November 8, 2014
Paul Barber— On November 8, we celebrate the birthday of Bram Stoker. Stoker’s novel Dracula, published in 1897, had a tremendous influence on vampire-novels although, like other fiction of this… READ MORE
November 6, 2014
Today marks the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Adolphe Sax. Born in Dinant, Belgium, Sax became probably the most well-known inventor of musical brass-wind instruments in the nineteenth century…. READ MORE
October 30, 2014
Richard Pells— October 30, 1938. The night before Halloween in America. After dinner, at 8:00 in the evening, Eastern Standard Time, families throughout the country gathered in their living rooms,… READ MORE
October 22, 2014
Mark Polizzotti— At first blush, the qualities suggested by Patrick Modiano’s fictions do not shout “Nobel.” Unlike Sartre (the laureate malgre lui), with his grand philosophical pronouncements, or France’s previous… READ MORE
October 21, 2014
Brothers Allen and Wallace Shawn recently sat down to discuss the life of legendary composer, conductor, and author Leonard Bernstein. While most of us know him today for the spectacular scores… READ MORE
October 19, 2014
Today is National Evaluate Your Life Day, and while the holiday may be quirky, it does offer an excuse to take a moment from your busy schedule and reflect on your… READ MORE
October 18, 2014
The first edition of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby-Dick came out in London as The Whale on this day in 1851. But what makes Moby-Dick, or any text, a classic and what do we… READ MORE
October 17, 2014
On this day in 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The announcement of the 2014 winners is a reminder that the selections invariably provoke discussion and sometimes… READ MORE
October 14, 2014
In the previous installments (part one, part two) of Danuta Borchardt‘s reflections on translating Trans-Atlantyk, she articulated why the variant of Polish Witold Gombrowicz used in the novel was so difficult to render in… READ MORE
October 13, 2014
Shortly before his death in 1837, Giacomo Leopardi, a prolific Italian writer, translator, and thinker, began to organize a small, thematic collection of his writings in an attempt to give… READ MORE
Between Memory and History