Forum Network

Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

Funding provided by:

Boston Athenaeum

The Boston Athenaeum, one of the oldest and most distinguished independent libraries in the United States, was founded in 1807 by members of the Anthology Society, a group of fourteen Boston gentlemen who had joined together in 1805 to edit The Monthly Anthology and Boston Review. Their purpose was to form "an establishment similar to that of the Athenaeum and Lyceum of Liverpool in Great Britain; combining the advantages of a public library [and] containing the great works of learning and science in all languages." The library and Art Gallery, established in 1827, were soon flourishing, and grew rapidly, both by purchase of books and art and by frequent gifts. For nearly half a century the Athenaeum was the unchallenged center of intellectual life in Boston, and by 1851 had become one of the five largest libraries in the United States. Today its collections comprise over half a million volumes, with particular strengths in Boston history, New England state and local history, biography, English and American literature, and the fine and decorative arts. The Athenaeum supports a dynamic art gallery, and sponsors a lively variety of events such as lectures and concerts. It also serves as a stimulating center for discussions among scholars, bibliophiles, and a variety of community interest groups.break

http://www.bostonathenaeum.org

Timoleon Vieta Come Home: A Sentimental Journey

Wed, Sep 15, 2004

Fiction writer Dan Rhodes discusses his new novel, *Timoleon Vieta Come Home*. Rattling around his dilapidated farmhouse in the Italian countryside, faded composer and socialite Cockroft has only one constant companion: Timoleon Vieta, a loyal mongrel with beautiful eyes. When a handsome but surly individual arrives on the scene, Cockroft is forced to choose between his dog and the new arrival. He abandons Timoleon outside Rome's Coliseum, where the dog begins a long journey home. **Dan Rhodes** has published two collections of short fiction: *Anthropology: and a Hundred Other Stories* (2000), which contains short, darkly humorous stories about romantic relationships, and *Don't Tell Me the Truth About Love* (2001), which consists of seven longer stories on a similar theme. Rhodes also was recently named by *Granta* one of 20 "Best Young British Novelists." *Timoleon Vieta Come Home* is his first novel.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Bush, Blair, and Iraq: The Making of a Catastrophe

Fri, Nov 5, 2004

Simon Jenkins argues that, though much has been made of the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom and of the personal relationship between George Bush and Tony Blair, the war in Iraq has strained these public and private ties.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Colossus of New York: City in 13 Parts

Thu, Oct 14, 2004

Colson Whitehead re-creates the exuberance, the chaos, the promise, and heartbreak of New York. *The Colossus of New York* captures the city's inner and outer landscapes in a series of vignettes, meditations, and personal memories. Conveying the feelings and thoughts of longtime residents and of newcomers who dream of making the city their home, of those who have conquered its challenges, and of those who struggle against its cruelties, *Colossus* is a portrait of life in the big city.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Seen But Not Heard: Images of Children in American Art

Tue, Nov 30, 2004

In conjunction with the Fall 2004 exhibition "Seen But Not Heard: Images of Children from the Collection of the Boston Athenaeum", David Dearinger surveys the manner in which children were depicted in 19th and early 20th century American art. Artists such as Winslow Homer, Lily Martin Spencer, George Caleb Bingham, J. G. Brown, Mary Cassatt, and Robert Henri are discussed in this illustrated lecture.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Hudson River School of American Landscape Painting

Thu, Apr 14, 2005

David Dearinger, a curator at the Boston Athenaeum, lectures on history and technique of the the Hudson River School style of landscape painting. The Hudson River School resulted from the earliest attempts by American artists to find a truly "American" theme and style. It was born in the 1820s in the paintings of Thomas Cole and thrived through the 1850s in the work of Asher Durand, John Kensett, Sanford Gifford, Fitzhugh Lane, and Frederic Edwin Church. Dr Dearinger traces the birth and development of the style using key examples of paintings by these and other artists, gives an overview of the movement's historiography, discusses contemporary critical responses to it, and comments on the waning and eventual demise of the style in the 1870s. **David Dearinger** is Susan Morse Hilles Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Boston Athenaeum. An art historian and curator, he received his PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, with a specialty in nineteenth-century American art. He taught art history in New York at Brooklyn College, Hunter College and, for many years, at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Before coming to Boston, he was chief curator at the National Academy of Design in New York. He has published and lectured widely on the history of American painting and sculpture.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Nature of Sacrifice: Biography of Charles Russell Lowell Jr.

Tue, Mar 22, 2005

The world advances by impossibilities achieved, Charles Lowell insisted in 1854 when, as valedictorian, he spoke at his Harvard graduation just two weeks after Boston had enforced the Fugitive Slave Law, returning Anthony Burns into slavery. Lowell argued that in the great march of mankind toward a greater humanity it was precisely those idealistic dreams of young men that marked human progress. His photographic memory and brilliant mind made him the brightest man of his generation. Spurning the advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson to become a "mystic," Lowell began a career at the cutting edge of industrial innovation under the mentorship of the New York iron magnate Abram Hewitt. But the impossibility Lowell had in mind was not the miracle of industrial advancement that was sweeping the nation, but the abolition of slavery. Lowell volunteered in the Union Cavalry and in 1862 served on General McClellan's staff. In 1864 he joined the Cavalry Corps under Sheridan, commanding the Reserve Brigade. Carol Bundy's account of Lowell's war years, shadowed by the deaths of his brother, cousins, and friends, is unsparing in its depiction of his work in helping to form the fabled 54th Regiment of black volunteers, fighting Colonel Mosby's guerillas, implementing Grant's orders to destroy the Shenandoah Valley, and participating in the notorious Front Royal Affair, when Confederate prisoners were tortured and executed. Bundy's vivid biography, based on rich public archives and a wealth of family papers, shows in persuasive detail the antebellum Boston of Lowell's privileged childhood transformed by his father's unexpected bankruptcy and by the national controversy over slavery. An Athenaeum proprietor, Carol Bundy has written for film and art publications in both the UK and the US. She has two sons and lives in Cambridge. Bundy became interested in her great-great-great uncle, Charles Russell Lowell, when his worn saddle bags, rusted sword, and spurs turned up after her grandmother's death in 1983. Listen to a complementary [interview with Carol Bundy](http://thoughtcast.org/casts/carol-bundy-civil-war-biographer) on Thoughtcast.org, a podcast and public radio interview program on authors, academics and intellectuals.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Role of the Academy and in American Art

Tue, Mar 29, 2005

The traditional art academies, first founded in Europe beginning in the late 17th century and in the United States just after the year 1800, played a vital role in the lives and careers of artists over three hundred years. Because they typically made drawing the basis for all art training and taught it under fairly strict control, academies fell from favor with the advent of modern art in the twentieth century. In the late twentieth century, however, and now into the twenty-first, more artists are paying attention to craft, and the practice of careful drawing is enjoying a huge resurgence. More and more artists are producing representational work, drawn and painted in a new, classically realistic style. In conjunction with the exhibition *Powerline: The Art of Leo Dee*, David Dearinger delivers an illustrated lecture about the role the formal art academy played in the development of American art. He will pay special attention to the history of one of the most important and enduring of these academies in this country: the National Academy of Design in New York, at Brooklyn College, Hunter College and for many years, at the Fashion Institute of Technology. The Academy was founded in 1826, has hosted a lively art school, and has held annual exhibitions of contemporary American Art, almost without interruption, since its foundation. Dr. Dearinger reviews the history of the National Academy, discusses its important collection of American paintings and sculptures, and describes the role it played in the formation of both American artists and American art critics. David Dearinger is Susan Morse Hilles curator of paintings and cculpture at the Boston Athenaeum. An art historian and curator, he received his PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, with a specialty in nineteenth-century American art. He taught art history in New York at Brooklyn College, Hunter College and, for many years, at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Before coming to Boston, he was chief curator at the National Academy of Design in New York. He has published and lectured widely on the history of American painting and sculpture.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Unnoticed: Secret Life of Type Faces

Thu, Apr 28, 2005

Richard Wendorf explores the nature and history of the type faces by which we live, ranging from Roman capitals to the experimentation of William Morris at the Kelmscott Press. Typography is something that we encounter every day of our lives; it is one of the most pervasive elements in an entire spectrum of human activities. And yet typography is usually invisible or barely noticed; it is supposed to be transparent; it is not supposed to draw attention to itself. *The Secret Life of Type* is one of 10 essays collected together in Richard Wendorf's new book *The Scholar-Librarian: Books, Libraries, and the Visual Arts*, published by Oak Knoll Press and the Boston Athenaeum.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Seamanship: Voyage Along the Coasts of the British Isles

Thu, May 19, 2005

Writer Adam Nicholson discusses his nautical adventure around the British Isles that lead to his book, Seamanship: A Voyage Along the Wild Coasts of the British Isles In the winter of 2003, Adam Nicholson embarked on the sea voyage of his wildest imaginings. In the company of George Fairhurst, an experienced skipper with half a million sea miles under his belt, Nicholson navigated the often unforgiving coastal waters of western Ireland and Scotland, visiting the outer reaches of the British Isles. The months-long expedition on a 42-foot ketch tested their mettle, both as sailors and as men, as they faced fierce weather, fickle currents, and their own resolution and limitations. **Adam Nicholson** grew up in Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, the family home of his grandparents Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson. He was educated at Eton and at Magdalene College at Cambridge. After university, he became a travel writer and won the Somerset Maugham Award for Frontiers, about a journey through Eastern Europe. In the mid-eighties Nicholson founded Toucan Books, and he served as publishing director for five years. He has since joined the London Daily Telegraph as a columnist. He is the author of Wetland Life in the Somerset Levels, which won the British Topography Prize; Restoration; God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible; and Sea Room, which was short-listed for the Duff Cooper Prize. Nicholson lives on a small beef and sheep farm in Sussex with his wife and five children.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum
Presidential Health: Bloodletting to Ballistics

Thu, Oct 28, 2004

Kevin R. Loughlin traces events involving the health of presidents from George Washington to the present day. He reviews the impairments of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy that were hidden from the public, and describes the gory circumstances of Washington's demise (he was essentially bled to death). Loughlin also discusses the cardiac history of Dwight Eisenhower, which was misdiagnosed as indigestion by his well-meaning personal physician and friend; a president who underwent secret surgery aboard a yacht in the East River; and some of the medical aspects of the presidential assassinations. Loughlin concludes with an analysis of how presidential health is currently monitored and offers recommendations for the future. **Kevin R. Loughlin** has been on the faculty of Harvard Medical School for over two decades, where he is currently professor of surgery. Throughout his surgical career, he has had an interest in medical history and has written and lectured on this area numerous times. He has had a particular interest in the health of US presidents and the impact of their illnesses on history.

Forum Network

Partner:

Boston Athenaeum

Load More