Spies & Journalists: Daughters Breaking Silence
Leslie Absher, daughter of a CIA father, and Eric Newton, husband of the late author and Bay Area journalist Mary Ann Hogan, discuss how memoir led each writer to better understand themselves and their secretive fathers. This is a free e…
Tasting History: A Delicious Journey Through the Past
If you've ever read Dickens and asked yourself, "What is gruel, anyway?" or wondered what would have been served at Macbeth's infamous feast, this session is for you. Perhaps, if you're among Max Miller's 1.65 million YouTube followers on his…
Adam Hochschild on American Midnight and Democracy’s Crises
In American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis, award-winning historian and journalist Adam Hochschild brings alive the horrifying yet inspiring four years following the U.S. entry into the First World…
Words and Pictures
We admit it—we're word people. But books featuring beautiful, provocative imagery can make for a singularly powerful reading experience. Immerse yourself in striking visual artworks and the stories behind them in this hour devoted to the art…
Hidden Histories
After attending this session, you'll never again view your lunchtime PB&J or that spoonful of sugar in your morning coffee in quite the same way. In Slaves for Peanuts, journalist Jori Lewis, who received a Whiting Award for her work, traces…
Seen and Unseen: New Glimpses of Japanese Incarceration
Photographs are a way of documenting the world—but what if they only capture part of the story? Or what if the things they show aren't allowed to be shared? That’s part of what Elizabeth Partridge explores in her remarkable book Seen and…
Picturing Lives: Picture Book Biographies
At a 2018 NYU symposium specifically devoted to the rise of children's picture book biographies, critic Leonard Marcus called the recent wave of new biographies "a vibrant publishing phenomenon," doing important work to address historical imbalances…
Poetry and the Archives of History
Many of us, when faced by stacks of dusty documents or faded photographs, might leave the work to the archivists—or consign the mess to the recycling bin of history. In this session, we'll hear from those who instead look at archives and envision…
A(lexandra) P(etri’s) US History
Alexandra Petri is no stranger to making history—this Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree became the youngest-ever columnist for the Washington Post, and she's also an International Pun Champion. Her timely takes on political events have previously…
Echoes of Exclusion
In her memoir Orphan Bachelors, Faye Myenne Ng includes a haunting quote from her father: "America didn’t have to kill any Chinese, the Exclusion Act ensured none would be born.” The Chinese exclusion era started in 1882 and ended (at least…