All upcoming Authors, Books, & Writing programs

Discover the power of reflective writing inspired by art guided by the founding instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s Writing Salon, Mary Hall Surface. The work of two British artists, painter Evelyn De Morgan and poet and playwright Carol Ann Duffy, open participants to an exploration of Demeter, Greek mythology’s goddess of fertility and Mother Earth. Through close looking and imaginative writing, they reflect on the myriad meanings of mothering in their lives, in the natural world, and in the creative process.

Shakespeare’s Macbeth is one of his bloodiest and most haunting plays, distinguished by its recurrent use of the supernatural. Joseph Luzzi, professor of literature at Bard College, guides you through the rich verbal intricacies and captivating themes of the play, especially its treatment of political ambition and the nature of the monarchy. An analysis of the psychological makeup of main characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth leads to considering what made Shakespeare such an astute student of human nature.

From her perspective as a historian of the English language, linguist, and veteran English professor at the University of Michigan, Anne Curzan examines some common peeves in grammar, tackling such puzzlers as “who vs. whom,” “less vs. fewer,” “based on vs. based off,” and the eternal “between you and I.” She explores how we can reconcile the clash of our inner grammando (who can’t help but judge bits of usage we see and hear) and inner wordie (who loves to play Wordle and make new puns and the like) and offers tools for becoming an even more skilled word watcher.

Geoffrey Chaucer is often called the father of English literature because of his groundbreaking work, The Canterbury Tales. Joseph Luzzi, professor of literature at Bard College, explores what makes this masterpiece tick. He explores how Chaucer created such compelling characters as the Wife of Bath, a pioneering figure in the construction of modern female identity, and how his work influenced a range of later authors.

Inspired by the letters in her new book, Joyce Carol Oates: Letters to a Biographer (Akashic), Joyce Carol Oates, in a conversation with author and educator Rebecca Boggs Roberts, discusses her writing process and style over the past four decades. The letters in the book were part of a correspondence with a graduate student who eventually became her biographer.

For centuries, dictionaries were works of almost superhuman endurance produced by people who devoted themselves for years, even decades, to the wearisome labor of corralling, recording, and defining the vocabulary of a language. Educators and authors Bryan A. Garner and Jack Lynch share the stories behind these great works of scholarship and the people who produced them, including towering figures of English lexicography such as Samuel Johnson, Noah Webster, and the Oxford English Dictionary’s James Murray, as well as more obscure dictionary makers whose achievements are no less fascinating.

“Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900–1939” at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery illuminates the accomplishments of 60 women who crossed the Atlantic to pursue personal and professional aspirations in the vibrant cultural milieu of Paris. Robyn Asleson, the gallery’s curator of prints and drawings, provides an overview of the first exhibition to focus on the impact of American women on Paris—and of Paris on American women­—as she discusses portraits of Josephine Baker, Isadora Duncan, Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Anna May Wong, among others. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Ever since its publication in 1954, Nobel laureate William Golding’s Lord of the Flies has been a mainstay of syllabi and reading lists throughout the world. Literature professor Joseph Luzzi leads a detailed analysis and examination of the harrowing story of a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island during a time of war.

For historians like Megan Kate Nelson, the “archive,” usually a library, university, museum, or historical society collection, is a sacred place. But what happens when these sources don’t contain the answers they seek? Nelson unfolds three research adventures that led her to places beyond the traditional archives—including a mountain pass in New Mexico—during her preparation for The Three-Cornered War, a book about the Civil War in the desert Southwest.

The earliest known copy of work by Archimedes. Gutenberg and other early Bibles and Muslim manuscripts. Historical astronomical plates. All these historical objects have been digitized by Michael B. Toth, president of R. B. Toth Associates, and his colleagues in humanities and science. Toth discusses ongoing work on historic objects and offers examples of texts and objects that have been digitized using the latest advanced imaging systems.