Tagged Humanities
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 Club
Join the Falls Book Club - one of the Free Library's longest running programs. The book selection for this month will be The House of Broken Bricks , by Anna Quindlan. The group is open to all and new members are welcome.…
Exhibition: The Voices of Sisterly Affection
Philadelphia's motto was officially expanded to "The City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection" by the efforts of the godmother of Black Music Month, Dyana Williams. To continue amplifying the female voice in…
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…
Jonathan Capehart | Yet Here I Am: Lessons from a Black Man's Search for Home
The Author Events Series presents Jonathan Capehart | Yet Here I Am: Lessons from a Black Man's Search for Home REGISTER In Conversation with David Brooks Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, editor, and TV host Jonathan Capehart on…
Falls Book Club
Join the Falls Book Club - one of the Free Library's longest running programs. The book selection for this month will be After Annie , by Anna Quindlan. The group is open to all and new members are welcome. Our Book…
Paul Muldoon | Joy in Service on Rue Tagore: Poems
The Author Events Series presents Paul Muldoon | Joy in Service on Rue Tagore: Poems REGISTER In Conversation with Daisy Fried Since his 1973 debut, New Weather, Paul Muldoon has created some of the most original…
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…
Exhibition | Secretary to the People: Sheryl Oring Uses a Typewriter to Activate Democracy with Art on the Streets of Philly and Beyond
This multimedia installation showcases over 20 years of work by artist Sheryl Oring. With her “I Wish to Say” project, in which she dresses as a 1960s secretary and takes her typewriter to public spaces such as…
Falls Book Club
Join the Falls Book Club - one of the Free Library's longest running programs. The book selection for this month will be the 2025 One Book, One Philadelphia title. The group is open to all and new members are welcome. Our…
Rebecca Romney | Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
The Author Events Series presents Rebecca Romney | Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend REGISTER Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney…
Rhodri Lewis | Shakespeare's Tragic Art
The Author Events Series presents Rhodri Lewis | Shakespeare's Tragic Art REGISTER In Conversation with Emily Wilson In Shakespeare’s Tragic Art, Rhodri Lewis offers a powerfully original reassessment of tragedy as…
Jaap de Roode | Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves
The Author Events Series presents Jaap de Roode | Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves REGISTER In Conversation with Bethany Brookshire Ages before the dawn of modern medicine, wild animals…
Denne Michele Norris | When the Harvest Comes
The Author Events Series presents Denne Michele Norris | When the Harvest Comes REGISTER The venerated Reverend Doctor John Freeman did not raise his son, Davis, to be touched by any man, let alone a white man. He did not raise…
Jennifer Haigh | Rabbit Moon
The Author Events Series presents Jennifer Haigh | Rabbit Moon REGISTER Four years after their bitter divorce, Claire and Aaron Litvak get a phone call no parent is prepared for: their 22-year-old daughter Lindsey, teaching…
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…