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4/25/06: The Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture with Orhan Pamuk
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Introduced by Salman Rushdie & followed by conversation with Margaret Atwood
Discussed: mother courage and
Günter Grass, the ruthless limits set on free expression, Miller and
Pinter’s trip to Istanbul, the solidarity of writers, the inextricable
bonds between free expression and dignity, internal civil wars, the
connection between apples and sex, similarities between children and
novelists, the Dixie Chick effect, the path from wannabe painter to
great novelists.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
• Entire event (1:03:20)
• Salman Rushdie: Introduction (7:52)
• Orhan Pamuk (16:33)
• Conversation: Pamuk & Margaret Atwood (38:51)
>> Read Pamuk's lecture in The New York Review of Books. |
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4/26/06: Writing Faith
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Discussed: maintaining faith as a postmodern writer; why we need religion; unreason as the writer's muse; the American protestant experiment; the gift of the first-person singular and the dream of the "we"; the anxiety of the lonely American; and blasphemy as literary tradition.
LISTEN
• Entire event (1:25:25)
• Mary Gordon: Introduction (4:57)
• Faith Adiele (5:15)
• Azhar Abidi (4:21)
• Alaa Al-Aswany (5:50)
• Richard Rodriguez (7:22)
•
Colm
Tóibín (7:55)
• Discussion (49:35) |
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4/27/06: Exiles in America
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With Chris Abani, Ammar Abdulhamid, Yiyun Li, Greg Palast, Huang Xiang; moderated by Michael Scammell
Discussed: mental suicide; the dynamics and burden of guilt; the courage scale in international censorship; exiled writers vs. exiled writing; negotiating authenticity from a multinational identity; the marginalization of the Internet; and the universal appeal of the exiled writer.
LISTEN
• Entire event |
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4/27/06: Patrick McGrath & Martin Amis
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Discussed: doubt; Pascal’s approach to faith; a plausible refutation
of religion; the nepotistic figure of Christ; hadith and the theological
gamble of suicide bombings; time and its eternal return; end-time theology, and
similarities between Ronald Reagan and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
• Entire event
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4/27/06: Mixed Media: Writers on Their Languages
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Writers are in the service of language itself and the specific language
of their work. Writers in Basque, Korean, Hebrew, Russian, English, and
Serbo-Croatian pay tribute to what is unique and specific about
working in each language.
LISTEN
• Entire Event
• David Damrosch: Introduction
• Bernardo Atxaga
• Raymond Federman
• Dubravka Ugresic
• Hwang Sok-Yong
• Agi Mishol
• Yiyun Li
• Boris Akunin |
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4/28/06: Revolution: A User's Manual
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Discussed: the midwife of
history; Galileo Galilei; normality vs. utopianism; the witty, the
moving, and the grim; religion as revolutionary force; revolutions that
didn't make it; the struggle against cliche; Spain as a model for
democracy; liberation theology; and which revolution has the most life
left in it.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
• Entire event (1:41:46)
• Christopher Hitchens: Introduction (8:24)
• Adam Michnik (8:35)
• Gioconda Belli (9:53)
• G. M. Tamás (13:12)
• Balthasar Garzón (14:11)
• Discussion (46:57) |
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4/28/06: Just the Facts: Truth & the Internet
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With Ammar Abdulhamid, Carol Darr, George Saunders, Ĺsne Seierstad, Susan Tifft; moderated by Jacob Weisberg
For millions, the Internet is now the go-to place for news, opinion,
advice, advocacy, outrage, connection, and community. But as
information disseminates at lightning speed, what happens to “fact”?
When every rumor, prevarication, hallucination, or fantasy instantly
goes global, is there any way to detach truth from lies?
LISTEN
• Entire event (57:48) |
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4/29/06: The Global City
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Discussed: the fear of loneliness and the luxury of solitude; beauty in the urban landscape; the community of melancholy and the nobility of failure; the beautiful woman behind City of God; architecture and nostalgia.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
• Entire event (1:22:58)
• Suketu Mehta: Introduction (5:23)
• Alaa Al-Aswany (9:51)
• Paulo Lins (11:13)
• Melania Mazzucco (10:46)
• Carlos Monsiváis (12:01)
• Orhan Pamuk (9:42)
• Discussion (23:30) |
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4/29/06: A Believer Nighttime Event
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With Rodrigo Fresán, Etgar Keret, Yiyun Li, Helen Oyeyemi, Matthew Ritchie, Salman Rushdie, Dubravka Ugresic; moderated by John Hodgman
Discussed: the brain of H. G.
Wells, the infrastructure of a good old-fashioned American literary
event, the six oaths of the virtuous child, our inevitable biological
predisposition toward fiction, Ibsen and Loveborg, imaginary friends,
and how to come out of the closet as a political writer.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
• Entire event
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4/29/06: HOWL for 50 Years
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With Bernardo Atxaga, Frank Bidart, Staceyann Chin, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Etgar Keret, Lyubomir Levchev, Robert Polito, Mani Rao, Jason Shinder, Ko Un
Poets
and writers from many countries celebrate one of the founding documents
of the global counterculture and honor Allen Ginsberg’s lifelong
commitment to freedom of expression.
PHOTO GALLERY |
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4/29/06: Whose News?: A Global Perspective on What Makes News and Why
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With Juan Luis Cebrián, Adam Michnik, Gianni Riotta, Ĺsne Seierstad; moderated by Nicholas Lemann
How are journalism and news media influenced by cultural and political
factors that vary widely from one region to another? Do media moderate
or reinforce these differences?
PHOTO GALLERY |
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4/30/06: Amartya Sen & Salman Rushdie
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Discussed: Transcultural migration, Indian verbosity, the recent
or not-so-recent invention of Indian identity, freedom's economic
components, class similarities in the victims of Hindu/Muslim violence,
the unholy alliance between Islamic extremism and Western
parochialism, the clash-of-civilizations thesis.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
• Entire event
• Part 1
• Part 2 |
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4/30/06: Duong Thu Huong with Robert Stone & Antoine Audouard
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Discussed: accepting the fate of the troublemaker; writing as moral imperative; writing vs. table tennis; truth and beauty; William James and war as a companion for humankind; fighting the foreign but not the internal enemy in Vietnam.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN •
Entire event (51:08) |
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4/30/06: Henning Mankell & Vera B. Williams
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PHOTO GALLERY |
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4/30/06: Suitable for Children
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With Francesca Lia Block, Tonya Bolden, David Grossman, Hanna Jansen, Anne Provoost; moderated by Arthur A. Levine
PHOTO GALLERY |
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4/26/06: Faith & Reason: Writers Speak
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At a moment when faith and reason can seem hopelessly antagonistic,
literature remains a vehicle through which differences may be explored
and reconciled.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
• Salman
Rushdie: Introduction
• Chinua
Achebe
• Martin
Amis
• Gioconda
Belli
• E.
L. Doctorow
• David
Grossman
• Elias
Khoury
• Yusef
Komunyakaa
• Toni
Morrison
• Zadie
Smith
• Duong
Thu Huong
• Ayu
Utami
• Jeanette
Winterson
• Salman
Rushdie |
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4/26/06: Honor Killings: When Families Commit Murder to Save Face
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With Necla Kelek, O. Z. Livaneli, Ritu Menon, Ayu Utami; moderated by Robert Pollock
LISTEN
• Entire event (1:02:06) |
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4/26/06: BenettonTalk Young Writers Series: Melania G. Mazzucco with Jhumpa Lahiri
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Discussed: reconstructing a family story from narrative
fragments and documentary artifacts, the metaphor of two boats, the impact of emigration on contemporary Italian culture, the universal legend of immigration, the process of adapting Vita for the screen.
LISTEN
• Entire event (1:00:00)
• Part 1 (20:00)
• Part 2 (20:00)
• Part 3 (20:00) |
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4/27/06: BenettonTalk Young Writers Series: Helen Oyeyemi and Esmeralda Santiago
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Discussed: reading Shakespeare as a child and pretending to be
precocious, the
reality of imaginary friends, Jimmy and the sudden death of an
imaginary friend, the horror and aftermath of interviews, the
difference between depression and carrying water for two miles, getting
published, a Tilly-Tilly/Beloved smackdown.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
• Entire event (1:00:00)
• Part 1 (20:00)
• Part 2 (20:00)
• Part 3 (20:00) |
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4/27/06: Tell That Story Again: Writing Myth Now
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With David Grossman, Milton Hatoum, Anne Provoost, Jeanette Winterson; moderated by Colum McCann
Working with myth—seeking new meaning in mankind’s oldest stories—is
one of the greatest literary challenges. Writers who have rewritten
myths for modern audiences discuss the complexities of making them new.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
• Entire event |
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4/27/06: An Evening Without
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Readings: Anthony Romero reads Tariq Ramadan; Martin Amis reads "Graham Greene" from Visiting Mrs. Nabokov; Russell Banks reads Graham Greene's Our Man in Heaven; Liev Schreiber reads Dario Fo's prologue to Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman; Barbara Goldsmith reads Farley Mowat's My Discovery of America; Salman Rushdie reads Czeslaw Milosz; Gioconda Belli reads Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Nobel lecture; Padma Lakshmi reads Dorris Lessing's In Pursuit of English; Naomi Shihab Nye reads Mahmoud Darwish; Debra Winger reads Pablo Neruda; Eloy Urroz reads Carlos Fuentes' Where the Air Is Clear; Todd Solondz reads Nelson Mandela's 1962 court address.
LISTEN
• Entire Event (1:36:24)
• Introduction by Larry Siems; Anthony Romero (08:21)
• Martin Amis (06:23)
• Russell Banks (11:22)
• Liev Schreiber
(08:16)
• Barbara Goldsmith
(11:27)
• Salman Rushdie (08:39)
• Gioconda Belli (12:10)
• Padma Lakshmi (07:48)
• Naomi Shihab Nye (05:24)
• Debra Winger (03:46)
•
Eloy Urroz (07:07)
•Todd Solondz (06:29) |
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4/28/06: BenettonTalk Young Writers Series: Etgar Keret & George Saunders
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Discussed: the inspiration for
"Actually, I've Had Some Phenomenal Hard-Ons Lately," writing as
surfing, Keret's wife's waddle, screenwriting to meet women,
understanding the Holocaust, schmoozing, the big purpose of fiction,
and holding on to ambiguity while living in the Middle East.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN • Entire event • Introduction and reading by Anthony Rapp • Part 1 • Part 2 |
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4/28/06: The Limits of Tolerance?: Multiculturalism Now
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With Pascal Bruckner, Necla Kelek, Richard Rodriguez; moderated by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Can the Enlightenment ideal
of tolerance survive the pressures of profound cultural differences
aggravated by religious extremism? A diverse group of American and
European observers look at multiculturalism today.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
•
Entire event |
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4/29/06: BenettonTalk Young Writers Series: Rodrigo Fresán & Jonathan Lethem
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Discussed: monolinguistic
American writers, “A Day In The Life” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts
Club Band, narrative emulating collage, narrative as a posteriori
knowledge, almost killing Jorge Luis Borges, being kidnapped, childhood
and death, the relation of artists to neoteny.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN • Entire event • Introduction and reading by Lili Taylor • Part 1 • Part 2 |
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4/29/06: Women Poets from the Middle East
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Readings and discussion from Venus Khoury-Ghata, Marilyn Hacker, Lisa Katz, Agi Mishol, Naomi Shihab Nye; moderated by Nathalie Handal
LISTEN
• Entire event (1:13:19) |
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4/29/06: Hwang Sok Yong & Ko Un
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Readings and conversation with two of the leading Korean writers of the postwar period, novelist Hwang Sok-Yong and poet Ko Un. Moderated by Janet Poole.
LISTEN
• Entire event (1:06:20) |
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4/29/06: Idols & Insults: Writing, Religion, and Freedom of Expression
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With Juan Luis Cebrián, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Nilüfer Göle, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Tariq Ramadan; moderated by Ian Buruma
Writers from several countries discuss
the shifting and increasingly perilous terrain surrounding art and
religion.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
• Entire event |
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4/30/06: Author to Author Reading
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Hosted by Staceyann Chin and featuring readings by Oyeyemi, Perdomo,
and teen writers representing Hanging Loose Press, Girls Write Now,
Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, and the PEN Writing Institute.
PHOTO GALLERY
LISTEN
• Entire Event |
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Conversations in the Library: Ayaan Hirsi Ali & Philip Gourevitch
Discussed: Islamic Enlightenment, burning The Satanic Verses, living as a Muslim atheist in Holland, liberal betrayal, the Prophet Mohammed as a moral guide for contemporary culture, Christian and Muslim provincialism. >> Listen
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4/30/06: Hanna Jansen & Tonya Bolden
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Conversations in the Library: Zadie Smith & Kurt Andersen
Discussed: conceptions of the true world; post–White Teeth guilt and Protestant worry; the benefits of self-reinvention; dead white males; and a defense of gangsta rap. >> Listen
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