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Wednesday, July 8th, 11 am

The Redwood Library and the John Clarke Society invite you to celebrate

Rhode Island Charter Day

Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. will be installed as the John Clarke Society’s John Clarke Laureate.  A longtime advocate for freedom of religion, Ambassador Loeb’s work has increased awareness of the importance of freedom of religion in today’s world.  Most recently, his generosity has led to the creation of the Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Center at Touro Synagogue.  The ceremony will be followed by a lecture by Dr. Thomas L. Luxon, Cheheyl Professor, Director of the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning, and Professor of English at Dartmouth College.  As a John Milton scholar, Thomas will discuss John Milton’s 1659 A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes; Showing That it Is Not Lawful For Any Power on Earth to Compel in Matters of Religion. This treatise stressing the importance of separating church and state predates Rhode Island’s Charter of 1663.

Free and open to the public

Thursday, July 16th, 6 pm

Frances Osborne, author of

The Bolter

The story of the wild, beautiful, fearless Idina Sackville, descendent of one of England’s oldest families, who went off to Kenya in search of adventure and became known as the high priestess of the scandalous Happy Valley Set.  Frances Osborne deftly tells the tale of her great-grandmother using Idina’s never-before-seen letters; the diaries of Idina’s first husband, Euan Wallace; and stories from family members. Osborne follows Idina from the champagne breakfasts and thé dansants of lost-generation England to the foothills of Kenya’s Aberdare moutnains and the wild abandon of her role in Kenya’s disintegration postwar upper-class life. A parade of lovers, a murdered husband, chaos everywhere—as her madcap world of excess darkened and crumbled around her. Click here for more on The Bolter.

 Free and open to the public

Looking for information about

Song and Dance from the Best of Broadway on July 18th?

Click here

Thursday, July 23, 6 pm

Michael Gross, author of

Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that made the Metropolitan Museum

The first independent, unauthorized look at the epic saga of the nation’s greatest museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogues’ Gallery is an endlessly entertaining follow-up to Michael Gross’ bestselling social history 740 Park. Gross pulls back the shades of secrecy that have long shrouded the upper class’s cultural and philanthropic ambitions and maneuvers–and paints a revealing portrait of a previously hidden face of American wealth and power, a rich, satisfying, alternately hilarious and horrifying look at America’s upper class, and what is perhaps its greatest creation.  More on Rogues Gallery here.

 Free and open to the public

 

Thursday, August 6, 11 am

Barbara Olins Alpert, author of

The Creative Ice Age Brain: Cave Art in the Light of Neuroscience

In her substantial new study – and beautifully illustrated new book – scholar Barbara Olins Alpert applies modern discoveries in psychology and neuroscience to the art historical study of Ice Age art.  Arguing that Ice Age artists made early forays into what would later be called Pointillism, Cubism and Surrealism, she explores universalities of the creative brain by examining the oldest-known human-made images in the light of modern science.  Alpert is an artist and art historian who has taught prehistoric art at the Rhode Island School of Design and who for many years has been engaged in field research on rock art in the United States, France, Spain, Sweden, South Africa, India and Australia. A number of her articles on Ice Age art have appeared in museum journals including Anthropologie published by the Moravske Museum, Brno, Czech Republic and L' Anthropologie published by the Musée de l'Homme, Paris.  More information is available here.

 

 Free and open to the public

Thursday, August 13th, 4 pm   &   5:30 pm

Eagle Peak Media comes to the Redwood for a two-fold presentation:

4PM              A screening of On The Lake, the recently released documentary

On The Lake: Life and Love in a Distant Place tells the true story of the tuberculosis epidemic in 1900s America and globally today through the lives of those that were infected and who died –– but also of those who survived.  With never-before-seen footage and stills, interviews with TB experts, and interviews with TB survivors and their relatives, the story begins at the state-run Zambarano Hospital on remote Wallum Lake in northern Rhode Island –– a hospital that began life in 1905 as a tuberculosis sanatorium.  Granted access to the hospital’s entire photographic archives and many records, the filmmakers began to depict the desperation Americans felt with this diseasehere in Rhode Island and elsewhere.  More than scientific facts and figures, On The Lake shines new light on a major period in America’s collective history that has been largely forgotten –– and a disease that many today think is “dead,” but is in fact the number-two infectious killer globally, after HIV/AIDS.

5:30 PM      A discussion with the filmmakers about their new project,

                Behind the Hedgerow: Eileen Slocum and the Meaning of Newport

A feature-length documentary about Newport society that will be broadcast on PBS in 2010 and accompanied by a companion book, Behind the Hedgerow, from filmmakers G. Wayne Miller and David Bettencourt, is an exclusive inside look at the people of fortune and their descendants who have made Newport a coveted address and summer destination since the mid-1800s.   Part history and part contemporary look, Behind the Hedgerow will utilize rare footage, photographs, archives and on-camera interviews.  A significant part of the film will be the story of the late Eileen Gillespie Slocum, whose family has welcomed the filmmakers into the world of their late mother, who died in 2008.

Free and open to the public

 

 

 

 

Come back soon!