For most of the nation, if not world, this Saturday, April 22, is Earth Day. But a hundred or so people will be fêting a different sort of pleasure this weekend, when “A Company of Authors” celebrates books and those who write them for the fourteenth consecutive year. The gathering will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. on Earth Day, in Levinthall Hall at the Stanford Humanities Center at 424 Santa Teresa Street on the Stanford campus.
“It’s exhilarating to hear from their creators of the extraordinary and varied works of rich scholarship and imagination that come into being at this University. Be part of the excitement!” says History Prof. Peter Stansky, who hosts the event every year (we’ve written about the Orwell scholar‘s own literary achievements here and here and here).
An impressive group of Stanford writers will be discussing their recently published books, on panels moderated by people who are wise and gifted writers in their own right. (Let me dissemble no longer, Gentle Reader, one of the moderators will be Humble Moi.) Each author will make a brief presentation, read from his or her book, and be on hand for improving conversation and book-signing. Light refreshments will be available to sate those weak souls for whom words are not enough.
Our host invites you.
Naturally, Stanford Bookstore will be on hand, too, eagerly flogging the books under discussion – and a few more. The books will be offered at a 10% discount for the event – another enticement.
Drop in, or even better, indulge yourself by spending the entire afternoon in the company of these bright, entertaining, and stimulating writers. History, poetry, law, and other worlds will be under discussion – and our genial host will be presenting a book of his own, his most recent Edward Upward: Art and Life.
And come up and introduce yourself! I’d love to meet you!
Here’s the schedule:
1:00 pm Welcome Remarks (Peter Stansky)
1:05 pm – 1:35 pm The Humanities Center Writes!
Caroline Winterer, Chair
Zephyr Frank, Reading Rio de Janerio
Scott Bukatman, Hellboy’s World: Comics and Monsters on the Margins
Norman Naimark, Genocide
1:40 pm – 2:20 pm Historians at Work
Paul Robinson, Chair
Caroline Winterer, American Enlightenments
Steven Press, Rogue Empires
Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler
Amalia D. Kessler, Inventing American Exceptionalism
2:25 pm – 2:45 pm Poetry Forever
Cynthia Haven, Chair
Peter Neil Carroll, The Truth Lies on Earth: A Year by Dark, by Bright
Stina Katchadourian, Trans. Edith Södergran: Love, Solitude and the Face of Death
2:50 pm – 3:20 pm Law and Life
Larry Horton, Chair
Paul Blanc, Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon
Hank Greely, The End of Sex
Barbara Babcock, Fish Raincoats
3:25 pm – 3:55 pm Other Worlds
Tania Granoff, Chair
Stephen Orgel, The Reader in the Book
Millicent Dillon ed., Jane Bowles: Collected Writings (The Library of America)
Margo Davis, Antigua: Photographs 1967-1973
4:00 pm – 4:20 pm The Built World
Peter Stansky, Chair
Marian Adams et. al., Historic Stanford Houses Vol VII
Paul V. Turner, Frank Lloyd Wright and San Francisco
4:25 pm – 5:00 pm Stanford and Beyond
Charles Junkerman, Chair
Alison Carpenter Davis, Letters Home from Stanford
Robert Cherny, Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art
Peter Stansky, Edward Upward: Art and Life
Tags: Peter Stansky