Garry Wills

In the first of a series of conversations between Rick Perlstein and notable guests, Rick will discuss with Garry Wills a theme that ties Wills' diverse projects together: a distrust and contempt for concentrated power.

Location: Street: Seminary Co-op Bookstore Additional: 5751 S. Woodlawn Avenue City: Chicago, Province: Illinois Postal Code: 60637-1507 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Garry Wills spent five years as a young man at a Jesuit seminary and nearly became a priest himself. But after a lifetime of study and reflection, he now poses some challenging questions: Why do we need priests at all? Why did the priesthood arise in a religion that began without it and opposed it? Would Christianity be stronger without the priesthood, as it was at its outset?

Meticulously researched, persuasively argued, and certain to spark debate, Why Priests? asserts that the anonymous Letter to Hebrews, a late addition to the New Testament canon, helped inject the priesthood into a Christianity where it did not exist, along with such concomitants as belief in an apostolic succession, the real presence in the Eucharist, the sacrificial interpretation of the Mass, and the ransom theory of redemption. But Wills does not expect the priesthood to fade entirely away. He just reminds us that Christianity did without it in the time of Peter and Paul with notable success. (lilithcat)… (more)

Please join us as Garry Wills discusses his latest book, Font of Life: Ambrose, Augustine, and the Mystery of Baptism.

About Font of Life:

No two men were more influential in the early Church than Ambrose, the powerful Bishop of Milan, and Augustine, the philosopher from provincial Africa who would write The Confessions and The City of God. Different in background, they were also extraordinarily different in personality. In Font of Life, Garry Wills explores the remarkable moment when their lives intersected at one of the most important, yet rarely visited, sites in the Christian world.

Location: Street: 57th Street Books Additional: 1301 E. 57th Street City: Chicago, Province: Illinois Postal Code: 60637 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Garry Wills

Distinguished scholar Garry Wills ("Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Observer"), Professor of History Emeritus, Northwestern University, presents "Shakespeare & Verdi: Men of the Theater," the third lecture in a series called "Rome and Rhetoric: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar." This program is a collaboration with The Anthony Hecht Lectures in the Humanities at Bard College and part of the series. The exhibition "The Changing Face of William Shakespeare" will be open at 5:30 p.m. especially for program attendees. Tickets are $10-15. (palimpsestuous)… (more)

Garry Wills

Presented as part of the SEATTLE ART MUSEUM's "Pivotal Perspectives: Conversations on Art and Culture" series. In conjunction with SAM's special exhibition, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery," eminent historian Garry Wills makes this welcome Seattle visit. An astute historian of both secular and nonsecular U.S. (and Christian) history, among the noteworthy works of his on the secular side are Inventing America, Explaining America, and Lincoln at Gettysburg. Tickets ($4 SAM members/$8 adults/$6 students & seniors) are available at the SAM Ticketing Desk or by phone at (206) 654-3121. The Seattle Art Museum is located at 1300 First Avenue. For more information, please see www.seattleartmuseum.org. (KingRat)… (more)

GARY WILLS discusses Head and Heart: American Christianities.; ALEKSANDAR HEMON discusses Lazarus Project.

(NOTE: Tickets $15.00 EA / FREE for Educators & Students) DESCRIPTION:This annual prize, awarded separately for fiction and nonfiction, recognizes recently published works “embodying the spirit of the nation’s heartland.” The prizes are part of the Chicago Tribune’s ongoing dedication to reading, writing, and ideas.

Fiction: The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
After two stunning story collections, the Sarajevo-born, Chicago-based MacArthur Fellow has produced a novel that intertwines historical atmosphere with hilarious (if heartbreaking) contemporary storytelling. In Chicago, 1908, 19-year-old Lazarus Averbuch, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe, is murdered by the chief of Chicago police. In the present day, a young Chicago writer, Brik— also from Eastern Europe—becomes obsessed with Lazarus’s story: what really happened, and why? An original and entertaining work, The Lazarus Project confirms Hemon’s reputation as one of the most dynamic voices of our time.

Nonfiction: Head and Heart and What the Gospels Meant by Garry Wills
Wills, a respected writer on religion and adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University, published two stunning books in the past year; both deserve Heartland Prize recognition. Head and Heart is a highly readable history of Christianity’s place in the American experience. In What the Gospels Meant, Wills mines the goals, methods, and styles of the evangelists and considers their impact on the gospels’ message.

All proceeds will benefit the Chicago Tribune Holiday Campaign, a campaign of Chicago Tribune Charities, a McCormick Foundation Fund. (bookjones)… (more)