Yale Library Book Talks Leo Damrosch, Ernest Bernbaum Research Professor of Literature Emeritus at Harvard University, will speak about his new book "Storyteller: the Life of Robert Louis Stevenson." Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) is famed for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but he published many other novels and stories before his death at forty-four. Despite lifelong ill health, he had immense vitality; Mark Twain said his eyes burned with “smoldering rich fire.” Born in Edinburgh to a family of lighthouse engineers, Stevenson set many stories in Scotland but sought travel and adventure in a life as romantic as his novels. “I loved a ship,” he wrote, “as a man loves burgundy or daybreak.” The adventures were shared with his free-spirited American wife, Fanny, with whom he moved to the South Pacific. Samoan friends named Stevenson “Storyteller.” Reading, he said, “should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves.” His own books have been translated into dozens of languages. Jorge Luis Borges called his stories “one of the forms of happiness,” and other modernist masters as various as Proust, Nabokov, and Calvino have paid tribute to his greatness as a literary artist. In Storyteller, Leo Damrosch brings to life an unforgettable personality, illuminated by many who knew Stevenson well and drawing from thousands of the writer’s letters in his many voices and moods—playful, imaginative, at times tragic. Leo Damrosch is the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature Emeritus at Harvard University. His many books include "Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius" (National Book Award finalist); "Adventurer: The Life and Times of Giacomo Casanova"; "The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age"; and "Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World" (National Book Critics Circle Award winner, Pulitzer Prize finalist).

Since its invention in 1839, photography has been the handmaiden of empire, wrapping notions of conquest, colonization, and exploitation under the guise of “civilization.” Endlessly reproducible, t…

Marc James Carpenter— The American West is suffused with pioneer place-names. There are pioneer squares as gathering places, pioneer museums for children, pioneer statues looming over government buildings. Business names,... READ MORE

In Demosthenes: Democracy’s Defender, James Romm tells the tragic story of ancient Greece’s last democratic leader. In this Q&A, we talk with the author about his writing process and what... READ MORE

Kenneth Turan brings to life the extraordinary partnership of Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg and their role in creating the film industry as we know it ...

Join us this December for a reflective retreat led by Goldenwood Institute Dean Makoto Fujimura. We will explore the creative process and the power of attentiveness through the lens of… Read More »Institute Retreat | “To See a World in a Grain of Sand” with Makoto Fujimura

How can one person fight for social justice? Can everyday people actually make changes in systemic, structural inequality? Social psychologist and author of the book Change the Wallpaper, Nilanjana Dasgupta offers science-driven answers to these questions, arguing that social shifts start with small changes to our “wallpaper,” or the things that we experience in our daily lives. In other words, we need to revise the hyperlocal cultures we live in to make broader change. Dasgupta believes that these small shifts in our cultural “wallpaper” are far more effective in producing structural change than through popular movements such as bias awareness training, symbolic proclamations, or even just relying on people’s good intentions. By integrating a wide range of studies in psychology, neuroscience, education, sociology, economics, public health, urban studies, cultural geography, and even landscape architecture, Dasgupta shows how attitudes and beliefs are based on what we see and hear every day. They nudge our behavior to create or reinforce small inequalities that go unnoticed and ultimately accumulate over time. So, how do we change our wallpaper? By consciously disrupting these patterns and habits, Dasgupta argues, we can create opportunities for social mixing across lines of differences, allowing new relationships to form, and promoting a better understanding of others’ experiences. These actions lead to organizing and larger social shifts. It’s through these small changes in our daily lives, Dasgupta explains, that we can all work toward justice.

Leaders across the political spectrum have figured out how easily they can motivate people with anger, fear and domination.

Yvonne Rainer was a founding member of Judson Dance Theater, a 1960s New York artists’ collective that championed ordinary, spare movements and spontaneity. In this Q&A, we talk with the choreographer... READ MORE

Historian Sarah E. Bond retells the traditional story of Ancient Rome, revealing how groups of ancient workers unified, connected, and protested as they help...

Gabriel Said Reynolds— The eighteenth chapter of the Qur’an is named “The Cave” because it includes a story of young men who slept for hundreds of years in a cave... READ MORE

Scholar Donald S. Lopez Jr. lays out a “remythologized” account of the story of the Buddha, highlighting the supernatural elements of his life.