Uploaded June 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
A conversation between R. Howard Bloch and Barry Bergdoll at the American Library in Paris. Filmed on 14/06/2023 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.
From their first foundations to the present day, celebrated art historian R. Howard Bloch takes us inside six of France’s most magnificent cathedrals.
Saint-Denis, Chartres, Sainte-Chapelle, Reims, Amiens and Notre-Dame: in Paris and her Cathedrals, art historian R. Howard Bloch approaches each of these celebrated sites with renewed curiosity, historical rigor, and aesthetic enthusiasm. From thrilling historical intrigues to luxurious architecture and sacred relics, Bloch reanimates the past of the cathedrals, revealing their centrality to French life and identity across epochs. Join Bloch in conversation with architecture expert Barry Bergdoll at the Library as they walk us through the vaulted arches and stone passages of France’s most iconic structures, showing glimpses along the way into ways of life lost to time.
About the speaker:
R. Howard Bloch is the Sterling Professor of French and Humanities at Yale University. He is the author of numerous award-winning books on French literature and art.
Currently a fellow at the Institute for Ideas & Imagination, Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History at Columbia University. A specialist in the history of modern architecture, he served from 2007 to 2014 as Chief Curator of Architecture & Design at the New York Museum of Modern Art. He has also organized exhibitions at the Musée d’Orsay, the Caisse des Monuments Historiques and the Centre Canadien d’Architecture. He is the author of European Architecture: 1750-1890 in the Oxford History of Art series and monographs on Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Mies van der Rohe, Léon Vaudoyer, and (as editor) Marcel Breuer: Building Global Institutions.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
A conversation between R. Howard Bloch and Barry Bergdoll at the American Library in Paris. Filmed on 14/06/2023 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.
From their first foundations to the present day, celebrated art historian R. Howard Bloch takes us inside six of France’s most magnificent cathedrals.
Saint-Denis, Chartres, Sainte-Chapelle, Reims, Amiens and Notre-Dame: in Paris and her Cathedrals, art historian R. Howard Bloch approaches each of these celebrated sites with renewed curiosity, historical rigor, and aesthetic enthusiasm. From thrilling historical intrigues to luxurious architecture and sacred relics, Bloch reanimates the past of the cathedrals, revealing their centrality to French life and identity across epochs. Join Bloch in conversation with architecture expert Barry Bergdoll at the Library as they walk us through the vaulted arches and stone passages of France’s most iconic structures, showing glimpses along the way into ways of life lost to time.
About the speaker:
R. Howard Bloch is the Sterling Professor of French and Humanities at Yale University. He is the author of numerous award-winning books on French literature and art.
Currently a fellow at the Institute for Ideas & Imagination, Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History at Columbia University. A specialist in the history of modern architecture, he served from 2007 to 2014 as Chief Curator of Architecture & Design at the New York Museum of Modern Art. He has also organized exhibitions at the Musée d’Orsay, the Caisse des Monuments Historiques and the Centre Canadien d’Architecture. He is the author of European Architecture: 1750-1890 in the Oxford History of Art series and monographs on Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Mies van der Rohe, Léon Vaudoyer, and (as editor) Marcel Breuer: Building Global Institutions.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
![Writing Politics with Giuliano da Empoli and Antonio Monda
A conversation with Giuliano da Empoli and Antonio Monda at the American Library in Paris. Filmed on 27/11/2023 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.
How can fiction operate as a tool for political analysis? What fresh insights might we unlock by understanding geopolitical actors as characters?
Giuliano da Empoli is an accomplished political essayist and social commentator. His recent debut novel, Le Mage du Kremlin (translated into English as The Wizard of the Kremlin) quickly garnered international attention, becoming a popular hit in France, Italy, and beyond. The novel centers on a fictionalized version of a real person: Vladislav Surkov, a former adviser to Vladimir Putin.
Speaking about his decision to tell this story through fiction, rather than a political essay, da Empoli stated: “[A]t the heart of power, and Russian power in particular, there are elements of paradox, a permanent contradiction, an irrationality that only literature could transcribe.” (“[A]u cœur du pouvoir, et du pouvoir russe en particulier, il y a des éléments de paradoxe, une contradiction permanente, une irrationalité que seule la littérature pouvait transcrire.”) Join us to learn more about da Empoli’s novel, his political research, and his thoughts on the relationship between fact and fiction.
About the Speakers:
Giuliano da Empoli is an Italian and Swiss political scientist and writer. He teaches at Sciences Po Paris and has published fourteen books on subjects ranging from information overload (Overdose, 2002) to national-populist spin doctors (Les ingénieurs du chaos, 2019). He was Deputy Mayor for Culture in Florence (2009-2012) and a Senior Advisor to the Italian Prime Minister (2014-2016). His first novel, Le Mage du Kremlin (Gallimard, 2022) was awarded the Grand Prix de l’Académie française and is currently being translated in over 30 languages.
Antonio Monda is the founder and Artistic Director of Le Conversazioni and has directed the Rome Film Festival between 2015 and 2021. He has curated exhibitions for the MoMA, the Guggenheim and the Lincoln Center and is currently consulting for the Louvre. He teaches at NYU and is a columnist for RAI and a regular contributor for La Repubblica. The ninth chapter of his ten-volume saga about New York was recently published. His books have been translated into eleven languages.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg. Writing Politics with Giuliano da Empoli and Antonio Monda](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZAN4Mym_g60/mqdefault.jpg)









