Laments about the decline of reading abound. They inspire jeremiads about the state of publishing; they animate polemics about higher education; they inform denunciations of the young and those who teach them. Join Anthony Grafton, Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, as he examines some of the evidence about the state of reading at the present time. And it will argue that reports of the death of books and readers are greatly exaggerated.
Irving Howe (1920-1993) graduated from City College New York in 1940 and become a founder of Democratic Socialists of America; he founded Dissent magazine and was considered one of the country’s most influential literary critics until his death. This annual lecture, endowed in his honor, focuses on the subjects closest to Irving Howe’s heart, including politics, Yiddish and Jewish culture, immigrant history and the modern literary imagination.
Sponsored by Max Palevsky.
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