Programs

Public Programs

2010 Public Programs

• Thursday, February 25 - 7:30 p.m.
  Researching and Writing African American Biography: The Life of William Wells Brown
  by Ezra Greenspan

  This illustrated talk combines two stories: a narrative of the life of the most prolific and pioneering African American writer of the nineteenth century, and an account of a biographer's journey to present that life to a twenty-first-century public.

  Brown personified the American Dream. Born into slavery and locked into illiteracy until his escape at age 19, he became an internationally renowned antislavery activist-writer who resided and traveled widely across the northern United States and the British Isles. Over the course of a life devoted to personal and collective reform, he wrote a series of remarkable books that includes the first African American novel, the first printed African American play, the first African American travelog, the first African American panorama displayed in Britain, and the first history of African American military service in the Civil War. This talk will present this remarkable life story via an account of a year-long, ongoing research journey to retrace the course of Brown's life and gather material for a comprehensive biography.

  Ezra Greenspan is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Chair in Humanities and professor of English at Southern Methodist University. He is a literary and cultural historian who studies the history of print culture in its various manifestations in the United States. Dr. Greenspan is interested, in particular, in the central activities (such as writing, reading, printing, and publishing) and institutions (such as libraries, bookstores, and schools) of American print culture. Among his many publications are: George Palmer Putnam: Representative American Publisher (Penn State Press, 2000), Walt Whitman's Song of Myself: A Sourcebook and Critical Edition (Routledge Press, 2004), William Wells Brown: A Reader (University of Georgia Press, 2008) and Walt Whitman and the American Reader (Cambridge University Press, 1990). He is the co-editor of the journal Book History the annual journal of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, Inc. (SHARP). Book History is devoted to every aspect of the history of the book, broadly defined as the history of the creation, dissemination, and the reception of script and print. Currently Professor Greenspan is in residence at the American Antiquarian Society as the Mellon Distinguished Scholar where he is working on a comprehensive literary and cultural biography of William Wells Brown.

• Tuesday, March 30
  Third Annual Adopt-A-Book Evening
  

  See books, pamphlets, newspapers, prints and other items that have found a home at AAS and make a contribution to help the library take in other waifs and strays. AAS curators will give a brief overview of what they buy and why.

When the AAS was founded in 1812, and for much of the nineteenth century, most educated men and women took an interest in history as one of the obligations of being citizens in the American republic. As the writing and teaching of history became increasingly professionalized and specialized in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, gaps developed between academic historians and the general public.

As one of the few American learned societies whose membership rolls include a substantial proportion of lay people as well as scholars, AAS is committed to help bring the work of American historians before the general public--to connect scholars and citizens, in other words. AAS public programs spotlight the work not only of historians but also of creative and performing artists and writers who have performed research at the Society.

Programs include a wide variety of events, including lectures, book discussions, theatrical and musical presentations, and film showings. Some of these public programs reach wider audiences by being taped for presentation of National Public Radio and on the weekend Book TV programming of the national cable network C-SPAN 2.

Attend a public program and earn 2 WOO points. More about the WOO card

For a complete listing of upcoming events at AAS, please view our calendar

For further information about our public programs, contact James David Moran at jmoran[at]mwa.org or call our main number at 508-755-5221

Directions to Antiquarian Hall

The American Antiquarian Society is funded in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency that supports public programs in the arts, humanities, and sciences.

2006 Public Programs
2007 Public Programs
2008 Public Programs
2009 Public Programs