{"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":"2026-09-11T19:28:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T19:28:22","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\u00a0<strong>Gilles\u00a0P\u00e9cout<\/strong>\u00a0(historian and president of the Biblioth\u00e8que\u00a0nationale\u00a0de France, France\u2019s national library) and historian\u00a0<strong>Robert Darnton<\/strong>\u00a0(university librarian emeritus at Harvard University and author of\u00a0<em>The Great Cat Massacre<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>The Revolutionary Temper<\/em>) for a\u00a0conversation tracing the relationship between reading, public opinion, and democracy from the Enlightenment to the present. Moderated by critic and translator\u00a0<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>&nbsp;<\/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\u00a0P\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. A historian specializing in nineteenth-century Italy and the Mediterranean world,\u00a0P\u00e9cout\u00a0has taught at the \u00c9cole\u00a0normale\u00a0sup\u00e9rieure and the \u00c9cole pratique des hautes \u00e9tudes. He previously served as rector of the academies of Nancy-Metz and Paris and, from 2020 to 2024, 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 director of the Harvard Library. 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 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 named an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters and a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France.<\/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 and criticism at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. She worked at\u00a0<em>The New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0for more than a decade and became a regular critic for\u00a0<em>The New York Times Book Review<\/em>\u00a0in 2004. Her translations include works by Alexandre Dumas, Nata\u0161a\u00a0Dragnic, Jean Echenoz, 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>.\u00a0<\/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\u00a0<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\u00a0a\u00a0<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>\u00a0with Robert Darnton in Villa Albertine\u2019s annual magazine,\u00a0<strong>STATES<\/strong>, on the intertwined histories of the French and American revolutions.\u00a0<\/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 v28.4 - 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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