embassy events

"No More Lectures, Please!" 

New York Public Library

The U.S. Embassy and the Prague Municipal Library invite you to meet Paul Holdengraber, Director of the Public Programs from the New York Public Library (NYPL) in a program "No More Lectures, Please!"

Public Programs LIVE from The New York Public Library

When:  Monday, June 5, 2006, 10:00 – 12:00 AM

Where:  Prague Municipal Library, Mariánské náměstí 1

Paul Holdengraber is the Director of the Public Programs at The New York Public Library's (NYPL) Humanities and Social Sciences Library in New York City. Since his arrival in 2004, he has reinvented the Library’s event series under the new name LIVE from the NYPL. Instead of lectures and readings, there are now lively conversations, debates, and surprise performances.  Mr. Holdengräber has curated over 40 programs on an array of subjects.  Since Spring 2005 guests at LIVE from the NYPL have included Margaret Atwood, Isabelle Allende, Harold Bloom, President Bill Clinton, Rosalynn Carter, John Hope Franklin, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Salman Rushdie, Jeffrey Stone, and Alice Walker.

Before coming to the Library, Mr. Holdengräber was founder and director of the Institute for Art and Cultures at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Paul Holdengräber arrived at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1997; a year later, he founded the Institute for Art and Cultures with the idea to challenge the perception that museums are nothing more than mausoleums for Old Masters. Under Mr. Holdengräber's direction, the Institute became an active and lively forum for debate with its ambitious lecture series. 

Mr. Holdengräber holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University. He was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the Getty Research Institute from 1995 to 1996. He has taught at Princeton University, Williams College, the University of Miami, and Claremont Graduate University. He has been a Fellow at the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities (University of Southern  California) and served as a Board Member at the Santa Monica Museum of Art from 2000 to 2004. Fluent in four languages, Mr. Holdengräber has written essays and articles for journals in France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. Last year, the French government awarded him the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. June 5-7 Paul Holdengraber will be guest of the Prague Writers' Festival.