Which 20th-century ideas should we carry with us into the 21st century? And which of them have become obsolete? Join us for a conversation with David Rieff, a prominent American writer and journalist.
We will also discuss major figures of the 20th-century intellectual canon whom David knew personally---such as Susan Sontag, Emil Michel Cioran, Roland Barthes, and others.
Date and Location: March 1st, 17:00 at PEN Ukraine space (vul. Lukyanivska 14a)
Note: The conversation will be conducted in English without translation.
Please register.
Background:
David Rieff was born in Boston in 1952. He has published eleven books on subjects ranging from the transformation of US cities by migration from the Global South, to humanitarian aid, to the global food system, to the politics of memory.
Between 1991 and 2010, Rieff worked largely as a war correspondent and as a consultant to international relief agencies. He lived largely in Bosnia during the war of 1992-1995 including long periods of time in besieged Sarajevo. His book Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West is a record of that period.
Rieff later worked in DRC, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra, Leone, and Angola, as well as in Israel-Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq. From 2007 to 2015, he covered Latin American politics as a contributing writer to the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
Between 2008 and 2017, he was a visiting professor every second semester at Sciences Po in Paris.
He edited the posthumous publication of the Notebooks of his mother, Susan Sontag.
Rieff has been coming regularly to Ukraine since April of 2022.
