{"id":8999627,"date":"2026-09-11T18:03:43","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T18:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/?post_type=app_event&#038;p=8999627"},"modified":"2026-09-29T10:37:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T10:37:04","slug":"books-libraries-and-democracy-gilles-pecout-and-robert-darnton","status":"publish","type":"app_event","link":"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/events\/books-libraries-and-democracy-gilles-pecout-and-robert-darnton\/","title":{"rendered":"Books, Libraries, and Democracy: Gilles P\u00e9cout and Robert Darnton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What role do books and reading play in democratic life\u2014and how is that role changing today? Join&nbsp;<strong>Gilles&nbsp;P\u00e9cout<\/strong>&nbsp;(historian and president of the Biblioth\u00e8que&nbsp;nationale&nbsp;de France, France\u2019s national library) and&nbsp;<strong>Robert Darnton<\/strong>&nbsp;(historian and university librarian emeritus at Harvard University and author of&nbsp;<em>The Great Cat Massacre<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>The Revolutionary Temper<\/em>) for a&nbsp;conversation tracing the relationship between reading, public opinion, and democracy from the Enlightenment to the present. Moderated by critic and translator&nbsp;<strong>Liesl Schillinger<\/strong>, the discussion will explore how changing reading practices contributed to new forms of public life in eighteenth-century France and the United States; what today\u2019s transformations in reading and attention might mean for democratic culture; French and American perspectives on freedom of expression and book bans; and the evolving role of libraries not simply as repositories of books, but as vital civic and social spaces for gathering, exchange, and access to knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Presented in English.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Admission is free and available on a first-come, first-served basis, as space is limited. RSVP is&nbsp;required&nbsp;but does not guarantee entry.<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Gilles&nbsp;P\u00e9cout<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gilles\u00a0P\u00e9cout\u00a0has served as president of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bnf.fr\/en\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.bnf.fr\/en\">Biblioth\u00e8que\u00a0nationale\u00a0de France<\/a> (BnF), the national library of\u00a0France, since\u00a0April 2024. The BnF\u2019s mission is to collect, preserve, enrich, and make\u00a0available\u00a0the national documentary heritage. He was a professor at the \u00c9cole normale sup\u00e9rieure, where he headed the history department, before serving as rector of the Acad\u00e9mie de Nancy-Metz from 2014 to 2016, then as rector of the Acad\u00e9mie de Paris and the \u00cele-de-France academic region from 2016 to 2020, while also serving as chancellor of the universities of Paris. From 2020 to 2024, he served as France\u2019s ambassador to Austria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Robert Darnton<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Robert Darnton\u00a0is Carl H. Pforzheimer university professor, emeritus, and university librarian, emeritus, at Harvard University and one of the world\u2019s leading historians of eighteenth-century France and the history of books. He taught at Princeton University from 1968 to 2007 before joining Harvard, where he served as university librarian until 2015. He is the author of numerous books, including\u00a0<em>The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History<\/em>,\u00a0<em>The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Prerevolutionary France<\/em>\u00a0(winner of the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award),\u00a0<em>The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future<\/em>,\u00a0<em>The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748\u20131789<\/em>, and, most recently,\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hup.harvard.edu\/books\/9780674299887\">The Writer\u2019s Lot: Culture and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0His many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Humanities Medal.\u00a0He was made an Officier de l\u2019Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1993 and a Chevalier de la L\u00e9gion d\u2019honneur in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Liesl Schillinger (Moderator)<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Liesl Schillinger\u00a0is a critic, writer, and translator who teaches journalism at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. She worked at\u00a0<em>The New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0for nearly two decades and became a regular critic for\u00a0<em>The New York Times Book Review<\/em>\u00a0in 2004. Her translations include works by Alexandre Dumas fils, Nata\u0161a\u00a0Dragnic, Lorenza Pieri, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Marmion, Takis W\u00fcrger, and In\u00e8s\u00a0Cagnati. Her most recent translation, Cagnati\u2019s\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyrb.com\/products\/crazy-genie\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nyrb.com\/products\/crazy-genie\">Crazy Genie<\/a><\/em>, was published by NYRB Classics in 2026. She is also the author of\u00a0<em>Wordbirds: An Irreverent Lexicon for the 21st Century<\/em>.\u00a0She was made a Chevalier de l\u2019Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Register<\/strong> for the event <a href=\"https:\/\/vip.villa-albertine.org\/_w3dkn4\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/vip.villa-albertine.org\/_w3dkn4\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Learn about other <strong>Literary Fall<\/strong> events&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/events\/villa-albertines-2026-fall-literary-lineup\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Read&nbsp;a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/magazine\/democracy-in-two-worlds-a-history-of-the-franco-american-alliance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">conversation<\/a>&nbsp;with Robert Darnton in Villa Albertine\u2019s annual magazine,&nbsp;<strong>STATES<\/strong>, on the intertwined histories of the French and American revolutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":8999707,"menu_order":0,"template":"","app_discipline":[213],"app_city_tax":[217],"app_event_type":[241],"class_list":["post-8999627","app_event","type-app_event","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","app_discipline-literature","app_city_tax-nyc","app_event_type-talk"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Books, Libraries, and Democracy: Gilles P\u00e9cout and Robert Darnton - Villa Albertine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/va\/events\/books-libraries-and-democracy-gilles-pecout-and-robert-darnton\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Books, Libraries, and Democracy: Gilles P\u00e9cout and Robert Darnton - Villa Albertine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What role do books and reading play in democratic life\u2014and how is that role changing today? 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