Authors in Conversation: THE FOREST by Alexander Nemerov

71 Charles Street,Boston MA 02114

24 March, 2023

Description

Join Beacon Hill Books for an evening of conversation! Author and Stanford University Professor in the Arts and Humanities Alexander Nemerov introduces his new book THE FOREST: A FABLE OF AMERICA IN THE 1830s, in conversation with Jennifer Roberts, Professor of the Humanities, American and Contemporary Art at Harvard University. Admission is free. Please RSVP to secure your seat. About the Book: “This is a wonderful book. . . . An extraordinary achievement.”—Edmund de Waal, New York Times bestselling author of The Hare with Amber Eyes Set amid the glimmering lakes and disappearing forests of the early United States, The Forest imagines how a wide variety of Americans experienced their lives. Part truth, part fiction, and featuring both real and invented characters, the book follows painters, poets, enslaved people, farmers, and artisans living and working in a world still made largely of wood. Some of the historical characters—such as Thomas Cole, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fanny Kemble, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nat Turner—are well-known, while others are not. But all are creators of private and grand designs. The Forest unfolds in brief stories. Each episode reveals an intricate lost world. Characters cross paths or go their own ways, each striving for something different but together forming a pattern of life. For Alexander Nemerov, the forest is a description of American society, the dense and discontinuous woods of nation, the foliating thoughts of different people, each with their separate shade and sun. Through vivid descriptions of the people, sights, smells, and sounds of Jacksonian America, illustrated with paintings, prints, and photographs, The Forest brings American history to life on a human scale. Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. About the Author: Alexander Nemerov is the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Stanford University. His many books include Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York and Soulmaker: The Times of Lewis Hine (Princeton). About the Moderator: Jennifer L. Roberts teaches American art and material culture from the seventeenth century to the present, focusing on material theory, print studies, and the interface between the visual arts and the natural sciences. After receiving her A.B. in English and Art History from Stanford (1992) and her Ph.D. in History of Art from Yale (2000), she joined the Harvard faculty in 2002. She held the Slade Professorship in Fine Arts at Cambridge University in 2019 and delivered the Mellon Lectures at the National Gallery of Art in 2021.