Past Events

Hala Alyan reads from her novel Salt Houses as part of the Transnational Literature Series. Salt Houses is her first novel. On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Lyrical and heartbreaking, Salt Houses follows three generations of a Palestinian family and asks us to confront that most devastating of all truths: you can’t go home again.

A visit to the Jasanoff Lab at MIT reveals advances in imaging the brain. Dr. Jasanoff and several research associates in his lab explain the importance of this research and several innovative approaches used in this lab to improve brain imaging.

The activist organization #StuckOnReplay, along with many other local organizations, hosted a recent community event focused on inspiring their Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan neighbors to vote in the upcoming 2018 midterm elections. Since the launch of #StuckOnReplay in July of 2016, the organization has been focused on elevating voice, uplifting communities, and influencing policymakers. It has shifted its focus this year to holding policymakers accountable for the communities they represent. Other collaborating organizations include[ The Center for Teen Empowerment, Inc.](http://teenempowerment.org/ "teen empowerment"), [Violence in Boston, Inc.](https://www.vibsocialimpactteam.com/ "ViB"), [Haley House Bakery Cafe](http://haleyhouse.org/ "Haley House"),[ Sisters Unchained](https://www.facebook.com/sistersunchained/ "SU on Facebook"), [Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice](https://charleshamiltonhouston.org/ "website"), [Emancipation Initiative - Against Life Without Parole](http://emancipationinitiative.org/ "website"). The rally centered around the question that #StuckOnReplay posed to community members and public officials throughout all these local, state, and federal elections happening this year is: "Who Do You Value?"

We live in a time of alarming and bewildering change: the breakup of the post-1945 global order, numerous species facing extinction, and perhaps the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it. Not one of us is innocent, not one of us is safe. Roy Scranton faces the unpleasant facts of our day with fierce insight and honesty. In his book 'We’re Doomed. Now What?' he addresses this time of crisis through a series of brilliant, moving, and original essays on climate change, war, literature, and loss, from one of the most provocative and iconoclastic minds of his generation.

In Havana, Cuba, a widow tries to come to terms with her husband’s death―and the truth about their marriage―in Laura van den Berg’s surreal, mystifying story of psychological reflection and metaphysical mystery. Shortly after Clare arrives in Havana, Cuba, to attend the annual Festival of New Latin American Cinema, she finds her husband, Richard, standing outside a museum. He’s wearing a white linen suit she’s never seen before, and he’s supposed to be dead. Grief-stricken and baffled, Clare tails Richard, a horror film scholar, through the newly tourist-filled streets of Havana, clocking his every move. As the distinction between reality and fantasy blurs, Clare finds grounding in memories of her childhood in Florida and of her marriage to Richard, revealing her role in his death and reappearance along the way. The Third Hotel is a propulsive, brilliantly shape-shifting novel from an inventive author at the height of her narrative powers.

Following her retirement from Princeton University, celebrated historian Dr. Nell Irvin Painter surprised everyone in her life by returning to school―in her sixties―to earn a BFA and MFA in painting. In _Old in Art School_, she travels from her beloved Newark to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design and struggles with the unstable balance between the pursuit of art and the inevitable, sometimes painful demands of a life fully lived. How are women and artists seen and judged by their age, looks, and race? What does it mean when someone says, “You will never be an artist”? Who defines what “An Artist” is and all that goes with such an identity, and how are these ideas tied to our shared conceptions of beauty, value, and difference? _Old in Art School_ is Nell Painter’s ongoing exploration of those crucial questions, drawing on insights from two careers. Read about Nell Painter, ageism, and "disappearing women" [here](https://medium.com/@ForumNetwork/disappearing-women-nell-painter-and-christine-lahti-e508da6b5271 "Disappearing Women: Nell Painter and Christine Lahti"). Photo: [Time](http://time.com/5318242/nell-painter-old-in-art-school/ "This Woman Went to Art School in Her 60s, Proving It’s Never Too Late to Pivot")

In Adébáyọ̀'s work Stay With Me, a husband and wife tell the story of their marriage - and the forces that threaten to tear it apart. The book was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction, the Wellcome Book Prize and the 9mobile Prize for Literature. It was also longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. _Stay With Me_ was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times and a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications.

Across cities, towns, and campuses, Americans are grappling with overwhelming challenges and the daily fallout from the most authoritarian White House policies in recent memory. Jeff Biggers reframes today’s battles as a continuum of a vibrant American tradition. Resistance is a chronicle of the courageous resistance movements that have insured the benchmarks of our democracy―movements that served on the front lines of the American Revolution, the defense of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the defeat of fascism during World War II, and landmark civil rights and environmental protection achievements.

BSA’s Designing Boston Series looks at current issues and trends in architecture and design that could have a significant impact on the Greater Boston area or a particular neighborhood in the City. Hear a solution from a nearby municipality that has launched an ADU Pilot Program.

In a gramophone shop in Istanbul, renowned record collector Christopher C. King uncovered some of the strangest—and most hypnotic—sounds he had ever heard. The songs, King learned, were from Epirus, an area straddling southern Albania and northwestern Greece and boasting a folk tradition extending back to the pre-Homeric era. Lament from Epirus is an unforgettable journey into a musical obsession. As King hunts for two long-lost virtuosos—one of whom may have committed a murder—he also tells the story of the Roma people who pioneered Epirotic folk music and their descendants who continue the tradition today.