Mark your calendar and register now for these three author visits, all occurring within the next week and a half! | |
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Time will be reserved for audience Q&A. The talks will be recorded and distributed to enrolled students for viewing post-event. Register in advance to receive the video, even if you are unable to attend the live session.
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Author Visit: Danielle Friedman
Let’s Get Physical:
How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World (2022)*
Thursday, September 26 • 1:00pm-2:15pm • Zoom • Course 12817 • $35
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Meet Danielle Friedman, whose book, Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World (2022), chronicles the entrepreneurs who pioneered the barre method, Jazzercise, city marathons, modern yoga studios, and other fitness trends. Today, working out is an accepted, and even expected, part of women's lives. But before the mid-twentieth century in mainstream America, sweating was considered unladylike, and girls grew up believing that too much physical exertion could be harmful to their health. Learn how trailblazing fitness pioneers marketed a vibrant range of commercial programs to enhance women’s mental and physical health, and ponder how successful they have been in transforming fitness from an upscale privilege into an essential right. Friedman’s discussion of her research will spark your nostalgia for past fitness fads and bring you up to date on the latest movements in staying strong.
* Pair this with Author Visit: Ava Purkiss, Fit Citizens: A History of Black Women’s Exercise from Post-Reconstruction to Postwar America (2023) by registering for both at once using Course 12725 to save $15.
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DANIELLE FRIEDMAN is an award-winning journalist who specializes in telling stories at the intersection of health, gender, and culture. Friedman contributes regularly to the New York Times Well section, where she often explores the connection between movement and mental health. She holds a BA in English from Duke University and an MS from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
LORI ROTSKOFF is a cultural historian, writer, educator, and public speaker specializing in memoirs and narrative nonfiction, childhood and youth, women’s and gender studies, and arts and culture. She studied history and literature at Northwestern University and earned a PhD in American Studies at Yale.
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Author Visit: Lorraine Besser
The Art of the Interesting:
What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It (2024)
Thursday, September 26 • 7:00pm-8:30pm • Zoom • Course 12832 • $30
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Meet Lorraine Besser, Professor of Philosophy at Middlebury College, whose studies on what makes for a good life are the subject of her upcoming book, The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It (on-sale September 10, 2024). Traditionally, philosophers and psychologists have thought of the good life in terms of happiness or meaning, or some combination of both. Emerging research suggests that such understandings are incomplete, and that “psychological richness,” that which helps make life more interesting, is a key ingredient. Psychological richness derives from our experiences of things that stimulate and engage us – i.e., the interesting. Through delightful stories, Professor Besser explains how to cultivate the “interesting” through mindfulness, novelty, turning obstacles into adventures, and friendships.
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LORRAINE BESSER, PhD, is a professor of philosophy at Middlebury College, who specializes in the philosophy and psychology of the good life and teaches popular courses for undergraduates on happiness, well-being, and ethics. An internationally recognized scholar, she was a founding investigator on the research team studying psychological richness. She is the author of The Philosophy of Happiness: An Interdisciplinary Introduction and Eudaimonic Ethics: The Philosophy and Psychology of Living Well, as well as dozens of professional journal articles on moral psychology.
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Author Visit: Sierra Greer
Annie Bot (2024)
Monday, September 30 • 1:00pm-2:30pm • Zoom • Course 12789 • $30
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In conversation with Anna Katsavos, Sierra Greer will discuss her recent best-seller, Annie Bot. This provocative novel explores the increasingly complicated relationship between a female robot and her human owner. Programmed to provide housekeeping and intimacy services to cater to her owner's every need, Annie is placed in autodidactic mode that makes her seem more human as she acquires knowledge. As he tries to shape her into a misogynist's dream of perfection, her learned emotional intelligence creates conflict between owner and robot. This gripping story explores questions of consent, empowerment, and domestic abuse.
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SIERRA GREER grew up in Minnesota before attending Williams College and Johns Hopkins University. A former high school English teacher, she writes about the future from her home in rural Connecticut.
ANNA KATSAVOS, PhD, is an experienced book group facilitator. A SUNY Professor Emerita of English Literature and Women’s Studies, she has received numerous awards for teaching, and her scholarship has been published in a variety of literary journals. She has interviewed many best-selling authors and has presented interactive programs focusing on a wide range of women’s issues. Additionally, she conducts writing, editing and publishing workshops.
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