Welcome to the BLP Conversations series, featuring dialogues between people whose lifework, like BLP’s mission, explores the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences, and has become a testament to how science and the humanities can join forces to educate and inspire. This online series is inspired by E.O. Wilson and Robert Hass, whose talk about the connections between science and the arts was published in our book The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass.
In this conversation, two faculty members of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, who work in very different mediums yet are just as much artists as they are journalists, discuss common themes in their most recent books. Helen Benedict—author of the novel Wolf Season, among several others, as well as an essayist and journalist—and Nina Berman—a photographer, filmmaker, and writer whose most recent book is An Autobiography of Miss Wish—tackle social injustice, violence against women, and the devastating effects of war while pushing back against the stereotyping of victims. This conversation is part of the BLP Conversations series from Bellevue Literary Press, featuring dialogues that explore the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences.
Welcome to the BLP Conversations series, featuring dialogues between people whose lifework, like BLP’s mission, explores the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences, and has become a testament to how science and the humanities can join forces to educate and inspire. This online series is inspired by E.O. Wilson and Robert Hass, whose talk about the connections between science and the arts was published in our book The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass.
In this conversation, John McWhorter, linguist and author of Talking Back, Talking Black, and Kia Corthron, playwright and author of the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize–winning The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter, discuss what makes a language “standard,” cultural acceptance of Black English and Black American Sign Language, and accents in literary dialogue, in life, and in the movies. This conversation is part of the BLP Conversations series from Bellevue Literary Press, featuring dialogues that explore the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences.
Dr. Vilcek receiving the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2013.
“I’m thrilled and honored by this recognition, and to be named among this group that has contributed so much to humanity.” —Dr. Vilcek
Bellevue Literary Press board member and research professor at NYU School of Medicine Jan Vilcek holds 46 U.S. patents and is co-inventor of Remicade, an anti-inflammatory drug that has improved the health of millions of people worldwide. In a new addition to his list of accolades, Dr. Vilcek has been selected as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, which honors leaders in academic invention whose discoveries have made a significant impact on quality of life. We are immensely grateful to Dr. Vilcek for his service on our board and congratulate him on this latest honor for the extraordinary contributions he has made to the arts and science communities.
The Kansas City Public Library and Kansas City Star have selected Helen Benedict’s novel Wolf Season for the “FYI Book Club.” Join the discussion, read an excerpt from the novel, and find an interview with the author in the Kansas City Star.
Helen Benedict discusses issues facing sexual abuse victims with Michel Martin on NPR’s All Things Considered and offers a short list of actionable items “to make #MeToo stick this time” at CNN.
The Measure of Darkness has received the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction! The novel has also been selected as a “Great Group Read” by the Women’s National Book Association, which celebrates National Reading Group Month through its publication of an annual “amazing list of books perfect for discussion and conversation in any book club.”
Congratulations to Bellevue Literary Press board member Jan Vilcek, who has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, which honors leaders in academic invention whose discoveries have made a significant impact on quality of life. Dr. Vilcek is also the recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
Welcome to the BLP Conversations series, featuring dialogues between people whose lifework, like BLP’s mission, explores the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences, and has become a testament to how science and the humanities can join forces to educate and inspire. This online series is inspired by E.O. Wilson and Robert Hass, whose talk about the connections between science and the arts was published in our book The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass.
In honor of the Pulitzer Prize centennial celebrations, Paul Harding, author of Tinkers (2010 winner for Fiction), and David Oshinsky, author of Polio: An American Story (2006 winner for History), sat down to discuss the responsibility of the writer in treating questions of medical science, and the power of authorial imagination to evoke the lived experience of illness in fiction and nonfiction. This conversation was supported by the Pulitzer Prize Campfire Initiative and hosted by the NYU Center for the Humanities.
Welcome to the BLP Conversations series, featuring dialogues between people whose lifework, like BLP’s mission, explores the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences, and has become a testament to how science and the humanities can join forces to educate and inspire. This online series is inspired by E.O. Wilson and Robert Hass, whose talk about the connections between science and the arts was published in our book The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass.
In this conversation, Norman Lock, author of, most recently, the American Novels series, and Romanian visual artist Constantin Severin, founder of the Archetypal Expressionism movement, explore ecstatic visions, healing the world through metaphoric language, and the ways their work seeks to “quote” the past for the purpose of enriching the present.
Listen to novelist Eduardo Halfon discuss Guatemalan politics and protest movements with Linda Wertheimer on NPR Weekend Edition and read more from him about Guatemala in the Guardian.
Welcome to the BLP Conversations series, featuring dialogues between people whose lifework, like BLP’s mission, explores the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences, and has become a testament to how science and the humanities can join forces to educate and inspire. This online series is inspired by E.O. Wilson and Robert Hass, whose talk about the connections between science and the arts was published in our book The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass.
In this conversation, Cormac James, author of the novel The Surfacing, and Philip Hoare—whose nonfiction works such as The Whale and The Sea Inside blur the line between literary and natural history—ruminate on the ever-evolving relationship between man and nature, and how that relationship is enriched through literature and science.
Welcome to the BLP Conversations series, featuring dialogues between people whose lifework, like BLP’s mission, explores the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences, and has become a testament to how science and the humanities can join forces to educate and inspire. This online series is inspired by E.O. Wilson and Robert Hass, whose talk about the connections between science and the arts was published in our book The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass.
In this conversation, Michael Coffey, author of the short story collection The Business of Naming Things, and Mark Epstein, M.D., a psychiatrist and author known for exploring the interplay of Buddhism and psychotherapy, discuss the life and work of Samuel Beckett, emotional experiences that surpass language, and literature as a means toward self-discovery and mindfulness.
Watch Meredith Tax discuss Rojava and A Road Unforeseen, with Carne Ross and Debbie Bookchin, at the Left Forum (beginning at approx. 15:30 min. mark).
Welcome to the BLP Conversations series, featuring dialogues between people whose lifework, like BLP’s mission, explores the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences, and has become a testament to how science and the humanities can join forces to educate and inspire. This online series is inspired by E.O. Wilson and Robert Hass, whose talk about the connections between science and the arts was published in our book The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass.
Welcome to the BLP Conversations series, featuring dialogues between people whose lifework, like BLP’s mission, explores the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences, and has become a testament to how science and the humanities can join forces to educate and inspire. This online series is inspired by E.O. Wilson and Robert Hass, whose talk about the connections between science and the arts was published in our book The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass.
In this conversation, Sharona Muir, author of the highly acclaimed debut novel Invisible Beasts, speaks to Christof Koch, Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science and author of numerous books, about our scientific understanding of consciousness and subjectivity in relation to art and culture. As their thinking pushes beyond the realm of modern humans they relate these topics to prehistoric man and the animal kingdom.
Listen to librarian extraordinaire and “NPR’s go-to books guru” Nancy Pearl discuss Understories with Steve Inskeep on NPR’s Morning Edition and with Steve Scher on KUOW’s The Record; and watch her describe how her “favorite collection of short stories in recent memory” is part of a new tradition of “elastic realism” in contemporary literature.
Welcome to the BLP Conversations series, featuring dialogues between people whose lifework, like BLP’s mission, explores the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences, and has become a testament to how science and the humanities can join forces to educate and inspire. This online series is inspired by E.O. Wilson and Robert Hass, whose talk about the connections between science and the arts was published in our book The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass.
In this conversation, David C. Cassidy, author of Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, and the Bomb, and best–selling science writer Dava Sobel discuss the “quantum leap of creative imagination” it took to make the transition into writing historical science drama. Staged readings of their first plays—Cassidy’s Farm Hall, about captured German nuclear scientists at the end of World War II, and Sobel’s And the Sun Stood Still, about Nicolaus Copernicus—were presented before meetings of the American Physical Society.
Welcome to the BLP Conversations series, featuring dialogues between people whose lifework, like BLP’s mission, explores the creative territory at the intersection of the arts and sciences, and has become a testament to how science and the humanities can join forces to educate and inspire. This online series is inspired by E.O. Wilson and Robert Hass, whose talk about the connections between science and the arts was published in our book The Poetic Species: A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass.
In this conversation, Mary Cappello, author of the memoir Awkward: A Detour, explores the divergence between literary and psychiatric narratives of disease with Dr. Christine Montross, a practicing psychiatrist and poet. Together, they delve into the disconcerting pleasures of poetry and the mysterious unknowability of the mind. Continue reading…