Roosevelt Montás In Conversation with Ben Heckman

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Centennial Kickoff Party & Introductory Author Visit

Join us at 6 pm to celebrate the library’s centennial with a good old-fashioned birthday party complete with cake and ice cream. Try some library-themed specialty items from our community partners and win some of your own BPL centennial swag!

After enjoying cake and ice cream, keep the festivities going at 7 pm with an enlightening conversation with author Roosevelt Montás. We’re excited to kick off our Bexley Centennial Author Series with Roosevelt Montás, author of the book Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation. In Rescuing Socrates, Montás explores the lasting influence of the Great Books, reflects on how a liberal education of these texts transformed his life as a first-generation Dominican-born student, and advocates for why they matter now more than ever.

Rescuing Socrates has been called, “A vigorous argument in favor of reading and discussing the canon in order to better our minds and souls” — Kirkus Reviews, and, “[An] earnest defense of the humanities, which is also a personal testament to the power of a liberal education” — Thomas Chatterton Williams, The Atlantic.

Roosevelt will be in conversation with Ben Heckman, BPL Director, with a book signing following the conversation.

Thank you to Gramercy Books for partnering with us and making onsite books available for purchase. Purchase Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation ahead of the program, 10% of online book sales through Gramercy’s Centennial Author Series page will be donated to the Bexley Community Author Series Fund at the Bexley Community Foundation.

About the Author:

Roosevelt Montás is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University and the former director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum (2008-2018). He was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to New York as a teenager, where he attended public schools in Queens before entering Columbia College in 1991 through its Opportunity Programs. In 2003, he completed a Ph.D. in English, also at Columbia; his dissertation, Rethinking America, won Columbia University’s 2004 Bancroft Award. In 2000, he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student and in 2008, he received the Dominican Republic’s National Youth Prize. He regularly teaches moral and political philosophy in the Columbia Core Curriculum as well as seminars in American Studies. He is also Director of the Center for American Studies’ Freedom and Citizenship Program, which brings low-income high school students to the Columbia campus to study political theory and then helps them prepare successful applications to college.

Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation details the experiences of Montás as a student and teacher, telling the story of how the Great Books transformed his life and why they have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds.

Registration requested (only) for author talk with Roosevelt Montás. Join us in person, or live stream this program on BexleyLibrary.org/TV.