, and family history overlap. His work has appeared in the New York... Read More →

Jerald Walker

Jerald Walker is the author of How to Make a Slave and Other Essays, a Finalist for the National Book Award and Winner of the Massachusetts Book Award, The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult, and Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
03 - Old South Church - Guild Room

Nonfiction

1:30pm EDT

What is the Future of Free Speech on Campuses and Beyond?

Saturday October 26, 2024 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT

01 - Old South Church - Sanctuary

The First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy, and yet free speech has become a contentious issue. Are there, or should there be, limits to free speech? Who decides? Renowned legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein, in Campus Free Speech: A Pocket Guide, tackles the complicated issue of free speech on college campuses with a case-by-case guide to solving the dilemma of when regulating free speech is permissible. Throughout his career, former Columbia University president Lee C. Bollinger has written and spoken about global free speech, free press, and academic freedom. His latest work, In Search of an Open Mind: Speeches and Writings, offers a selection of his speeches and articles on these and other topics that are central to our civic and political life. This not-to-be-missed session with some of the leading thinkers of our time will be moderated by psychiatrist, philosopher, and proponent of academic freedom, Omar Sultan Haque.

Moderators

Omar Sultan Haque

Omar Sultan Haque, M.D., Ph.D. is a philosopher and psychiatrist at the Harvard Medical School Program in Psychiatry and the Law, who studies empirical and normative questions ranging across medicine, psychology, religion, bioethics, and law.

Presenters

Lee C. Bollinger

Lee C. Bollinger served as Columbia University’s nineteenth president from 2002 to 2023, the longest tenure of any contemporary Ivy League president. He is the first Seth Low Professor of the University, a member of the Columbia Law School faculty, and a renowned constitutional... Read More →

Cass R. Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard and the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. He is the author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books, including Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
01 - Old South Church - Sanctuary

Nonfiction

1:30pm EDT

Women, Politics, and Power

Saturday October 26, 2024 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT

13 - Boston Public Library - Guastavino

Join us for a conversation with three writers who explore how women have struggled to win influence in U.S. politics and how laws and public policies, mostly designed by men, have profoundly affected women’s lives. Jackie, the fifth novel by bestselling author Dawn Tripp, explores the complex emotional truths behind the myths surrounding the Kennedys, to give readers a nuanced story of a brilliant woman who forged a legacy out of grief, shaping history even as she lived it. In A Termination, award-winning poet and memoirist Honor Moore recounts her harrowing experience in the 1960s with an unwanted pregnancy and raises the alarm about a world without reproductive freedoms. Gioia Diliberto’s eighth book, Firebrands: The Untold Story of Four Women Who Made and Unmade Prohibition, relates the fierce battle waged by women over Prohibition in the first expression of female political power after winning the right to vote. The cross-genre session will be moderated by Pulitzer Prize winner Debby Applegate, whose most recent book, Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age, depicts the life of the notorious madam who wielded unprecedented power in the 1920s in New York City’s demimonde of gangsters, politicians, policemen, columnists and society figures. Sponsored by Beacon Hill Books & Cafe.

Moderators

Debby Applegate

Debby Applegate is a historian whose first book, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Her second book, Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age, was a New York Times Editors' Choice for Best... Read More →

Presenters

Gioia Diliberto

Gioia Diliberto is the author of eight books and a play. Her work, which focuses on women's lives, has been praised for combining rich storytelling and literary grace with deep research to bring alive worlds as varied as Jazz Age Paris, nineteenth century Chicago, Belle Epoque Paris... Read More →

Honor Moore

Honor Moore’s previous six books include a biography, two memoirs, and three collections of poems. The Bishop’s Daughter was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was an LA Times Favorite Book of the Year. Our Revolution was featured on the New York Times... Read More →

Dawn Tripp

Dawn Tripp is the acclaimed bestselling author of the biographical novels Jackie and Georgia, finalist for the New England Book Award and winner of the Mary Lynn Kotz Award for Art in Literature. Praised by The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, and... Read More →

Sponsors and Partners

Beacon Hill Books

Saturday October 26, 2024 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
13 - Boston Public Library - Guastavino

Nonfiction

1:45pm EDT

Memoir: Rising Above

Saturday October 26, 2024 1:45pm - 2:45pm EDT

05 - Trinity Church - Undercroft

Stories of hope, courage, faith, and determination to rise above difficult and fraught beginnings are the subject of this memoir session. Tom Seeman’s Animals I Want to See: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Projects and Defying the Odds, chronicles his childhood as one of fourteen kids and tracks his journey from teenage delinquent to student at Yale and Harvard. Nikkya Hargrove’s Mama: A Queer Black Women’s Story of a Family Lost and Found, reveals the power of faith and community in overcoming generational trauma, difficulties posed by the court system, and her personal journey as a black, queer woman taking on the responsibility of caring for her half-brother. Wonderland: A Tale of Hustling Hard and Breaking Even, by Nicole Treska, is a story of growing up in a family of mobsters in the Winter Hill gang and how Treska reconciles with her past and its impact. This inspiring session will be moderated by Tina Cassidy, Chief Marketing Officer at GBH and author of Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait?

Moderators

Tina Cassidy

Tina Cassidy is the chief marketing officer at GBH, our local public media powerhouse, which is the presenting sponsor for the Boston Book Festival. Tina is also a former journalist who spent many years at the Boston Globe and an author who writes about women and culture. Her books... Read More →

Presenters

Nikkya Hargrove

Nikkya Hargrove is a graduate of Bard College and currently serves as a member of the school's Board of Governors and chair of the alumni/ae Diversity Committee. A LAMBDA Literary Nonfiction Fellow, she has written about adoption, marriage, motherhood, and the prison system for The... Read More →

Tom Seeman

Tom Seeman is a businessperson who has owned and led several businesses. He grew up in a family of fourteen on welfare and food stamps in the projects of Toledo, Ohio. He earned his B.A. from Yale graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, before going on to earn his J.D. at Harvard... Read More →

Nicole Treska

Nicole Treska is the author of the debut memoir Wonderland. Her short fiction has appeared in New York Tyrant magazine, Epiphany literary journal, and Egress: New Openings in Literary Art. Her interviews and reviews are up at Electric Literature, Guernica, The Millions, BOMB, The... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 1:45pm - 2:45pm EDT
05 - Trinity Church - Undercroft

Nonfiction

2:00pm EDT

The Poetry of Nature

Saturday October 26, 2024 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT

02 - Old South Church - Mary Norton Hall

Two beautiful books offer different looks at the wonders of nature. Renée Bergland’s Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin and the Dawn of Modern Science, tells intertwining stories of two of the greatest minds of the nineteenth century. Darwin’s work was informed by his belief in the interconnectedness of all life, while Dickinson’s poetry was shaped by her study of astronomy, botany, and chemistry. In The Miraculous from the Material: Understanding the Wonders of Nature, physicist and novelist Alan Lightman pairs gorgeous photos of natural phenomena with essays that reflect his belief that we can embrace spiritual experiences without letting go of our scientific worldview. The session will be moderated by Julia Cort, Deputy Executive Producer for NOVA at GBH.

Moderators

Julia Cort

Julia Cort, together with Co-EP Chris Schmidt, oversees the long-running PBS science series NOVA, produced by GBH. Since joining NOVA, Julia has contributed to more than two hundred films and digital videos, covering everything from quantum mechanics to genetic engineering to climate... Read More →

Presenters

Renée Bergland

Renée Bergland is professor of literature and creative writing at Simmons University. She is the author of Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer among the American Romantics and The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects.

Alan Lightman

Alan Lightman earned his PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology and is the author of seven novels, including the international best seller Einstein’s Dreams and The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award. His nonfiction includes The Transcendental... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
02 - Old South Church - Mary Norton Hall

Nonfiction

2:45pm EDT

Black Resistance and Leadership

Saturday October 26, 2024 2:45pm - 3:45pm EDT

06 - Boston Public Library - Rabb Hall

Black resistance, black politics, and the work of democracy will be the focus of this conversation between four distinguished scholars. Wellesley professor and co-host of the podcast This Day in Esoteric History, Kellie Carter Jackson highlights the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women, in We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance. Art and cultural historian Sarah Lewis, author of The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America, explores the myth of whiteness and the many ways that American culture has taught people not to see, in order to preserve the lies that support racism and to maintain the country’s racial hierarchies. The multi-talented Thulani Davis, in The Emancipation Circuit, offers a deep look at how the four million newly freed slaves created community networks and political organizations to defend freedom and show how these circuits of freedom were the bedrock of the first mass political movement for equal citizenship in the United States. Princeton University professor and frequent MSNBC contributor Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. in his book We are The Leaders We Have Been Looking For argues that Black Americans must step out from under the shadows of past giants to be the heroes that our democracy urgently requires. Noelle Trent, President and CEO of the Museum of African American History, will moderate. This session is sponsored by the Museum of African American History and the Stone Foundation.

Moderators

Noelle Trent

Dr. Noelle N. Trent, President & CEO of the Museum of African American History, combines her passion for history with professional expertise to craft empowering experiences about Black history. As an accomplished public historian, she has served on committees in national museum organizations... Read More →

Presenters

Thulani Davis

Thulani Davis is an interdisciplinary scholar, a veteran journalist, and a writer working in theater, fiction and non-fiction. The author of The Emancipation Circuit and My Confederate Kinfolk, she is Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison... Read More →

Eddie Glaude

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the author of several books, including We are The Leaders We Have Been Looking For, Democracy in Black and the New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, winner of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Book Prize... Read More →

Kellie Jackson

Kellie Carter Jackson is the Michael and Denise Kellen ’68 Associate Professor and Chair of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. Her book Force and Freedom was a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize and the Museum of African American History Stone Book Award. She is... Read More →

Sarah Lewis

Sarah Lewis is the award-winning author of The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery and editor of Vision & Justice, recipient of the Infinity Award and the Freedom Scholar Award from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and... Read More →

Sponsors and Partners

Stone Foundation

Saturday October 26, 2024 2:45pm - 3:45pm EDT
06 - Boston Public Library - Rabb Hall

Nonfiction

2:45pm EDT

Seeking Joy in our LIfe Journeys

Saturday October 26, 2024 2:45pm - 3:45pm EDT

08 - Boston Public Library - Commonwealth Salon

In this eclectic grouping of authors whose books have each earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, the theme is seeking understanding and comfort in a world where change is the only constant. In The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster, John O’Connor goes in search of Bigfoot's myth and meaning. Publishers Weekly calls his effort “a winning portrait of America at its weirdest.” Curator and cultural observer Simon Wu’s memoir in essays, Dancing On My Own: Essays on Art,Collectivity, and Joy, interrogates art, capitalism, and identity and seeks to center joy in a socially engaged art-making life. Finally, The Atlantic writer James Parker’s Get Me Through the Next Five Minutes: Odes to Being Alive, pays homage to the poetry and beauty in everyday life. His quirky, funny odes to everything from Proust to dog waste are celebratory and life-affirming. Join us for a fun and provocative appreciation of everyone’s search for meaning and joy, led by Edgar B. Herwick III, host of GBH’s Curiosity Desk.

Moderators

Edgar Herwick

Edgar B. Herwick III is the guy behind GBH’s Curiosity Desk, where he answers your questions and examines some of the everyday mysteries hiding in plain sight. He’s an award-winning reporter, host and producer who has been with GBH since 2006. His work can be heard regularly on... Read More →

Presenters

John O’Connor

John O’Connor is a journalist journalist and regular contributor to the New York Times travel section and other publications. He teaches travel writing and lives with his family in Cambridge, MA.

James Parker

James Parker is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the co-editor of The Pilgrim, a literary magazine from the homeless community of downtown Boston.

Simon Wu

Simon Wu is a curator and writer involved in collaborative art production and research. He has organized exhibitions and programs at the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum, The Kitchen, MoMA, and David Zwirner, among other venues. In 2021, he was awarded an Andy Warhol Foundation... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 2:45pm - 3:45pm EDT
08 - Boston Public Library - Commonwealth Salon

Nonfiction

3:00pm EDT

Art History Keynote: Paris in Ruins

Saturday October 26, 2024 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT

01 - Old South Church - Sanctuary

We are delighted to welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic, Sebastian Smee, for a presentation and interview about Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism, which Kirkus Reviews called a “deft, vibrant cultural history.” Smee describes in vivid language how the Impressionist movement was born against a backdrop of violence, civil war, and political intrigue that followed the French defeat by the Germans and the rise of a radical, breakaway Commune in 1870-71. Central to the story is the love affair between Édouard Manet and the woman who was at the heart of the movement, Berthe Morisot. The upheaval around these artists gave them a keen sense of the impermanence and transience of all things, which was reflected in their groundbreaking art. Sebastian Smee will be joined by Jared Bowen, host of Open Studio on GBH. This session is sponsored through the generosity of Ann and Graham Gund.

Moderators

Jared Bowen

Jared Bowen is the Emmy award-winning Executive Arts Editor and host of The Culture Show, a daily radio program and podcast at GBH exploring the creative process through a lively mix of local and national artist profiles, performances and exhibitions.Jared is a special correspondent... Read More →

Presenters

Sebastian Smee

Sebastian Smee is an art critic for the Washington Post and the author of Paris in Ruins: Love, War and the Birth of Impressionism (Norton) and The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art (Random House). He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
01 - Old South Church - Sanctuary

Nonfiction

3:15pm EDT

Fashion, Power, and Fighting Back

Saturday October 26, 2024 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT

05 - Trinity Church - Undercroft

As a teenage supermodel, Cameron Russell learned how to please the fashion industry gatekeepers and power brokers to gain lucrative modeling gigs by compartmentalizing her own feelings about the exploitation she experienced and observed. In How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone, Russell describes the journey from acquiescence to opposition as she became an advocate for collective action and worker protections. With a clear-eyed view of her own complicity in an industry where the highest praise is “she’ll do anything,” Russell pulls no punches in this captivating look at fashion, power, and fighting back. Comedian, The Moth host, and former model Bethany Van Delft will host.

Moderators

Bethany Van Delft

Bethany Van Delft is a stand up comedian, actress, and writer. Born in the Bronx and raised up in Boston, Bethany’s unique point of view is a product of her upbringing and quirky observations, combining a grounded storytelling delivery with her quietly hysterical alternate universe... Read More →

Presenters

Cameron Russell

Cameron Russell is a model, writer, artist and organizer. She spent the last twenty years working for clients like Prada, Calvin Klein, Victoria’s Secret, H&M, Vogue and Elle. With over 40 million views and counting, she gave one of the most popular TED talks of all time on the... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
05 - Trinity Church - Undercroft

Nonfiction

3:30pm EDT

Life Hacks: Rituals and Vows

Saturday October 26, 2024 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT

02 - Old South Church - Mary Norton Hall

Rituals, including the taking of vows, can have a powerful and positive effect on us. Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton, in The Ritual Effect: The Transformative Power of Our Everyday Actions, argues that rituals can enrich our lives in numerous ways, from cementing relationships, encouraging staying in the moment, engendering social cohesiveness, and transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. In Vows, Cheryl Mendelson looks at the meaning of wedding vows. The practice of taking marriage vows did not arise until Medieval times– before that marriage was a contract between the groom and the father of the bride. When the idea of free will emerged, vows became important and, Mendelson believes, are still important where they relate to the interconnectedness of love, desire, and commitment. This session will be moderated by Callie Crossley, host of GBH’s Under the Radar.

Moderators

Callie Crossley

Callie Crossley hosts Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and shares radio essays each Monday on GBH’s Morning Edition. She also formerly hosted Basic Black, which focused on current events impacting communities of color. Crossley has won numerous awards, including the prestigious... Read More →

Presenters

Cheryl Mendelson

Cheryl Mendelson is a Harvard Law School graduate, a sometime philosophy professor, and a novelist (Morningside Heights and Love, Work, Children). In 1999, she authored the classic bestselling resource for every American household, Home Comforts. Born into a rural family in Greene... Read More →

Michael Norton

Michael Norton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He has studied human behavior as it relates to love and inequality, time and money, and happiness and grief. He is the author of The Ritual Effect and the coauthor—with... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
02 - Old South Church - Mary Norton Hall

Nonfiction

4:30pm EDT

How Technology Shapes History

Saturday October 26, 2024 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT

06 - Boston Public Library - Rabb Hall

The two sweeping, magisterial narratives featured in this session demonstrate how human history is defined by technological innovation, and not always in a good way. Technological progress has brought enormous advances in lifespan and freedom, but the cost has been significant. Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, asserts that over the past 1,000 years, technological developments tended to enrich and empower small elites. This rings true in our time when a small group of technology entrepreneurs amass astonishing wealth and power but the real income of ordinary people remains stagnant. In The Burning Earth: A History, MacArthur “genius” grantee Sunil Amrith uses an environmental lens for a paradigm-shifting examination of how industrialization, colonization, and war have degraded and reshaped the planet. This fascinating conversion about the history of technology will be led by Arun Rath, host of All Things Considered on GBH.

Moderators

Arun Rath

Arun Rath is the host of GBH News' All Things Considered.

Presenters

Daron Acemoglu

Daron Acemoglu is Institute Professor of Economics at MIT, the university's highest faculty honor. For the last twenty-five years, he has been researching the historical origins of prosperity, poverty, and the effects of new technologies on economic growth, employment, and inequality... Read More →

Sunil Amrith

Sunil Amrith is the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History and professor in the School of the Environment at Yale University. He is the author of four books, and a recipient of multiple awards including a MacArthur “genius” fellowship. He grew up in Singapore and lives in... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
06 - Boston Public Library - Rabb Hall

Nonfiction

4:30pm EDT

Memoir: Follow Your Bliss

Saturday October 26, 2024 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT

04 - Church of the Covenant - Sanctuary

Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.” This session features three individuals who apparently followed that dictum and turned a passionate interest into their life’s work. Mattapan native Rich Benoit’s love of cars, especially electric vehicles, led to his popular YouTube channel, Rich Rebuilds. He tells how his interest in cars and rebuilding stuff led to a burgeoning career in Going Fast and Fixing Things. Trish O’Kane, in Birding to Change the World, chronicles how her obsession with birdwatching led her to a new identity as a birder, environmentalist and social justice warrior. “Birds,” she writes, “forged a new neural pathway in my brain, a joyful pathway.” In My Roman History, Alizah Holstein describes how her love affair with Rome, which began in high school, morphed into a career. Her memoir is a meditation on the mysteries of affinity, desire, and self-realization. This session will be moderated by Robin Young, host of WBUR’s Here & Now. Come be inspired to follow your own bliss. Sponsored by WBUR.

Moderators

Robin Young

Robin Young brings more than 25 years of broadcast experience to her role as host of Here & Now. She is a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker who has also reported for NBC, CBS and ABC television and for several years was substitute host and correspondent for "The Today Show... Read More →

Presenters

Rich Benoit

Rich Benoit is the founder of Rich Rebuilds, a YouTube channel he launched in 2014. As a lifelong car aficionado, he takes great pride in teaching people about cars while squeezing as much snarky humor into each video as possible. He is a Harvard dropout and former IT help desk professional... Read More →

Alizah Holstein

Alizah Holstein is an independent editor with a Ph.D. in History from Cornell University and an International MFA in Nonfiction Writing & Literary Translation from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Providence, RI with her husband and children.

Trish O'Kane

Trish O'Kane, the author of Birding to Change The World: A Memoir, is a writer and a senior lecturer in environmental justice at the University of Vermont, where avians are her teaching assistants. A former human rights journalist in Central America and the Deep South, she has written... Read More →

Sponsors and Partners

WBUR

Saturday October 26, 2024 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
04 - Church of the Covenant - Sanctuary

Nonfiction

4:30pm EDT

When History Gets Personal

Saturday October 26, 2024 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT

01 - Old South Church - Sanctuary

History is made by people, and the two memoirs covered here tell the story of an era through the personalities involved. Doris Kearns Goodwin’s husband, Richard Goodwin, was a White House aide and speechwriter to JFK and RFK, deputy assistant secretary of state, and director of the International Peace Corps during the turbulent 60’s. The author herself worked with Lyndon Johnson on writing his memoirs. The hope and idealism of the period, the shattered dreams and lives, the turmoil, and the love story of the author and her beloved husband, are encapsulated in her bestselling memoir, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960’s. Journalist Charles Trueheart relates the story of the rupture between two diplomats, one his father and the other his godfather, who were both present at a pivotal moment in the diplomatic history of the Vietnam War, in Diplomats at War: Friendship and Betrayal on the Brink of the Vietnam Conflict, which the Washington Post calls both “riveting and revelatory.” The discussion will be moderated by Linda Henry, co-owner and CEO of Boston Globe Media.

Moderators

Linda Henry

Linda Henry is the co-owner of Boston Globe Media where she serves as Chief Executive Officer of the 152 year-old multimedia company that includes The Boston Globe, Boston.com, and Stat News. Prior to becoming CEO in 2020, Linda served as Managing Director at the Globe and as co-founder... Read More →

Presenters

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s work for President Johnson inspired her career as a presidential historian. Her first book was Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. She followed up with the Pulitzer Prize–winning No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Homefront in World... Read More →

Charles Trueheart

Charles Trueheart is the author of Diplomats at War: Friendship and Betrayal on the Brink of the Vietnam Conflict (University of Virginia Press, 2024). He was director of the American Library in Paris from 2007 to 2017. Most of his earlier career was in journalism, including 15 years... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
01 - Old South Church - Sanctuary

Nonfiction

4:45pm EDT

United We Stand, Divided We Fall

Saturday October 26, 2024 4:45pm - 5:45pm EDT

05 - Trinity Church - Undercroft

It is impossible to ignore the increasingly bitter polarization of our society. In If We Are Brave: Essays from Black America, Washington Post opinion columnist Theodore Johnson examines the rift that race exposes in our national identity and the ways it hinders our ability to connect with one another. Darrin McMahon, in Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea, points out that across time, the movement towards equality is seldom linear: greater equality within one group is often premised on the exclusion of those outside the group. There is no easy fix for our nation’s deep fissures, but Nick Troiano, in The Primary Solution: Rescuing Our Democracy from the Fringes, argues for abolishing partisan political primaries, which favor extremists of both parties. The result would be more democratic elections and less polarization. This thought-provoking discussion will be led by Jeremy Siegel, co-host of Morning Edition on GBH.

Moderators

Jeremy Siegel

Jeremy Siegel is a co-host of Morning Edition at GBH. Previously he was the host and producer of POLITICO’s daily news podcast POLITICO Dispatch.

Presenters

Theodore Johnson

Theodore R. Johnson is the author of If We are Brave; a Senior Advisor at New America, leading its flagship Us@250 initiative marking the nation’s semi quincentennial; and a contributing columnist at The Washington Post. Prior to joining New America, he was a senior fellow and Director... Read More →

Darrin Mcmahon

Darrin M. McMahon is the Mary Brinsmead Wheelock Professor of History at Dartmouth College. The author of Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea, Happiness: A History, and Divine Fury: A History of Genius, he writes regularly for the national and international press. He lives in... Read More →

Nick Troiano

Nick Troiano is a civic entrepreneur based in Denver, CO and is the Executive Director of Unite America – a non-partisan organization that seeks to foster a more functional and representative government. Nick has been a leader in the political reform movement over the last decade... Read More →

Saturday October 26, 2024 4:45pm - 5:45pm EDT
05 - Trinity Church - Undercroft

Nonfiction