Events

NYRSeminars: Rachel Cusk, Outline and Second Place

Join Daniel Mendelsohn as he leads a seminar on two works by Rachel Cusk: Outline, which follows its nameless heroine, a writer, as she voyages to Greece to teach a writing class; and Second Place, which tells the story of a writer, isolating in the countryside with her family, who hosts a disturbing visitor.

NYRSeminars: Merve Emre on Lolita

Join Merve Emre as she leads a seminar on Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. In this series of four weekly seminars, Emre will guide participants through the story of a brilliant, cruel, and obsessive man’s love for a twelve-year-old girl, touching on debates about freedom and morality, high art and mass culture, Old Europe and young America, and the entwined fates of comedy and romance in the postwar novel.

NYRSeminars: W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn

Join Daniel Mendelsohn as he leads a seminar on W. G. Sebald’s 1995 novel, which follows the footsteps of a nameless narrator as he takes a long and erratic walking tour of Suffolk—a journey that becomes a vehicle for ruminating on history and literature, the passage of time, and cultural decay.

The Robert B. Silvers Lecture: Justice Stephen Breyer

Join Justice Breyer as he delivers his lecture “Choosing Pragmatism over Textualism.”

NYRSeminars: James Baldwin, ‘Giovanni’s Room’

Join Daniel Mendelsohn as he leads a seminar on James Baldwin’s 1956 classic about a repressed American man who moves to Paris in order to live his complex sexuality more freely—a trajectory that mimics the one followed by Baldwin himself.

The Robert B. Silvers Lecture: Sherrilyn Ifill

Can we at long last build a healthy, multiracial democracy anchored in the values of equality and justice?

A Night of Readings and Fashion in Los Angeles

Review contributors Elaine Blair, Jonathan Lethem, Adrian Chen, Morgan Parker, Anahid Nersessian, Jon Klassen, and other special guests will join Rachel Comey and Leanne Shapton for a night of readings and refreshments.

A Night of Readings and Fashion

New York Review contributors Merve Emre, Vivian Gornick, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Kevin Young and other special guests will join Rachel Comey, Leanne Shapton, and Emily Greenhouse for a night of readings, fashion, and refreshments.

The Robert B. Silvers Lecture:
Henry Louis Gates Jr. & Andrew S. Curran

For the 2022 Robert B. Silvers Lecture, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Andrew Curran tell the story of the 1739 Bordeaux Royal Academy of Sciences essay contest, which asked entrants to explain the sources of “blackness,” and discuss how the submissions laid bare the origins of anti-Black racism and colorism in the West.

Writing and Adaptation with Jonathan Lethem, Walter Mosley, Francine Prose, and Daniel Mendelsohn

What happens when literary works are adapted to other media? The complexities of the process are notoriously daunting; the perils, almost a cliché. Three novelists reexamine the age-old dilemma and discuss whether there are gains as well as losses.

Fiction in a Time of Crisis

Elaine Blair will moderate a discussion with Valeria Luiselli, Ben Lerner, Ayad Akhtar, and Dinaw Mengestu about the ways in which contemporary fiction has addressed our current moment of political and social crisis.

Journalism in a Time of Crisis

Mark Danner, Elizabeth Bruenig, Howard French, Justine van der Leun, and Darryl Pinckney will discuss how contemporary journalism addresses—and is affected by—the current moment of political and social crisis.

The Future of New York: A Conversation

New York Review contributors Molly Crabapple, Deborah Eisenberg, Michael Greenberg, and Hari Kunzru come together to discuss a future of resilience and renewal for New York, moderated by senior editor Jana Prikryl.