Laurie Lisle

Louise Nevelson with her cats, 1975, Pedro E. Guerrero, Vintage Silver Bromide Print

March 25, 2020.

Author and biographer Laurie Lisle discusses her book Louise Nevelson: A Passionate Life (Simon & Schuster 1990; Rev. Ed., Open Road, 2016.)

'From her birth in Russia, her girlhood in Maine, to her years as an artist in Manhattan, Nevelson's life was difficult, dramatic and, after years of struggle, finally triumphant. Her rich iconography expressed in black, white, and gold wooden assemblages is an enormous and extraordinary prize-winning body of work found in parks, plazas, and museums throughout the world. Lisle has conscientiously investigated the numerous bizarre events in Nevelson's long life" -Washington Post Book World 

"Lisle's book is impressive in its thoroughness . . . its eclectic introduction of psychological analysis" -Woman's Art Journal

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Marc Michael Epstein

 September 16, 2015. (SEASON OPENER)

Mark Michael Epstein,  Professor of Religion on the Mackie Paschall Davis & Norman H. Davis Chair at Vassar College, discusses his new book, co-edited with Eva Frojmovic: Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish Illuminated Manuscripts (Princeton University Press, 2015).

“The gorgeously illustrated volume ... should challenge almost all assumptions about Jewish identity, difference, or art. Its twelve instructive chapters and 287 full-color images survey a stunning array of illustrated books made for Jews from the twelfth to the twenty-first centuries."  -- Sara Lipton, New York Review of Books

46:26 minutes

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Adina Hoffman & Peter Cole

February 6, 2013.

Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole talk about their book Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza, published in 2011 by Schocken.

Adina Hoffman is the author of House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood and My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet’s Life in the Palestinian Century, which was named one of the best twenty books of 2009 by the Barnes & Noble Review and one of the top ten biographies of the year by Booklist.

Peter Cole’s most recent book of poetry is Things on Which I’ve Stumbled—whose title poem revolves around the Cairo Geniza. Cole’s translations from Hebrew and Arabic include War & Love, Love & War: New and Selected Poems by Aharon Shabtai; So What: New & Selected Poems by Taha Muhammad Ali; and The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492, which received the National Jewish Book Award in Poetry and the American Association of Publishers’ 2008 Hawkins Award for the university press book of the year.

61:04 mins.

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Marc Michael Epstein

October 10, 2012.

Marc Michael Epstein,  Professor of Religion at Vassar College, talks about his book: The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative, and Religious Imagination, published by Yale University Press and listed by the Times Literary Supplement as one of the best books of 2011.

“A dazzling analysis. . . . The Medieval Haggadah shows with remarkable sophistication and an acute visual sense how those who commissioned, produced the blueprint for, and illuminated four medieval haggadot, or books for use at the Passover ceremony, did much more than illustrate the story of the Exodus, creating, rather, complex statements about the role and place of Jews in the society of the time, as well as producing remarkable works of art."— Gabriel Josipovici, The Times Literary Supplement (Books of the Year)

41:06 min.

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