Featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer A. Scott Berg;
Booker Award-winning novelist Margaret Atwood;
National Book Award-winner Katherine Boo;
Renegade L.A. chef Roy Choi;
Local art philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad;
South African freedom fighter Albie Sachs;
Two programs as part of the month-long citywide initiative
“What Ever Happened to Moby Dick?”;
ALOUD curator Louise Steinman on the release of her new book;
And more…
Our September through November calendar is now online. Please note: we have enacted a change that allows you to view the entire season but only allows you to make reservations one month at a time. The website indicates the date when each month’s programs will be open for reservations. We at ALOUD are constantly striving to better serve our audience and to that end, remind you that you can help that effort by cancelling a reservation if you are unable to attend. The full reservation policy can be viewed here. Thank you!
On Tuesday, Sept. 10, the young and talented MK Asante – writer, filmmaker, poet and professor – kicks off the season with a discussion on hip hop, freedom, and his highly-anticipated new memoir, Buck, with music critic Jeff Chang.
The Broad museum, opening downtown in 2014, partners with ALOUD on Thursday, Sept. 12 for a discussion on “The Un-Private Collection: A New Museum for Los Angeles,” where Eli and Edythe Broad together with The Broad Art Foundation director Joanne Heyler sit down with Inge Reist, director of The Frick Collection’s Center for the History of Collecting, to discuss the art and tradition of collecting in America and to share plans about the highly anticipated opening of Grand Avenue’s newest cultural arts organization.
Memoir comes into further focus this season, taking an international angle with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and 2103 National Book Award winner Katherine Boo who will discuss Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity with Pico Iyer on Wednesday, Oct. 9. U.S. Representative Luis Gutiérrez (D – Illinois), champion of immigrants and working people, illuminates his journey from barrio to Capitol Hill in his new memoir on Thursday, Oct. 17. On Nov. 7, memoirist Louise Steinman, ALOUD founder and curator, discusses her new book, The Crooked Mirror: A Memoir of Polish-Jewish Reconciliation with Rev. Ed Bacon of All Saints Church in Pasadena.
On Wednesday, Nov. 13, renegade chef, Kogi BBQ founder, and food truck pioneer Roy Choi will share his long-awaited love letter to Los Angeles: L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food. And on Nov. 21, freedom fighter, civil rights lawyer, and former judge on South Africa’s Constitutional Court, Albie Sachs visits ALOUD to share his experience working to heal a divided South Africa.
On Monday, Sept. 16, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer A. Scott Berg examines one of America’s most influential yet often misunderstood presidents: Woodrow Wilson. On Oct. 2, the highly acclaimed novelist Margaret Atwood visits ALOUD to introduce readers to the dark and hilarious MaddAddam: A Novel, the final book in her dystopian trilogy. On Oct. 10, National Book Award-winner Alice McDermott makes her debut visit to ALOUD to discuss her new novel, Someone, a masterful portrait of childhood, adolescence, motherhood, and old age in a 20th-century Irish American family.
This season ALOUD also welcomes world-renowned experts on a variety of contemporary topics. On Thursday, Sept. 19, Harvard law professor and former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Randall Kennedy ponders the future of affirmative action. On Tuesday, Oct. 15, author Alan Weisman explores the complexity of calculating how many humans the planet can hold without capsizing. And on Tuesday, Oct. 22, writer Andrew Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary families facing extreme challenges with a discussion of Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity.
As part of the Library Foundation and Los Angeles Public Library’s month-long citywide initiative “What Ever Happened to Moby Dick?,” ALOUD presents two special programs exploring the relevance of the extraordinary classic. Playwright and director Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, Melville scholar Wyn Kelley, and media expert Henry Jenkins ”remix” a new approach to teaching Moby Dick in the age of YouTube and hip hop on Thursday, Sept. 26. And on Thursday, Oct. 3, Guggenheim fellow, science historian and energetic polymath D. Graham Burnett offers a sweeping history of how science, politics, and simple human wonder has shaped humanity’s understanding – and love – of whales.
World history and literature is illuminated this season with award-winning visual artist Alison Saar, critically-acclaimed and celebrated Iranian author Goli Taraghi (in conversation with author Reza Aslan), and graphic novelists Joe Sacco and Gene Luen Yang.
MK Asante photo credit: Lee Steffen
