Jerry Bledsoe reads from and talks about The Angel Doll, a poignant Christmas story based on his memories of childhood.
Lee Smith talks about her new novella, The Christmas Letters. In this story she uses all the Christmas letters she has ever received as inspiration for this vivid and funny, familiar and gossipy, sometimes heartbreaking, but unfiltered seasonal view of American marriage over the last 50 years.
Can computers think? According to cyberspace expert James Bailey, the power of intellectual development is in transition and computers will soon no longer be merely our tools but our intellectual companions. Bailey, was invited to talk about his new book, After Thought: The Computer Challenge to Human Intelligence, as a part of the series of discussions on the history, culture, and ethics of information technology with the cooperation of the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program.
John Shelton and Dale Volberg Reed talk about their new book, 1001 Things Everyone Should Know about the South. In this book they combine precision, humor, and Confederate pride to explain America’s most intriguing but misunderstood region to the rest of the country. In a collection of verbal snapshots — a rich, irreverent, and idiosyncratic catalog of all things Southern — one reviewer says that they have produced 300 pages of prose as smooth and mellow as if it had been filtered through charcoal. No sunbelt sojourner should leave home without it.
John Gery discusses his latest books, a collection of poems, The Enemies of Leisure, and a monograph, Nuclear Annihilation and Contemporary American Poetry. Publishers Weekly says that John Gery’s examination of the struggle between leisure and work ? through layers of old-fashioned lyricism, political metaphor and real-life contexts, rendered with an edgy, hard-won elegance, is cause for wry rejoicing.
In a continuing series of programs produced in collaboration with the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program and devoted to the history, culture, and ethics of information technology, Jay David Bolter, a classics scholar and cyberspace expert, is featured. His most recent book is Writing Space, an account of how computers are reshaping conventional notions about books, the nature of writing, and textual and visual literacy.
William Baldwin, South Carolina’s mad hermit swamp-dwelling eccentric tour guide waterman carpenter artist and genius, talks about his new Novel, The Fennell Family Papers. The novel is a bizarre and satirical story of an ancient family of coastal-dwelling light-house builders and proprietors. Brad Watson reads from and talks about his new book, Last Days of the Dog-Men, a collection of stories about dogs — as accomplices, as unwitting victims of human passions, and as missing parts of their human companions. Funny, dark, sometimes brutal, but stunning in their perfection of expression, Watson’s characters, according to writer Barry Hannah, are the wretched dreams of honorable dogs.
The south of France has inspired generations of writers, among them Peter Mayle, the author of best sellers such as A Year in Provence, A Dog’s Life, and his latest, Anything Considered. He was recently at the National Humanities Center and visited with francophile and scholar Priscilla Ferguson. They have a wide-ranging conversation that includes gastronomic adventures and truffles, travel writing, and the memorable local color of Provence that underscores Mayle’s stylish writing.
Connie May Fowler talks about her most recent book, Before Women Had Wings, the powerful and affecting story of Avocet Abigail Jackson, her adolescence, her family’s broken lives, her dreams and uncertainties. There is no denying the depth of Fowler’s talent and breadth of her imagination, says The New York Times Book Review. Jane Mendelsohn talks about her new novel, I Was Amelia Earhart, which brilliantly evokes in fact and fancy the fate of the celebrated aviatrix and her navigator when they disappeared off the coast of New Guinea in 1937.
Robert Kahn reflects on his role in the history and social implications of information technology. Kahn is the founder of the Internet and his influence on the growth of information technology is widely known in industry and government. He is the 1996 recipient of the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) Information Technology Leadership Award for Global Integration, presented at the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program in Washington.
G.Edward White, a social historian and baseball fan, talks about his new book, Creating the National Pastime: Baseball Transforms Itself, 1903-1953. In a conversation with another legal scholar and baseball connoisseur, Vincent Blassi, Professor White describes how baseball, which began as a marginal urban sport associated with drinking and gambling, became more than a ritual of childhood, an emblem of American individuality and fair play, or an idyllic search for myth. Rather, as it evolved through the Progressive Era, it was the seemingly irrational business decisions, inspired in part by the self-interest of the owners but also by their nostalgia for the game that helped to transform baseball into the national pastime.
The critics agree — Roxana Robinson‘s fiction is masterful (Alice Munro), elegant and tender (Mary Gordon), a striking blend of nuance, empathy, and wit (Publishers Weekly). She writes about old-moneyed families of Manhattan, Connecticut, Long Island, and Maine, the inhabitants of summer homes and town houses, boarding schools and private clubs. But her characters are as contemporary as today’s teenagers rendered in a style that is concise and unsparingly honest yet tempered by sympathy and a basic understanding of human nature. Ms. Robinson reads from and talks about her new collection of stories, Asking for Love.
In recognition of Roosevelt History Month, the first to be so named in the nation’s history, one of America’s distinguished historians, William Leuchtenburg, talks about the meaning of F. D. R.’s life and legacy. Professor Leuchtenburg’s most recent books include The F.D.R. Years and The Supreme Court Reborn.
Governor Gaston Caperton is the winner of the Zenith Data Systems Information Technology Leadership Award for Education, presented in recent ceremonies in Washington at the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program. Gov. Caperton talks about a highly successful model for computer technology training in West Virginia’s schools, a program that has resulted in the installation of nearly 16,000 computer workstations in classrooms throughout the state from kindergarten through grade four and in the training of more than 10,000 educators through intensive, hands-on experience.
Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, is reputed to have described 20th-century China as a puzzle wrapped in an enigma surrounded by a mystery. David Strand offers a less dramatic but no less revealing perspective on modern-day Chinese society. Professor Strand is the author of a forthcoming study of leadership and political order in the People’s Republic under Sun yat-Sen.
Pete Seeger enjoys almost legendary status for millions of Americans. But he says that over the years the motives for his music and his activism have remained true to the local wellsprings of concern for children, care for the environment, and individual responsibility. He and Michael Honey, a recent scholar in residence at the National Humanities Center, spoke and sang about his (Seeger’s) life and artistry.