
Exploring themes of personal identity, families, immigration, and social and cultural history
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UPCOMING EVENTS


Nadia Owusu with Aftershocks: A Memoir
Virtual Event: Tuesday, January 19 at 6 PM
Moderator: Author Jessica Shattuck
Presented in partnership with GBH Forum Network
The daughter of a U.N. official from Ghana and an Armenian-American looks back at her nomadic and tragic family life in order to move forward.
When Nadia Owusu moved to New York City at age 18, she had already lived in five countries outside the United States and her parents’ homelands of Ghana (her father’s) and Armenia (her mother’s family). She grew up disconnected, without a culture she called her own. In Aftershocks she shares her jarring story of being state-less and, ultimately, parent-less, as the survivor of trauma; she describes the heart and will it takes to pull though. Don’t miss hearing about her life and enthralling memoir looking at race identity and immigration, the seismic emotional toll of family secrets, and the push and pull of belonging in the United States.
Nadia Owusu is a Brooklyn-based writer and urban planner. She is the recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award. Her lyric essay So Devilish a Fire won the Atlas Review chapbook contest. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the New York Times, the Washington Post’s The Lily, Literary Review, Electric Literature, Epiphany, and Catapult.
Jessica Shattuck is the New York Times best-selling author of the novels The Women in the Castle, The Hazards of Good Breeding, a New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the PEN/Winship Award, and Perfect Life. Her writing has appeared in such publications as the New Yorker, Wired, New York Times, and Glamour.


Family History Benefit Event Honoring Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
Virtual Event: Thursday, January 28 at 5:30 PM EST
With special guest moderator Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Hosted by D. Brenton Simons and Ryan J. Woods
Join us for our Winter Family History Benefit honoring Harvard historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, a renowned expert in African American studies. Following an illustrated presentation, History in the Face of Slavery: A Family Portrait, she will be in dialogue with Finding Your Roots host Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Chair of the Department of History from 2018 to 2020, she is the first African American to hold this position. She is the National President of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors for her historical writings. Most notably, she received the 2014 National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama at the White House in September 2015 for “illuminating the African American journey.” In March 2019 she received the John Hope Franklin Award sponsored by Diverse magazine and the TIAA Institute.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. An Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, he is the celebrated author of books and creator of documentary films that “educate millions of Americans about the histories and cultures of our nation and the world.” Finding Your Roots, his groundbreaking genealogy series now in its sixth season on PBS, has been called “one of the deepest and wisest series ever on television.”


Janice P. Nimura with The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women—and Women to Medicine
Virtual Event: Thursday, February 4 at 6 PM EST
Moderator: Perri Klass, M.D., columnist and author
Presented in partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum Network
A history of medicine in the biography of two remarkable woman—the first to receive M.D.s in the United States
Join us for a discussion about women in medicine revealing the remarkable lives of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in America to receive an M.D. in 1849, and her younger sister Emily, an even more brilliant physician. Exploring their allies, enemies, and enduring partnership, Janice P. Nimura presents their story of trials and triumph. From Bristol, Paris, and Edinburgh to the rising cities of antebellum America, this richly researched new biography celebrates these two complicated pioneers who exploded the limits of possibility for women. Don’t miss hearing about America’s first female doctors “resurrected in all their feisty, thrilling, trailblazing splendor" (Stacy Schiff).
Janice P. Nimura is the winner of a 2017 Public Scholar award from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the author of Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back, a New York Times Notable Book.
Perri Klass, M.D., a Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University, writes weekly for the New York Times Science Section. She attended Harvard Medical School and completed her residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital, Boston. Her new book, A Good Time to Be Born, traces how history, culture, and parenting have been transformed by the radical decline of infant and child mortality.


Richard Thompson Ford with Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History
Virtual Event: Thursday, February 18 at 6 PM EST
Moderator: Petra Slinkard, curator of fashion and textiles at Peabody Essex Museum
Presented in partnership with the Peabody Essex Museum
A Stanford law professor and critic specializing in social and cultural issues explores fashion through the ages
Dress codes are as old as clothing itself. For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol, and changes in fashion have marked historic social and political movements. Join us for a discussion with law professor and cultural critic Richard Thompson Ford about his latest work. Dress Codes provides an insightful and entertaining history of the laws of fashion, from the middle ages to the present day. This walk down history’s red carpet will uncover and examine the canons, mores, and customs of clothing. Moderator Petra Slinkard will enrich the evening with insight on the intersection of fashion and art.
Richard Thompson Ford is a Professor at Stanford Law School. He has written about law, social and cultural issues and race relations for such publications as The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle. The author of the New York Times notable books The Race Card and Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality, he appears often on broadcast news shows.
Petra Slinkard is Director of Curatorial Affairs and The Nancy B. Putnam Curator of Fashion and Textiles at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. She oversees the museum’s newly opened Fashion and Design gallery and recently opened PEM's latest exhibition Made It | The Women Who Revolutionized Fashion, on view through mid-March 2021.


Anna Malaika Tubbs with The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation
Virtual Event: Tuesday, February 23 at 6 PM EST
Presented in partnership with Boston Public Library, State Library of Massachusetts, and the Museum of African American History
A scholar shares stories of motherhood and the making of American history
In this groundbreaking and essential debut work, scholar Anna Malaika Tubbs celebrates Black motherhood by telling the stories of the women who raised and shaped three remarkable, heroic Americans: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. Don’t miss this discussion about The Three Mothers, described by Yale University historian Elizabeth Hinton as “a profound reflection on the contours of Black freedom in the twentieth century and beyond…an essential celebration of Black women, one that illuminates the history of racism and resistance in critical new ways. A timely and important book."
Anna Malaika Tubbs is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Cambridge University, where she also earned an MA in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies. Her undergraduate degree in Anthropology is from Stanford University. A passionate writer and speaker on issues of gender and race, Tubbs is an educator and a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant. Her work has been published in For Harriet, Darling Magazine, Huffington Post, and Blavity. As the first partner of Stockton, California (2016–2020), she co-authored the first Report on the Status of Women in Stockton.
PAST EVENTS

January 13, 2021
Eric Jay Dolin
A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes
In partnership with the State Library of Massachusetts
December 7, 2020
Nicholas Basbanes
Cross of Snow: The Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In partnership with the State Library of Massachusetts and GBH Forum Network
December 3, 2020
David S. Reynolds
Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times
In partnership with Porter Square Books
November 12, 2020
Nathaniel Philbrick
Baxter Lecture on Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War
In partnership with Boston Public Library, the State Library of Massachusetts, and GBH Forum
November 5, 2020
Tamara Payne
The Dead are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
In partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum
October 20, 2020
Claire Messud
Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write
In partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum
October 8, 2020
David Michaelis
Eleanor
In partnership with the State Library of Massachusetts and Porter Square Books
October 1, 2020
David Hill
The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America’s Forgotten Capital of Vice

September 10, 2020
Pam Fessler
Carville’s Cure: Leprosy, Stigma, and the Fight for Justice
In partnership with Boston Public Library, State Library of Massachusetts, and GBH Forum
August 25, 2020
E. Dolores Johnson
Say I’m Dead : A Family Memory of Race, Secrets and Love
In partnership with the State Library of Massachusetts Museum of African American History
August 20, 2020
Susan Eisenhower
How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decision
In partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum
August 11, 2020
Gretchen Sorin
Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights
In partnership with Museum of African American History
July 23, 2020
Larry Tye
Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy
In partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum
June 24, 2020
Rick Beyer
Rivals Unto Death: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr
In partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum
June 8, 2020
Honor Moore
Our Revolution: A Mother and Daughter at Mid-Century
In partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum
May 20, 2020
Libby Copeland
The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are
In partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum
May 14, 2020
Stephen Puleo
Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America's First Humanitarian Mission
In partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum
April 28, 2020
Phuc Tran
Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In
In partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum
March 6, 2020
Adam Hochschild
Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes
In partnership with Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center, the Jewish Women’s Archive, and GBH Forum
February 26, 2020
Kristen Richardson
The Season: A Social History of the Debutante
No video available
February 11, 2020
Marcia Chatelain
Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America
In partnership with GBH Forum
February 11, 2020
Marcia Chatelain
Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America
In conversation with GBH News Reporter Callie Crossley at the BPL Studio
January 30, 2020
Scott Simon
Honoring The Career Of NPR Broadcaster Scott Simon
In partnership with GBH Forum
January 30, 2020
Scott Simon
Sunnyside Plaza
In conversation with WGBH News Reporter Craig Lemoult at the BPL Studio
January 14, 2020
William Martin
Bound For Gold: A Novel of the California Gold Rush
No video available
December 10, 2019
Holly George-Warren
Janis: Her Life and Music
In partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum
November 21, 2019
George Howe Colt
The Game: Harvard, Yale, and America in 1968
In partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum
November 12, 2019
Donald L. Miller
Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign that Broke the Confederacy
No video available
October 18, 2019
Gail Collins
No Stopping Us Now: The Adventures of Older Women in American History
In partnership with GBH Forum
October 18, 2019
Gail Collins
No Stopping Us Now: The Adventures of Older Women in American History
With Boston Public Radio at the BPL Studio
September 26, 2019
Brian Jay Jones
Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination
No video available
September 17, 2019
Susan Ronald
Condé Nast: The Man and His Empire
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