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Photo credit: Leila Navidi |
November Speakers at Vassar College
Eleanor Berger ’64 will lead a group walk on Thursday, November 5, starting at the Vassar College Bookstore, at 3:00 p.m.; at 4:00 p.m. the group will return to the bookstore to listen to Berger’s presentation on her book Stepping Out: A Tenderfoot’s Guide to the Principles, Practices, and Pleasures of Countryside Walking. Read more about the book.
Later that same day, at 5:30 p.m., noted biographer Richard Aldous will give this year’s C. Mildred Thompson Lecture, sponsored by the history department, in a talk titled “Reagan and Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship.” Aldous is a professor of history at University College Dublin and the head of the University College Dublin School of History and Archives. He is currently at work on a study of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, to be published by Hutchinson in 2011. His many other books includeThe Lion and the Unicorn, a critically acclaimed study of the rivalry between William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, and the bestseller Great Irish Speeches. Professor Aldous’s talk, to be given in Sanders Auditorium (room 212), is free and open to the public. Learn more about Aldous.
Aaron Lansky is the founder and current president of the National Yiddish Book Center, based in Amherst, Massachusetts on the campus of Hampshire College. The center, founded in 1980, is dedicated to the preservation of books written in Yiddish; the center’s library now consists of over a million volumes. Lansky, who dropped out of graduate school at the age of 23 to begin his book-rescue project, tells his story in Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued A Million Yiddish Books, which Publishers Weekly described as “a testimony to his love of Judaism and literature and his desire to make a difference in the world.” On Wednesday, November 11, at 5:30 p.m., Lansky will give a talk about his book and his work in Sanders Auditorium (room 212).Discover the National Yiddish Book Center.
Alexandra Berzon ’01 (pictured) was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service last spring for her exhaustive reporting for the Las Vegas Sun about fatal construction working conditions on the famed Las Vegas Strip. The series of more than 50 stories and editorials also earned her the Scripps Howard Award for Public Service Reporting, and several regional awards. On Monday, November 16, Berzon will deliver a lecture titled “Reporting the Local News: How a Vassar Grad Won the Pulitzer Prize in an Era of Newspaper Decline” at 5:30pm in Sanders Classroom Spitzer Auditorium, Room 212. The talk is sponsored by the Urban Studies Program and is free and open to the public. Read an interview with Berzon, conducted by fellow Pulitzer recipient Matthew Brelis ’80 for the VQ.
Delhi Noir is the latest installment in the international noir series of anthologies published by Akashic Books. Launched by the success of Brooklyn Noir, the original title published in 2004, each anthology features all-new short stories set in a particular location. Contributing writers Meera Nair, Mohan Sikka, and Hirsh Sawhney (who also edited the anthology) will give a reading from Delhi Noir in Sanders Auditorium (room 212) on Tuesday, November 17, at 5:00 p.m. The reading is sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Faculty and the South Asian Students’ Alliance, and is free and open to the public. Learn more about international noir.