Event Audio

Art educator Carol Inge Hockett examines how artists reacted to the values-shattering horrors of World War I with Dadism, an artistic/political movement that rejected the old norms of painting, literature, drama, and music. Rejecting bourgeois values, the Dadists embraced nontraditional forms such as collage, photomontage, assemblage, and “readymades” (everyday objects displayed as art).

Historian Shawn Leigh Alexander looks at the forgotten men and women who in the late 19th century took up the cause of civil rights for African Americans. Creating groups such as the Afro-American League, the Afro-American Council, the Niagara Movement, the Constitution League, and the Committee of Twelve, these pioneers developed the methodology of boycotts, propaganda, lobbying, and moral suasion that would bear fruit only long after they had passed on.

Alexander is an assistant professor of African and African American Studies at the University of Kansas.

Rebecca Solnit offers a guided tour of the Bay Area through her latest book, Infinite City, which reinvents the traditional atlas, expanding it from a mere collection of maps to a vibrant depiction of a city’s inner life.

The Kansas City Public Library hosts local author J. Alexander Greenwood for a discussion about the inspiration behind his first novel, Pilate’s Cross.

In 1950, a professor in tiny Peru, Nebraska, strode into his college president’s office and shot him dead. The killer then turned the gun on himself.

Though few remember this event, it inspired Greenwood to write the acclaimed novel Pilate’s Cross and its sequel, Pilate’s Key, which will be released in February.