Tagged Humanities
We Are What We Eat: An Exhibition from Special Collections
The Free Library’s exhibition, We Are What We Eat , explores the intersection of food, community, and identity. With recipes and cooking techniques passed down through generations, culinary heritage helps preserve flavors and…
The Library of the Wizard Earl - Celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Rare Book Department
A storied English aristocratic family, living in a palatial home that was once an abbey, struggles to maintain their household in the face of 20th century financial realities. On April 23rd and 24th 1928, this PBS plotline unfolded in…
Falls Book Group
The book selection for this month will be Before We Were Yours , by Lisa Wingate (2017). The Falls Book Group is one of the Free Library's longest running programs and is open to all. Interested in joining? …
Courageous Kids: Wilma Exhibit
In partnership with Philadelphia Doll Museum Forward , we now have on display Wilma alongside related library materials and activities. Wilma was made to honor four brave Black girls named Ruby Bridges, Leona Tate, Gail Etienne…
Madan Sara: a documentary by Etant Dupain
Join us for a film screening on the 3rd floor of the Fishtown Library on Saturday, June 8, at 2:00pm. The women known as Madan Sara in Haiti work tirelessly to buy, distribute, and sell food and other essentials in markets through the…
BE/LONGING Exhibition Opening
Gather in Parkway Central Library's main lobby for BE/LONGING. The opening includes light refreshments. BE/LONGING is a polyphonic exhibition on the longing, belonging, and connection that library spaces in Philadelphia can inspire.…
Treasures from the Literature Vault
Do you love old books? Then join us for Treasures from the Vault– a casual, hands-on book club program spotlighting items from the Literature vault! The vault, home to our closed reference collections, is a treasure trove of…
Falls Book Group
The book selection for this month will be West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge (2021). The Falls Book Group is one of the Free Library's longest running programs and is open to all. Interested in joining? For…
Live Performance: Variant 6
Variant 6 explores the expressive potential of human voice through vocal chamber music. Members of the ensemble regularly perform with groups as varied as The Crossing, Tempeste di Mare, Piffaro, and Choral Arts Philadelphia.…
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an authoritative, comprehensive Web-based reference work about philosophy, useful to scholars of all levels as well as the general public. Published through Stanford University’s Center for the…
Gale Literary Sources (formerly Artemis)
Cross-search all of Gale’s literature databases from a single digital space to find biographies, primary sources, contextual reference, and criticism. Includes Dictionary of Literary Biography, Something About the Author, LitFinder,…
Beth Kephart | My Life in Paper: Adventures in Ephemera
Renowned for her ability “to generalize from her personal experience to the greater human one” ( The Washington Post ), Beth Kephart is the author of more than 30 books across a wide range of genres, including poetry, young adult…
David Brooks | How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
Acclaimed for his ability to “elevate the unseen aspects of private experience into a vigorous and challenging conversation about what we all share” ( San Francisco Chronicle ), David Brooks has written an op-ed column for The New York…
Sarah Bakewell | Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope
In conversation with Eric Banks Acclaimed for “wonderfully readable” fusions of “biography, philosophy, history, cultural analysis and personal reflection” ( The Independent ), Sarah Bakewell is the author of At the Existentialist Café…
Adam Gopnik | The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery
Featuring magician, Justin Gilmore A staff writer at The New Yorker for more than three decades, Adam Gopnik is the author of Paris to the Moon , The Table Comes First , At the Strangers’ Gate , and A Thousand Small Sanities , a…
Mehdi Hasan | Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking
In conversation with Marc Lamont Hill British American journalist Mehdi Hasan hosts the eponymously titled The Mehdi Hasan Show , a news and politics program that airs on MSNBC and NBC’s streaming channel Peacock. He is also the…
Anna Badkhen | Bright Unbearable Reality: Essays
In conversation with Airea D. Matthews, 2022-2023 Philadelphia Poet Laureate and Co-Director of the Creative Writing Program at Bryn Mawr With an artist’s perspective and a ground-level view of people in extremis across the world,…
Saidiya Hartman and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor| Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America
One of academia’s leading authorities on African American literature, enslavement, gender studies, and the ways in which marginalized people are excluded in historical narratives, Saidiya Hartman is a University Professor at Columbia…
Howard Gardner and Wendy Fischman | The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be
The Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Howard Gardner is the author of 30 books, including A Synthesizing Mind , The App Generation , and Responsibility at Work . He is…
Laura Raicovich | Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest
In conversation with Seph Rodney, PhD, opinions editor and managing editor of the Sunday Edition for Hyperallergic , author of The Personalization of the Museum Visit , and winner of the 2020 Rabkin Arts Journalism Prize. The interim…
Barry Lopez | Horizon
Barry Lopez won the National Book Award for Arctic Dreams , a “rich, abundant, vigorously composed” ( Boston Globe ) meditation on his travels in the barren but beautiful far North. His other work includes Of Wolves and Men , Crow and…
Adam Rutherford | Humanimal: How Homo sapiens Became Nature’s Most Paradoxical Creature A New Evolutionary History
“A heady amalgam of science, history, a little bit of anthropology and plenty of nuanced, captivating storytelling” ( The New York Times Book Review ), Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived delves into the…
Lorrie Moore | See What Can Be Done: Essays, Criticism, and Commentary
In conversation with Jayne Anne Phillips , author of Black Tickets, Lark & Termite, Machine Dreams, and director of Rutgers University-Newark’s MFA Creative Writing Program “Fluid, cracked, mordant, colloquial” ( The New York Times Book…
Junot Díaz | Islandborn
Junot Díaz won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao , the “unruly, manic, seductive” ( Esquire ) multigenerational tale of a cursed Dominican family. He is also the…
Anna Badkhen | Fisherman’s Blues: A West African Community at Sea with Min Jin Lee | Pachinko
With an artist’s eye and a ground-level view of people in extremis across the world, writer Anna Badkhen offers “rich and lucid prose [that] illustrates her journey as vividly as might a series of photographs” ( Christian Science…
Michio Kaku | The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth
“Erudite and compelling” ( Chicago Tribune ), theoretical physicist and futurist Dr. Michio Kaku is a renowned popularizer of science and co-founder of String Field Theory, continuing Einstein’s quest to discover a unified field theory.…
Robert Darnton | A Literary Tour de France: The World of Books on the Eve of the French Revolution
Cultural historian Robert Darnton is the author The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History . His many other books include The Business of Enlightenment , Berlin Journal , The Case for Books , and The Devil in…
Walter Isaacson | Leonardo da Vinci
Watch the video here . Released just weeks after the tech guru’s death, Walter Isaacson’s “staggering” ( The New York Times ) portrait of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs instantly became an international bestseller. Isaacson has also penned…
Adam Gopnik | At the Strangers' Gate: Arrivals in New York
Watch the video here . In conversation with Meg Wolitzer , bestselling author of The Interestings among many novels. A writer for The New Yorker for more than three decades, Adam Gopnik is the author of Paris to the Moon, Angels and…
Colum McCann | Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice
Watch the video here . In conversation with Jason Freeman, program associate, author events Colum McCann won the 2009 National Book Award for Let the Great World Spin , a tale of 1970s New Yorkers marveling at a tightrope walker’s…
Kory Stamper | Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries
Watch the video here . A lexicographer for the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Kory Stamper discusses the subtleties of the English language in the venerable volume’s popular “Ask the Editor” video series. Her writing has appeared in The…