Louis Menand, Pulitzer Prize winner and 2021 National Book Award–nominated author of The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War, and his former student Maggie Nelson (On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint) each grapple in their new books with the notion of freedom, and in different ways. Menand explores how between 1945 and 1970—an era defined by a movement toward individual freedom—a vaulting of elitism and formalism mutated into a new way of being, one of self-truths and experimentation. Nelson addresses in part the jingoistic usage of the term freedom—deployed relentlessly in the United States post-9/11 across media—as well as how our interpretations of the term differ among us. Join the two as they discuss the subject of freedom and its evolution.

• Moderator: Clay Smith
• Format: This is a live, virtual event on CrowdCast (RSVP link above).
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Louis Menand, Maggie Nelson, The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint