Past Events

Born a slave, the ancient Roman Stoic philosopher Epictetus taught that mental freedom is supreme, since it can liberate one anywhere, even in a prison. Anthony Long presents a new edition of Epictetus’s famed handbook on Stoicism.

Author Eric Karpeles speaks with Rober Hass about Polish writer, painter, and soldier Józef Czapski (1896-1993), whose biography Karpeles has written.

Three master practitioners — award-winning composer Sivan Eldar, noted jazz musician and composer Myra Melford, and celebrated poet Geoffrey O'Brien — explore the practice and problem of composition across different artistic media, scholarship, and thought.

Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is the dystopian story of a young woman living in a bleak future dictatorship, who is punished for her transgressions by being sent back in time.

Maggie Nelson, the 2018-19 Una's Lecturer, is joined in conversation by UC Berkeley professor of English Nadia Ellis.

Maggie Nelson, a 2016 MacArthur Fellow, is the author of numerous works of nonfiction and poetry, including The Argonauts, an autobiographical account that received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.

Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short, Moneyball, and other bestselling books, discusses his career and practice as a writer.

Diego Pirillo offers a new history of early modern diplomacy, centered on Italian religious refugees who left Italy in order to forge ties with English and northern European Protestants in the hope of inspiring an Italian Reformation.

Arlie Hochschild and Thomas Laqueur discuss the contributions that academic scholars can make to the public understanding of truth and its relation to politics.

Michael Nylan explores the concept of “pleasure”—including both short-term delight and longer-term satisfaction—as understood by major thinkers of ancient China.