Past events

2021

April

7 Wednesday
- 7PM to 8PMAn Evening with Rachel Cohen Goucher College Library, 7 Eastern / 6 Central

3 Saturday
- 6PM to 7:30PMValeria Luiselli reading and conversation with Rachel Cohen, 6 pm central Literary Arts Lab Festival, University of Chicago

2020

December

15 Tuesday
- 6PM to 7PMPride and Prejudice, Three Tuesdays at the 92nd Street Y, 6 Central / 7 Eastern 92nd Street Y
  
  Please come and read Pride and Prejudice with me at the 92nd Street Y on three Tuesdays this December. The events support the 92nd Street Y, which graciously offers my former students a $20 discount off the regular ticket price by using the code Bennet.
  
  Course description and ticket purchase here:
  
  https://www.92y.org/class/reading-austen-s-pride-and-prejudice
  
  Course Description:
  
  When Jane Austen got the first copies of Pride and Prejudice, she wrote to her sister “I have got my own darling Child from London.”
  It was January of 1813, a cold season and the Napoleonic Wars were raging. The arrival of Elizabeth Bennet was cheering indeed, “I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” Austen had worked very hard to achieve the effervescent quickness of the book, and she had learned a lot as she wrote and rewrote. The book itself is also about reading, learning to judge characters, letting an internal voice come through in the world, revising, walking, and reading again, all very much of the moment. In the dark days of December, please join me in discovering, or discovering again, the complex landscape of Pride & Prejudice, Austen’s delightful character, and the wonderful relationships this author and character have to time.
  Class meets Tuesdays, December 1, 8, 15.
  Copies of Pride and Prejudice, as well as Cohen’s Austen Year: A Memoir in Five Novels, can be purchased from bookshop.org.

8 Tuesday
- 6PM to 7PMPride and Prejudice, Three Tuesdays at the 92nd Street Y, 6 Central / 7 Eastern 92nd Street Y
  
  Please come and read Pride and Prejudice with me at the 92nd Street Y on three Tuesdays this December. The events support the 92nd Street Y, which graciously offers my former students a $20 discount off the regular ticket price by using the code Bennet.
  
  Course description and ticket purchase here:
  
  https://www.92y.org/class/reading-austen-s-pride-and-prejudice
  
  Course Description:
  
  When Jane Austen got the first copies of Pride and Prejudice, she wrote to her sister “I have got my own darling Child from London.”
  It was January of 1813, a cold season and the Napoleonic Wars were raging. The arrival of Elizabeth Bennet was cheering indeed, “I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” Austen had worked very hard to achieve the effervescent quickness of the book, and she had learned a lot as she wrote and rewrote. The book itself is also about reading, learning to judge characters, letting an internal voice come through in the world, revising, walking, and reading again, all very much of the moment. In the dark days of December, please join me in discovering, or discovering again, the complex landscape of Pride & Prejudice, Austen’s delightful character, and the wonderful relationships this author and character have to time.
  Class meets Tuesdays, December 1, 8, 15.
  Copies of Pride and Prejudice, as well as Cohen’s Austen Year: A Memoir in Five Novels, can be purchased from bookshop.org.

1 Tuesday
- 6PM to 7PMPride and Prejudice, Three Tuesdays at the 92nd Street Y, 6 Central / 7 Eastern 92nd Street Y
  
  Please come and read Pride and Prejudice with me at the 92nd Street Y on three Tuesdays this December. The events support the 92nd Street Y, which graciously offers my former students a $20 discount off the regular ticket price by using the code Bennet.
  
  Course description and ticket purchase here:
  
  https://www.92y.org/class/reading-austen-s-pride-and-prejudice
  
  Course Description:
  
  When Jane Austen got the first copies of Pride and Prejudice, she wrote to her sister “I have got my own darling Child from London.”
  It was January of 1813, a cold season and the Napoleonic Wars were raging. The arrival of Elizabeth Bennet was cheering indeed, “I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” Austen had worked very hard to achieve the effervescent quickness of the book, and she had learned a lot as she wrote and rewrote. The book itself is also about reading, learning to judge characters, letting an internal voice come through in the world, revising, walking, and reading again, all very much of the moment. In the dark days of December, please join me in discovering, or discovering again, the complex landscape of Pride & Prejudice, Austen’s delightful character, and the wonderful relationships this author and character have to time.
  Class meets Tuesdays, December 1, 8, 15.
  Copies of Pride and Prejudice, as well as Cohen’s Austen Year: A Memoir in Five Novels, can be purchased from bookshop.org.

November

19 Thursday
- 5PM to 7PMNov. 19th, 6 Eastern / 5 Central, Living as Readers, Harvard Conversation with Katharine Smyth, Deidre Lynch,
  
  Please join me for a conversation I'm greatly looking forward to on Living as Readers at virtual Harvard University with Katharine Smyth (All The Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf) and Deidre Lynch (Loving Literature: A Cultural History).

October

19 Monday
- 2:30PM to 3:30PMVirtual Public Lecture Reading Through Trouble: A Changing Experience of Jane Austen, Oct 19th, 2:30 Central Time University of Tennessee Humanities Center
  
  Please join me for a virtual presentation, the Ninth Annual Distinguished Lecture Series at the University of Tennessee's Humanities Center.
  
  Reading Through Trouble: A changing experience of Jane Austen and her work
  
  Monday October 19th, 2020
  
  2:30 PM Central / 3:30 Eastern
  
  Zoom Webinar
  
  To Register: https://tennessee.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wDyDMLCbQLKCifJ5AGQ00w

5 Monday
- noon to 1PMSlow Looking and Monet Virtual Art Institute of Chicago (Central Time)
  
  Bring your notebook and come with me (virtually!) to look at the wonderful Monet show at the Art Institute of Chicago. I'll be walking viewers through the beautiful and tranquil last room of Monet in Chicago, which has seven water lily paintings in it. We'll take our time, looking slowly ourselves and thinking about Monet's slow looking, and then we'll do a writing exercise using details to look carefully up close. Whether you can go to the show in person or not, you'll feel you had an hour's quiet reflection in the presence of one of the show's great achievements. The event is free, but registration is required. See link below. Hope to see you there.