authors, ideas, conversations

Winter/Spring 2010

 

 

1/21  Chris Farrell

1/27  Jaron Lanier

2/4  Ethan Watters

2/10  Garry Wills

2/16  Chris Cleave

2/18  Joel Kotkin

3/1  Mark Vernon & Astra Taylor

3/11  Sam Keen

3/16  Tim O’Brien

3/24  Harry Kreisler

4/22  Roxana Saberi

 

 

Wednesday, February 10    GARRY WILLS

   BOMB POWER: THE MODERN PRESIDENCY AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills examines how the atomic bomb transformed our nation down to its deepest constitutional roots – by dramatically increasing the power of the modern presidency and redefining the government as a national security state – in ways still felt today.  A masterful reckoning from one of America's preeminent historians, Bomb Power draws a direct line from the Manhattan Project to the usurpations of George W. Bush.

The invention of the atomic bomb was a triumph of official secrecy and military discipline -- the project was covertly funded at the behest of the president and, despite its massive scale, never discovered by Congress or the press. This concealment was perhaps to be expected in wartime, but Wills persuasively argues that the Manhattan Project then became a model for the covert operations and overt authority that have defined American government in the nuclear era. The wartime emergency put in place during World War II extended into the Cold War and finally the war on terror, leaving us in a state of continuous war alert for sixty-eight years and counting.

The bomb forever changed the institution of the presidency since only the president controls "the button" and, by extension, the fate of the world. Wills underscores how radical a break this was from the division of powers established by our founding fathers and how it in turn has enfeebled Congress and the courts. The bomb also placed new emphasis on the president's military role, creating a cult around the commander in chief. The tendency of modern presidents to flaunt military airs, Wills points out, is entirely a postbomb phenomenon. Finally, the Manhattan Project inspired the vast secretive apparatus of the national security state, including intelligence agencies such as the CIA and NSA, which remain largely unaccountable to Congress and the American people.

Wills recounts how, following World War II, presidential power increased decade by decade until reaching its stunning apogee with the Bush administration. Both provocative and illuminating, BOMB POWER casts the history of the postwar period in a new light and sounds an alarm about the continued threat to our Constitution.

Garry Wills received his PhD in classics from Yale in 1961. In 1995, he received a L.H.D. from Bates College. He received an honorary doctorate from the College of the Holy Cross. A historian and author of more than twenty books including What the Gospels Meant and A Necessary Evil, he is also a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books.

In 1993, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his book Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, which describes the background and effect of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. In 1998, he won the National Medal for the Humanities. He has also won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is an adjunct professor of history, both American and cultural, at Northwestern University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Read Vanity Fair on Wills

7:30 PM at FCCB (First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Channing Way at Dana, Berkeley; enter via courtyard on Dana)

Co-sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Institute of International Studies

$15 advance (Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006), $20 door

(half price student tickets available in advance only at Brown Paper Tickets)

 

Tuesday, February 16       CHRIS CLEAVE

                                                LITTLE BEE

It’s a thrill to welcome British writer Chris Cleave as he launches his US tour in Berkeley. Cleave’s Little Bee, just now in paperback, is an astonishing and unforgettable story; if you’ve read it, you’ll want to meet its creator, and if you haven’t yet read the book and don’t know about its author, you’ll want to join us to learn about both. (Book group members: this is highly recommended for reading and discussion!)

Little Bee, a young Nigerian refugee, has just been released from the British immigration detention center where she has been held under horrific conditions for the past two years, after narrowly escaping a traumatic fate in her homeland of Nigeria. Alone in a foreign country, without a family member, friend, or pound to call her own, she seeks out the only English person she knows. Sarah is a posh young mother and magazine editor with whom Little Bee shares a dark and tumultuous past.

They first met on a beach in Nigeria, where Sarah was vacationing with her husband, Andrew, in an effort to save their marriage after an affair, and their brief encounter has haunted each woman for two years. Now together, they face a disturbing past and an uncertain future with the help of Sarah's four-year-old son, Charlie, who refuses to take off his Batman costume. A sense of humor and an unflinching moral compass allow each woman, and the reader, to believe that even in the face of unspeakable odds, humanity can prevail.

"An ambitious and fearless gallop from the jungles of Africa via a shocking encounter on a Nigerian beach to the media offices of London and domesticity in leafy suburbia...Cleave immerses the reader in the worlds of his characters with an unshakable confidence." -- The Guardian (UK)

"Besides sharp, witty dialogue, an emotionally charged plot and the vivid characters' ethical struggles, Little Bee delivers a timely challenge to reinvigorate our notions of civilised decency." -- The Independent (UK)

"It would be a disservice to give away the powerful conclusion of this absorbing and gutsy story, which deals convincingly with ethical and personal accountability." -- Oxford Times (UK)

Chris Cleave is a columnist for The Guardian newspaper in London. His first novel, Incendiary, was published in twenty countries; won the 2006 Somerset Maugham Award; was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize; won the United States Book-of-the-Month Club's First Fiction Award; and won the Prix Special du Jury at the French Prix des Lecteurs 2007. His second novel, Little Bee, was shortlisted for the prestigious Costa Award for Best Novel. He lives in London with his French wife and three mischievous Anglo-French children. He keeps his website at www.chriscleave.com. Listen to KQED's Writers' Block podcast on Little Bee.

7:30 PM at Loper Chapel, FCCB (First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Channing Way at Dana, Berkeley; enter via chapel door from courtyard)

$12 advance (Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006), $15 door

 

Thursday, February 18     JOEL KOTKIN

                                                THE NEXT HUNDRED MILLION: AMERICA IN 2050

Visionary social thinker Joel Kotkin looks ahead to America in 2050, revealing how the addition of one hundred million Americans by midcentury will transform how we all live, work, and prosper.

Based on prodigious research, firsthand reporting, and historical analysis, Kotkin’s THE NEXT HUNDRED MILLION shows how this unprecedented growth will take physical shape and change the face of America. The vast majority of the additional hundred million will make their homes in what Kotkin calls “greenurbia,” the suburbs of tomorrow which will be less reliant on major cities for jobs and cultural amenities, and as a result will be more energy efficient.  The twenty-first century will be marked by a resurgence of the American Heartland -- now far less isolated in the digital age as well as a major source of renewable fuels and real estate for our ever-expanding population.  Kotkin also predicts that by 2050 America will become a nonwhite nation, citing that between 2000 and 2050 the majority of America’s population growth will be in its racial minorities, particularly Asians and Hispanics, as well as a growing mixed race population. This new population will flock to cities and suburbs in affordable areas such as Houston, Phoenix, and Las Vegas, as opposed to more glamorous but expensive cities like New York and San Francisco.  But whether in cities or smaller towns, Americans will come to embrace a “new localism” which Kotkin describes as a greater emphasis on family connections and local community empowered by active online networks and an increasing number of people working from home.

“A fascinating glimpse into a crystal ball, rich in implications that are alternately disturbing and exhilarating.” -- Kirkus

Joel Kotkin is an internationally recognized authority on global economic, political, social, and technological, trends.  He is the author of six books, including The City: A Global History and The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution is Reshaping the American Landscape.  He writes a column for Forbes and Politico.com and contributes regularly to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, and The Washington Post.  Visit him here.

7:30 PM at FCCB (First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Channing Way at Dana, Berkeley; enter via Channing Way white doors)

$12 advance (Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006), $15 door

 

PHILOSOPHY FOR A COMPLEX LIFE

Monday, March 1                MARK VERNON, author of PLATO’S PODCASTS: The Ancients’ Guide to Modern Living, and ASTRA TAYLOR, author of EXAMINED LIFE: Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers, in a philosophical conversation

Do you get the feeling that some things went wrong? With credit crunches, wars, global warming, and unemployment, it is only natural to feel disenchanted by modern-day living. However, in his funny and profound new book, acclaimed writer and theologian Mark Vernon provides us with an antidote --he demonstrates that if we want to solve the problems of the present, there is no better resource than the past.

In PLATO’s PODCASTS, Vernon presents the would-be thoughts of Ancient Philosophers on various topics central to our twenty-first-century existence, including Epicurus on bottled water, Zeno on shopping, Sextus on food fads, and Diotima on sex, providing a practical philosophy for complicated lives.

Joining the dialog is documentary film maker and writer Astra Taylor, whose own book, EXAMINED LIFE, companion to her documentary film, features interviews with eight iconoclastic and influential philosophers, conducted while on the move through places that hold special resonance for them and their ideas. Peter Singer’s thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue’s posh boutiques. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure. Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco’s Mission District questioning our culture’s fixation on individualism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West --perhaps America’s best-known public intellectual -- compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating the life of the mind can be. She boldly takes philosophy out of the dark corners of the academy and into the streets, reminding us that great ideas are born through profound engagement with the hustle and bustle of everyday life, not in isolation from it.

Their conversation is guaranteed to be far from dry, and we invite you to join in.

Mark Vernon is a writer, journalist, and broadcaster in the UK as well as a regular contributor to BBC radio, TV and “The Guardian". He began his professional life as a priest in the Church of England, and after a crisis of faith, was eventually led to the philosophy of the ancient Greeks, which he felt offered a different way of life. Vernon now writes on philosophy and edits a series called "The Art of Living." He is the author of numerous books and is an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Astra Taylor holds an MA in Liberal Studies from the New School for Social Research and has been an instructor in sociology departments at the University of Georgia and State University of New York, New Paltz where she has taught classes on social theory, globalization, and the sociology of film. Her writing has appeared in the Monthly Review, The Nation, Adbusters, Salon, The Baffler, and Bomb Magazine. She is the director of Zizek!, a feature documentary about the world’s most famous philosopher.

7:30 PM @ Grace North Church (2138 Cedar Street, Berkeley) -- please note there has been a location change for this evening

$12 advance (Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006), $15 at the door

(Hillside members half price)

 

Thursday, March 11           SAM KEEN

                                                IN THE ABSENCE OF GOD:

Dwelling in the Presence of the Sacred

As global residents within a culture of fanaticism, materialism, and greed, is it possible to bridge our differences and dwell in harmony in the twenty-first century? Celebrated author Sam Keen believes that a new understanding of the role of religion in our lives is essential for such a transformation. And that nothing less than our existence hangs in the balance.  

In IN THE ABSENCE OF GOD, Keen offers a provocative critique of the present state of religion and leads the way down a new path -- one of renewal for us and our troubled society. By recovering the experience of the sacred, Keen argues, we may renew our own relationship with God and discover the religious commonality we all share, ending bridging differences that have divided Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and others.

Known throughout religious and philosophical circles alike, Keen has spent his life asking the “big questions,” and in IN THE ABSENCE OF GOD, he does not shy away from some of the most difficult and provocative questions concerning religion today:

• What does religion offer us in today’s world?
• How has religion failed us?                                          
• Must we choose between religious fundamentalism and atheism—or is there a hopeful alternative?
• How can religion address the challenges and violence we face every day?                                               

Keen reminds us that the answers to these questions lie at the heart of religion and shows us how to access them. By reviving the sacred in everyday life through an appreciation of such elementary emotions as wonder, gratitude, anxiety, joy, grief, reverence, compassion, outrage, hope, and humility, we may rediscover God for ourselves and find a way to live in peace.  

Sam Keen is a noted author and lecturer, who has written thirteen books on philosophy and religion. He earned graduate degrees from the Harvard Divinity School and Princeton University, and spent twenty years working as an editor of Psychology Today. Keen co-produced the Emmy-nominated PBS documentary Faces of the Enemy, and was the subject of a PBS special with Bill Moyers titled Your Mythic Journey.  

7:30 PM @ FCCB (First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way at Dana, Berkeley; enter via Channing Way white doors)

$12 advance (Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006), $15 at the door

 

Tuesday, March 16             TIM O’BRIEN

A Celebration of the 20^th Anniversary of         

THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

  "Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That's what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story." 

~Tim O'Brien

 

On the twentieth anniversary of its publication, The Things They Carried returns. A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. 

O’Brien’s story depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O'Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

Taught everywhere -- from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing -- -it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing.

Robert R. Harris, in his 1990 review in The New York Times, wrote, “[O’Brien says,] ‘'It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.'’ Mr. O'Brien cuts to the heart of writing about war. And by subjecting his memory and imagination to such harsh scrutiny, he seems to have reached a reconciliation, to have made his peace - or to have made up his peace.”

Tim O’Brien received the 1979 National Book Award for Going After Cacciato. Among his other books are In the Lake of the Woods, Tomcat in Love, If I Die in a Combat Zone, and July, July. He teaches creative writing in Texas.

 

7:30 PM @ FCCB (First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way at Dana, Berkeley; enter via Channing Way white doors)

$12 advance (Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006), $15 at the door

 

Wednesday, March 24      HARRY KREISLER

POLITICAL AWAKENINGS:

CONVERSATIONS WITH HISTORY

As a kid, Noam Chomsky handed out the Daily Mirror at his uncle’s newsstand on 72nd Street, inadvertently finding himself in a buzzing intellectual and political hub for European immigrants in New York. Iranian human rights Nobelist Shirin Ebadi and her husband signed their own legal contract, attempting to restore equality to their marriage after the Iranian Revolution effectively erased the legal rights of women. Elizabeth Warren set out to expose those frauds declaring bankruptcy and taking advantage of the system -- only to discover, in her research, a very different story of hard-working middle-class families facing economic collapse in the absence of a social safety net. While studying at Oxford, a young Tariq Ali made a bet with a friend that he could work the Vietnam War into every single answer on his final exams.

In this rousing, thoughtful, often funny, and always inspiring volume, a diverse and impressive group of thinkers reflect on those formative experiences that shaped their own political commitments. A fascinating new window into the revealing links between the personal and the political, Political Awakenings will engage readers across generations, and will generate good discussion this evening.

As the executive director of the Institute of International Studies at the UC Berkeley, Harry Kreisler has interviewed hundreds of distinguished men and women in politics and the arts over the last twenty-five years. Kreisler is also the executive producer of the online program Connecting Students to the World and the former editor-in-chief of Globetrotter, an acclaimed Web site for global affairs.

7:30 PM @ Hillside Club (2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley)

$12 advance (Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006), $15 at the door

(Hillside members half price)

Thursday, April 22              ROXANA SABERI

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS:

MY LIFE AND CAPTIVITY IN IRAN

On the morning of January 31, 2009, Roxana Saberi, a brilliant and fearless Iranian-American journalist working in Iran, was dragged from her home by four men and secretly arrested. The intelligence agents who captured her accused her of espionage -- a charge she denied. For eleven days Saberi was cut off from the outside world, forbidden even a phone call. For weeks, neither her family, friends, nor colleagues had any knowledge of her whereabouts.

After a sham trial that made headlines around the world, the 32-year-old reporter was sentenced to eight years in Iran’s notorious Evin prison. But following broad-based international pressure, she was released on appeal on May 11, 2009. Now, Saberi breaks her silence to share the full story of her ordeal.

In this compelling and inspirational true story, she writes movingly of her imprisonment, her trial, her ultimate release, and the faith that helped her through it. Her recollections are interwoven with stories of her fellow prisoners -- many of whom were women, student and labor activists, researchers, and academics --many of whom were jailed for their pursuit of human rights, including freedom of speech and religious belief. Between Two Worlds is also a deeply revealing account of this complex nation and the six years Saberi lived there. A citizen of the United States and Iran, Saberi sheds new light on the Iranian regime’s inner political workings and the restrictions to basic freedoms that have intensified since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in 2005.

The recent uprisings in Iran -- and the astonishing outbreak of support for Iranian citizens from across the globe -- mark a critical turning point as the nation hangs on the precipice between democracy and dictatorship. From her nuanced perspective, Saberi offers a rich, dramatic, and illuminating portrait of the country as it undergoes a striking transformation.

Roxana Saberi was born in Belleville NJ, and raised in Fargo, ND. An “All-American Girl,” she won the “Miss North Dakota” contest in 1997, and was a top 10 finalist in the 1998 Miss America pageant, winning the Scholar Award. She has a Master’s Degree in Broadcast Journalism from Northwestern University, and a second master's degree from Cambridge in International Relations. She has reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio, and Fox News. Saberi moved to Iran in 2003 and later began working on a book about the Iranian people. Following her imprisonment and release she returned to North Dakota, where she currently lives with her parents.

7:30 PM @ Hillside Club (2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley)

$15 advance (Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006), $20 at the door

(Hillside members half price)

 

Our independent bookstore partners are 

Mrs. Dalloway's Literary & Garden Arts, Berkeley,

The Booksmith, San Francisco,

  University Press Books, Berkeley

Moe's Books, Berkeley

 

First Congregational Church is our primary partner.

FCCB is located at 2345 Channing Way at Dana, Berkeley.

 

and we also partner with the Hillside Club at 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley

MAP

We salute our media sponsors KPFA-FM

and The East Bay Express

Berkeley Arts & Letters ticketing is provided by

Brown Paper Tickets  800-838-3006
  

Berkeley Arts & Letters is a project bringing writers and thinkers together with readers for inspiration, provocation,

education, and sharing conversations. Produced by Melissa Mytinger and Praveen Madan, we welcome everyone

who's interested in civil discourse, curiosity...and the pleasure of words.

 

Sign up for Berkeley Arts & Letters enews -- never miss a favorite author!

Subscribe Today for Berkeley Arts & Letters News!

* required

Email Address: *



Email Marketing by VerticalResponse

 

Email us at office@berkeleyarts.org.
Send mail to us at 1321 Dwight Way, Unit L, Berkeley CA 94702

 

If you missed some of our 2009 talks, you’ll find a number of them at FORA.TV, with more to be posted. Enjoy!

 

Berkeley Arts & Letters Fall 2009 Season:

 

Lang Lang / September 8

Rebecca Solnit / September 17

Michael Sandel / September 23

Robert Scheer & Peter Richardson / September 24

Max Blumenthal / September 29

Diane Ackerman / September 30

 

Po Bronson / October 6

Richard Dawkins / October 7

Sherman Alexie / October 8

Stewart Brand / October 16

Leonard Pitt / October 17

Daniel Goldhagen / October 19

Kay Redfield Jamison / October 22

Deepak Chopra / October 23

Gary Vaynerchuk / October 25

Irene Khan / October 29

 

Orhan Pamuk / November 6

Liza Dalby / November 10

Susan Halpern / November 12

Mary Karr / November 16

 

 

Berkeley Arts & Letters Spring 2009 Season:

William Iggiagruk Nelson / January 14

Dacher Keltner and Michael Lewis / January 21

Dalton Conley / January 27

Luke Bergmann / January 28

 

Stephen Hinshaw / February 17

David Thomson / February 19

Pratap Chatterjee / February 20

Alva Noe / February 26

Xinran / February 27

 

Peter Singer / March 2

Stephen Mitchell / March 3

Alan Boss / March 13

Tom Davis and Dennis McNally / March 18

Elaine Showalter / March 19

Germaine Greer / March 31

 

Paul McGeough / April 7

Mahmood Mamdani / April 10

Judith Orloff / April 15

Michelle Goldberg / April 16

Donald Richie / April 21

 

Tamim Ansary / May 5

Ruth Reichl / May 10

Reza Aslan / May 12

Colson Whitehead / May 19

 

Luis Alberto Urrea / June 11

Eduardo Galeano / June 12

Lac Su / June 15

Novella Carpenter and Michael Pollan / June 18

Scott Rosenberg / July 29