Author Archives: Lannan Foundation

Diane Ravitch with Jesse Hagopian, 11 April 2018 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on April 11, 2018.

Diane Ravitch with Jesse Hagopian

Diane Ravitch is the nation’s leading advocate for public education. She is a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

She is the author of numerous books on American education, including The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. Her most recent book is Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.

Ravitch is the Founder and President of the Network for Public Education (NPE), whose mission is to preserve, promote, improve and strengthen public schools for both current and future generations of students.

This was an In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom event.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also watch the videos of this event there. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.

Roxane Gay with Tressie McMillan Cottom, Reading, 14 March 2018 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 14, 2018.

Roxane Gay is an author and cultural critic. Her works include the story collection Difficult Women and Ayiti, a blend of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry interwoven into a tale of the Haitian diaspora. In her essay collection Bad Feminist, she writes, “I never want to be placed on a Feminist Pedestal. People who are placed on pedestals are expected to pose, perfectly. Then they get knocked off…. Consider me already knocked off.”

Gay’s most recent book is Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. The New York Times writes, “At its simplest, it’s a memoir about being fat — Gay’s preferred term — in a hostile, fat-phobic world. At its most symphonic, it’s an intellectually rigorous and deeply moving exploration of the ways in which trauma, stories, desire, language and metaphor shape our experiences and construct our reality.”

Gay is the author of the comic series World of Wakanda and is the first African American woman to write for Marvel Comics. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.

This was a Readings and Conversations event.

In this episode, Roxane Gay was introduced by Tressie McMillan Cottom, then talked about her work. You can find the companion conversation here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also listen to the audio recording of this event there. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.

Roxane Gay with Tressie McMillan Cottom, Conversation, 14 March 2018 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 14, 2018.

Roxane Gay is an author and cultural critic. Her works include the story collection Difficult Women and Ayiti, a blend of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry interwoven into a tale of the Haitian diaspora. In her essay collection Bad Feminist, she writes, “I never want to be placed on a Feminist Pedestal. People who are placed on pedestals are expected to pose, perfectly. Then they get knocked off…. Consider me already knocked off.”

Gay’s most recent book is Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. The New York Times writes, “At its simplest, it’s a memoir about being fat — Gay’s preferred term — in a hostile, fat-phobic world. At its most symphonic, it’s an intellectually rigorous and deeply moving exploration of the ways in which trauma, stories, desire, language and metaphor shape our experiences and construct our reality.”

Gay is the author of the comic series World of Wakanda and is the first African American woman to write for Marvel Comics. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.

This was a Readings and Conversations event.

In this episode, Roxane Gay joined Tressie McMillan Cottom in conversation. You can find the companion reading here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also listen to the audio recording of this event there. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.

Roxane Gay with Tressie McMillan Cottom, 14 March 2018 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 14, 2018.

Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay is an author and cultural critic. Her works include the story collection Difficult Women and Ayiti, a blend of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry interwoven into a tale of the Haitian diaspora. In her essay collection Bad Feminist, she writes, “I never want to be placed on a Feminist Pedestal. People who are placed on pedestals are expected to pose, perfectly. Then they get knocked off…. Consider me already knocked off.”

Gay’s most recent book is Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. The New York Times writes, “At its simplest, it’s a memoir about being fat — Gay’s preferred term — in a hostile, fat-phobic world. At its most symphonic, it’s an intellectually rigorous and deeply moving exploration of the ways in which trauma, stories, desire, language and metaphor shape our experiences and construct our reality.”

Gay is the author of the comic series World of Wakanda and is the first African American woman to write for Marvel Comics. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.

This was a Readings and Conversations event.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also watch the videos of this event there. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.

Nancy MacLean with Greg Grandin, Talk, 7 March 2018 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 7, 2018.

Nancy MacLean is an award-winning scholar of twentieth-century US history. She is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (2017). It was a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and has received a Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for An Especially Notable Book.

MacLean has written four other books, including Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace and Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan. Her articles and review essays have appeared in numerous publications, including American Quarterly, Boston Review, In These Times, International Labor and Working Class History, Journal of American History, Journal of Women’s History, Law and History Review, and The Nation.

Her scholarship has received more than a dozen prizes and awards and has been supported by fellowships from, among other organizations, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowships Foundation. In 2010 she was elected a fellow of the Society of American Historians, which recognizes literary distinction in the writing of history and biography.

This was an In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom event.

In this episode, Nancy MacLean was introduced by Greg Grandin, then talked about her work. You can find the companion conversation here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also watch the videos of this event there. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.

Nancy MacLean with Greg Grandin, Conversation, 7 March 2018 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 7, 2018.

Nancy MacLean is an award-winning scholar of twentieth-century US history. She is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (2017). It was a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and has received a Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for An Especially Notable Book.

MacLean has written four other books, including Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace and Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan. Her articles and review essays have appeared in numerous publications, including American Quarterly, Boston Review, In These Times, International Labor and Working Class History, Journal of American History, Journal of Women’s History, Law and History Review, and The Nation.

Her scholarship has received more than a dozen prizes and awards and has been supported by fellowships from, among other organizations, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowships Foundation. In 2010 she was elected a fellow of the Society of American Historians, which recognizes literary distinction in the writing of history and biography.

This was an In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom event.

In this episode, Nancy MacLean joined Greg Grandin in conversation. You can find the companion talk here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also watch the videos of this event there. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.

Nancy MacLean with Greg Grandin, 7 March 2018 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 7, 2018.

Nancy MacLean with Greg Grandin

Nancy MacLean is an award-winning scholar of twentieth-century US history. She is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (2017). It was a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and has received a Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for An Especially Notable Book.

MacLean has written four other books, including Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace and Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan. Her articles and review essays have appeared in numerous publications, including American Quarterly, Boston Review, In These Times, International Labor and Working Class History, Journal of American History, Journal of Women’s History, Law and History Review, and The Nation.

Her scholarship has received more than a dozen prizes and awards and has been supported by fellowships from, among other organizations, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowships Foundation. In 2010 she was elected a fellow of the Society of American Historians, which recognizes literary distinction in the writing of history and biography.

This was an In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom event.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also watch the videos of this event there. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.

Aleksandar Hemon with John Freeman, Reading, 28 February 2018 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on February 28, 2018.

Aleksandar Hemon’s books include the novels The Making of Zombie Wars and Nowhere Man, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the story collections The Question of Bruno and Love and Obstacles. Born in Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia in 1964, Hemon was visiting Chicago as a tourist in 1992 when the Bosnian War broke out. Unable to return home, he eventually settled permanently in Chicago.

Having arrived with only a basic command of English, Hemon learned the language by reading the novels of Vladimir Nabokov; he published his first story in English in 1995. The New Yorker described him as having an “astonishing talent to notice the world with a sarcastic, wily precision that is then put in tension with his love of surreal metaphor.”

Hemon’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, and the New York Times, with more recent work addressing issues of immigration and the Trump administration. In a piece entitled “When Neighbors Turn on Each Other, It Happens Fast,” he writes, “Nevertheless, the question remains what happens to that sense of ethical stability when there is a societal rupture, when the infrastructure that allows for essentialist individualism is damaged and destroyed?” Hemon was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and received a MacArthur “genius grant” the following year. He lives in Chicago with his family.

This was a Readings and Conversations event.

In this episode, Aleksandar Hemon was introduced by John Freeman, then talked about his work. You can find the companion conversation here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also listen to the audio recording of this event there. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.

Aleksandar Hemon with John Freeman, Conversation, 28 February 2018 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on February 28, 2018.

Aleksandar Hemon’s books include the novels The Making of Zombie Wars and Nowhere Man, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the story collections The Question of Bruno and Love and Obstacles. Born in Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia in 1964, Hemon was visiting Chicago as a tourist in 1992 when the Bosnian War broke out. Unable to return home, he eventually settled permanently in Chicago.

Having arrived with only a basic command of English, Hemon learned the language by reading the novels of Vladimir Nabokov; he published his first story in English in 1995. The New Yorker described him as having an “astonishing talent to notice the world with a sarcastic, wily precision that is then put in tension with his love of surreal metaphor.”

Hemon’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, and the New York Times, with more recent work addressing issues of immigration and the Trump administration. In a piece entitled “When Neighbors Turn on Each Other, It Happens Fast,” he writes, “Nevertheless, the question remains what happens to that sense of ethical stability when there is a societal rupture, when the infrastructure that allows for essentialist individualism is damaged and destroyed?” Hemon was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and received a MacArthur “genius grant” the following year. He lives in Chicago with his family.

This was a Readings and Conversations event.

In this episode, Aleksandar Hemon joined John Freeman in conversation. You can find the companion reading here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also listen to the audio recording of this event there. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.

Aleksandar Hemon with John Freeman, 28 February 2018 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on February 28, 2018.

Aleksandar Hemon, 28 Feb 2018, Conversation

Aleksandar Hemon’s books include the novels The Making of Zombie Wars and Nowhere Man, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the story collections The Question of Bruno and Love and Obstacles. Born in Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia in 1964, Hemon was visiting Chicago as a tourist in 1992 when the Bosnian War broke out. Unable to return home, he eventually settled permanently in Chicago.

Having arrived with only a basic command of English, Hemon learned the language by reading the novels of Vladimir Nabokov; he published his first story in English in 1995. The New Yorker described him as having an “astonishing talent to notice the world with a sarcastic, wily precision that is then put in tension with his love of surreal metaphor.”

Hemon’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, and the New York Times, with more recent work addressing issues of immigration and the Trump administration. In a piece entitled “When Neighbors Turn on Each Other, It Happens Fast,” he writes, “Nevertheless, the question remains what happens to that sense of ethical stability when there is a societal rupture, when the infrastructure that allows for essentialist individualism is damaged and destroyed?” Hemon was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and received a MacArthur “genius grant” the following year. He lives in Chicago with his family.

This was a Readings and Conversations event.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also watch the videos of this event there. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.