Tag Archives: culture

Edwidge Danticat with Aja Monet, Reading, 27 March 2019 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 27, 2019.

Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Krik? Krak!, a collection of short stories that encompass both the cruelties and the high ideals of Haitian life. Danticat’s 2004 novel The Dew Breaker spins a series of related stories around a shadowy central figure, a Haitian immigrant to the United States who reveals to his artist daughter that he is not, as she believes, a prison escapee but a former prison guard and skilled torturer.

When asked about being a role model for Haitians, Danticat replied, “There are millions and millions of Haitian voices. Mine is only one. My greatest hope is that mine becomes one voice in a giant chorus that is trying to understand and express artistically what it’s like to be a Haitian immigrant in the United States.” Danticat was born in Haiti and moved to the United States when she was 12. She currently lives in Miami with her family. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009.

She has received much praise and recognition for her story collections and novels, beginning in 1994 with Breath, Eyes, Memory (an Oprah’s Book Club selection) and continuing through to The Dew Breaker. In that book, her lyrical writing explores equally atrocities and kindnesses, as it moves between the modern United States and the Haiti of memory, quietly and deftly revealing the horrors of the past in prose that is liquid and arresting. Paule Marshall has said of Danticat, “A silenced Haiti has once again found its literary voice.”

Danticat is the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States (2003), The Beacon Best of 2000: Great Writing by Men and Women of All Colors and Cultures, Haiti Noir (2010), Haiti Noir 2 (2014), and Best American Essays 2011. Her memoir Brother, I’m Dying was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography.

Her most recent book is The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story (2017). The New York Times said, “This book is a kind of prayer for her mother—an act of mourning and remembrance, a purposeful act of grieving… Danticat writes beautifully about fellow writers, dissecting their magic and technique with a reader’s passion and a craftsman’s appraising eye… As a grieving daughter, she wants to understand how others have grappled with this essential fact of human existence; and as a writer—a ‘sentence-maker,’ in the words of a DeLillo character she wants to learn how to use language to try to express the inexpressible, to use her art to mourn.”

This was a Readings and Conversations event.

In this episode, Edwidge Danticat was introduced by Aja Monet, then read from 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.

Edwidge Danticat with Aja Monet, Conversation, 27 March 2019 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 27, 2019.

Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Krik? Krak!, a collection of short stories that encompass both the cruelties and the high ideals of Haitian life. Danticat’s 2004 novel The Dew Breaker spins a series of related stories around a shadowy central figure, a Haitian immigrant to the United States who reveals to his artist daughter that he is not, as she believes, a prison escapee but a former prison guard and skilled torturer.

When asked about being a role model for Haitians, Danticat replied, “There are millions and millions of Haitian voices. Mine is only one. My greatest hope is that mine becomes one voice in a giant chorus that is trying to understand and express artistically what it’s like to be a Haitian immigrant in the United States.” Danticat was born in Haiti and moved to the United States when she was 12. She currently lives in Miami with her family. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009.

She has received much praise and recognition for her story collections and novels, beginning in 1994 with Breath, Eyes, Memory (an Oprah’s Book Club selection) and continuing through to The Dew Breaker. In that book, her lyrical writing explores equally atrocities and kindnesses, as it moves between the modern United States and the Haiti of memory, quietly and deftly revealing the horrors of the past in prose that is liquid and arresting. Paule Marshall has said of Danticat, “A silenced Haiti has once again found its literary voice.”

Danticat is the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States (2003), The Beacon Best of 2000: Great Writing by Men and Women of All Colors and Cultures, Haiti Noir (2010), Haiti Noir 2 (2014), and Best American Essays 2011. Her memoir Brother, I’m Dying was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography.

Her most recent book is The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story (2017). The New York Times said, “This book is a kind of prayer for her mother—an act of mourning and remembrance, a purposeful act of grieving… Danticat writes beautifully about fellow writers, dissecting their magic and technique with a reader’s passion and a craftsman’s appraising eye… As a grieving daughter, she wants to understand how others have grappled with this essential fact of human existence; and as a writer—a ‘sentence-maker,’ in the words of a DeLillo character she wants to learn how to use language to try to express the inexpressible, to use her art to mourn.”

This was a Readings and Conversations event.

In this episode, Edwidge Danticat joined Aja Monet 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.

Edwidge Danticat with Aja Monet, 27 March 2019 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 27, 2019.

Edwidge Danticat with Aja Monet

Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Krik? Krak!, a collection of short stories that encompass both the cruelties and the high ideals of Haitian life. Danticat’s 2004 novel The Dew Breaker spins a series of related stories around a shadowy central figure, a Haitian immigrant to the United States who reveals to his artist daughter that he is not, as she believes, a prison escapee but a former prison guard and skilled torturer.

When asked about being a role model for Haitians, Danticat replied, “There are millions and millions of Haitian voices. Mine is only one. My greatest hope is that mine becomes one voice in a giant chorus that is trying to understand and express artistically what it’s like to be a Haitian immigrant in the United States.” Danticat was born in Haiti and moved to the United States when she was 12. She currently lives in Miami with her family. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009.

She has received much praise and recognition for her story collections and novels, beginning in 1994 with Breath, Eyes, Memory (an Oprah’s Book Club selection) and continuing through to The Dew Breaker. In that book, her lyrical writing explores equally atrocities and kindnesses, as it moves between the modern United States and the Haiti of memory, quietly and deftly revealing the horrors of the past in prose that is liquid and arresting. Paule Marshall has said of Danticat, “A silenced Haiti has once again found its literary voice.”

Danticat is the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States (2003), The Beacon Best of 2000: Great Writing by Men and Women of All Colors and Cultures, Haiti Noir (2010), Haiti Noir 2 (2014), and Best American Essays 2011. Her memoir Brother, I’m Dying was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography.

Her most recent book is The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story (2017). The New York Times said, “This book is a kind of prayer for her mother—an act of mourning and remembrance, a purposeful act of grieving… Danticat writes beautifully about fellow writers, dissecting their magic and technique with a reader’s passion and a craftsman’s appraising eye… As a grieving daughter, she wants to understand how others have grappled with this essential fact of human existence; and as a writer—a ‘sentence-maker,’ in the words of a DeLillo character she wants to learn how to use language to try to express the inexpressible, to use her art to mourn.”

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.

Clive Hamilton with Lisa Sideris, Talk, 2 May 2018 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on May 2, 2018.

Clive Hamilton is an Australian author, public intellectual, and professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Australia.

He received his PhD from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. He is the founder and former executive director of the Australia Institute, a progressive think tank. He has held visiting academic positions at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, University College London, and Sciences Po in Paris.

Hamilton has published on a wide range of subjects. Among his early works are Growth Fetish, Affluenza (with Richard Denniss), and Silencing Dissent. His most recent books include The Freedom Paradox: Towards a Post-Secular Ethics, Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change, and the recently published Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene.

This was an In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom event.

In this episode, Clive Hamilton was introduced by Lisa Sideris, 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 watch the videos of this event there. Photos from this event are available on Flickr.

Clive Hamilton with Lisa Sideris, Conversation, 2 May 2018 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on May 2, 2018.

Clive Hamilton is an Australian author, public intellectual, and professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Australia.

He received his PhD from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. He is the founder and former executive director of the Australia Institute, a progressive think tank. He has held visiting academic positions at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, University College London, and Sciences Po in Paris.

Hamilton has published on a wide range of subjects. Among his early works are Growth Fetish, Affluenza (with Richard Denniss), and Silencing Dissent. His most recent books include The Freedom Paradox: Towards a Post-Secular Ethics, Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change, and the recently published Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene.

This was an In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom event.

In this episode, Clive Hamilton joined Lisa Sideris 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.

Clive Hamilton with Lisa Sideris, 2 May 2018 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on May 2, 2018.

Clive Hamilton with Lisa Sideris

Clive Hamilton is an Australian author, public intellectual, and professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Australia.

He received his PhD from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. He is the founder and former executive director of the Australia Institute, a progressive think tank. He has held visiting academic positions at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, University College London, and Sciences Po in Paris.

Hamilton has published on a wide range of subjects. Among his early works are Growth Fetish, Affluenza (with Richard Denniss), and Silencing Dissent. His most recent books include The Freedom Paradox: Towards a Post-Secular Ethics, Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change, and the recently published Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene.

This was an In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom event.

In this episode, Clive Hamilton talked about his work, then joined Lisa Sideris in conversation.

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.

Ta-Nehisi Coates with Michele Norris, Conversation, 8 April 2015 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on April 8, 2015.

This event was part of the In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom lecture series.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, writer, journalist, and educator is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues. He is also a former writer for The Village Voice and a contributor to Time, O, and The New York Times Magazine. He has contributed to The New York Times and The Washington Post and has appeared on Democracy Now! and Moyers & Company.

In this episode he is joined in conversation with Michele Norris. The companion Talk episode may be found here.

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

Additional photos of this event are available on Flickr.