Reading James Baldwin: An Online Literary Seminar

Lenox Library is pleased to partner with the Authors Guild Foundation, in association with the James Baldwin Estate, to present their new series of talks exploring the great writer’s life and work.

Few American writers have marked their era as powerfully as James Baldwin. As distinctive on the page as on the airwaves, his voice is indelibly associated with the demand for racial justice in the United States, a demand that continues to make him one of our most pressing and urgent contemporaries.

To mark Baldwin’s centenary, the Authors Guild Foundation has invited Lenox Library and its patrons to join a conversation featuring some of our most exciting writers, scholars, and essayists.

Gather with us in the Welles Gallery as we stream these special live, interactive sessions.

Session Schedule

Click any session title for more information. (Lenox Library patrons do not need to register individually.)

Date

Session

Tuesday, March 18

Colm Tóibín—Go Tell It on the Mountain

Thursday, April 24

Imani Perry—“Sonny’s Blues” & “The Uses of the Blues”

Wednesday, May 21

W. Ralph Eubanks & Eddie Glaude, Jr.—Notes of a Native Son

Thursday, June 26

Viet Thanh Nguyen—No Name in the Street

Thursday, July 24

Rachel Cohen—Baldwin & Delaney

Thursday, August 21

Vinson Cunningham—Another Country

Thursday, October 9

Ayana Mathis—The Fire Next Time

All sessions start at 2:00 p.m.

The painting of James Baldwin in the graphic above is by Beauford Delaney and reprinted courtesy of the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery.

Beauford Delaney (1901–1979), James Baldwin, c.1945–50, oil on canvasboard, 24 x 18 inches / 61 x 45.7 cm, estate stamp; Private Collection; © Estate of Beauford Delaney, by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire, Court Appointed Administrator, Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY.