Kelvin Smith Library’s 25th Anniversary Event Series will kick off with a keynote lecture by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Menand, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of English and the Lee Simpkins Family Professor of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.
Menand—who has a strong interest in literary and cultural history and the history of ideas—is a staff writer for The New Yorker, a long-time contributor to the New York Review of Books, and the recipient of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book on American pragmatists, The Metaphysical Club. Most recently he is also the author of The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War.
Menand’s presentation will explore “why do we write about history, how should we read it, and why should we care about it?” The event will also include a discussion of the history and importance of the library, its accomplishments over the years to realize the original vision of Kelvin Smith Library as the “library of the future” and recognizing the important people who made this journey a reality.
Speakers will include Ben Vinson III, provost and executive vice president of Case Western Reserve University; Ellen Stirn Mavec, president and chair of the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation (granddaughter of Kelvin Smith) and a CWRU Board of Trustees member; and Arnold Hirshon, vice provost and the Lindseth Family University Librarian.
The event will take place Thursday, Sept. 30, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at Kelvin Smith Library. All members of the campus community are welcome to attend.
This event is part of the Kelvin Smith Library’s 25th Anniversary Event Series. View the list of events.