Tuesday, April 11, 2023

1:00 PM ET • 12:00 PM CT • 10:00 AM PT

Online event via Zoom

60 minutes with Q&A

 

To introduce Freedom, the Spring 2023 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly, Lewis H. Lapham recruited Curtis White, a novelist and social critic who he has collaborated closely with since his essay “The Middle Mind” appeared in the March 2002 issue of Harper’s Magazine. 

 

 

In this conversation White and Lapham will discuss the issue, which takes a tour through stories about liberty told by people around the world as our notions of it have shifted from age to age. The issue features one hundred voices, from ancient arguments about free will, political rights, and the treatment of manumitted slaves to contemporary debates about power, access, and opportunity. 

 

White’s essay “It’s Not About You” describes the many-headed problem of American unfreedom as one against which the countercultural comedic legend George Carlin and the teachings of Buddhism might offer surprising solace. Freedom is a word, writes White, “in which we have invested enormous amounts of energy without producing much in the way of illumination.”

 

Subscribe to Lapham’s Quarterly today, and you will receive Freedom as the first issue in your yearlong subscription.

 

Curtis White is the author of Living in a World That Can’t Be Fixed, The Science Delusion, We Robots, and the novels Memories of My Father Watching TV and Requiem. His newest book is Transcendent: Art and Dharma in a Time of Collapse. His work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Orion, Playboy, and elsewhere. He is a member of the Lapham’s Quarterly editorial board.

 

Lewis H. Lapham is the founder and editor of Lapham’s Quarterly. He is editor emeritus at Harper’s Magazine, where he served as editor from 1976 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 2006.

 

 

This event is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Online via Zoom