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David Carr, Ph.D. Associate Professor at the School of Information and Library Science, UNC Carrboro, NC H: (919) 968-3383
About David Carr: For more than 30 years, David Carr has taught librarianship at Rutgers--the State University of New Jersey, and UNC-Chapel Hill, specializing in collections, reading, and reference services in humanities and social sciences. He writes extensively about adult learning outside schools, especially in public cultural institutions such as libraries and museums. In recent years, he has lectured and written on the passion for reading in adult life and has assisted public libraries to carry out community reading projects. Carr was recognized as a master teacher by the Association for Library and Information Science Education in 1994. He has delivered many presentations, including more than thirty keynote addresses, and has consulted widely in American museums. He has published more than fifty articles, addresses, chapters and book reviews, and two collections of essays: The Promise of Cultural Institutions in 2003, and A Place Not a Place: Reflection and Possibility in Museums and Libraries in 2006. He is now writing and thinking about the value of public cultural institutions as essential instruments in democratic societies. Carr holds a Bachelor’s degree from Drew University, Master’s degrees from Columbia and Rutgers Universities, and the Ph.D. from Rutgers University.
Democratic Conversations in Cultural Institutions
Democracy depends on information and convocation: we need to gather and speak to each other about matters that create differences in our communities and lives. Each day, themes of ethics, laws, values, freedom, education, media, communication, and respect are present in our lives. However, truly open places for free public conversation in America—democratic forums without politics, commerce or manipulation—are rare. American cultural institutions such as public libraries and museums are ideal settings for these essential gatherings; they are a community’s places for thoughts to flourish. This lecture will describe public situations for rich, informed, and continuous conversations about issues and values too often unspoken in public, and therefore lost to our own everyday thinking.
Requirements: lectern, microphone
The Watershed of Days: September 11, 2001 in Fiction
Fiction inspired by the devastating events of September 11, 2001 possesses both distance from the day itself and an urgency of feeling that recollects its devastations. How does literature capture the immediate, the complex and the human, in such a way that we can reflect as well as remember? How do such works of art, based on tragedy and loss, help us to lead stronger lives? What happens when we read The Days of Awe by Hugh Nissenson, Falling Man by Don DeLillo, The Zero by Jess Walter, or The Immensity of the Here and Now by Paul West? This lecture will address these books and others, discuss the power of reading as a cognitive act, and invite audience members to offer opinions and responses.
Requirements: lectern, microphone
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