On Oct. 25, just two weeks before the election that will determine the next occupant of the White House, four of the country’s preeminent political journalists will convene for a panel discussion of how we got to our current political crossroads.
The panelists are also biographers of recent American presidents, and will provide what has been mostly missing from today’s political commentary: historical perspective.
The speakers include:
- David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker and author of a biography of Barack Obama
- Jacob Weisberg, chairman and editor-in-chief of Slate and author of a biography of Ronald Reagan
- David Maraniss, associate editor at The Washington Post and author of a biography of Bill Clinton
- Jonathan Alter, a contributing correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, who is writing a biography of Jimmy Carter
Legendary journalist Lesley Stahl, correspondent for CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” will moderate the event.
“It’s a panel uniquely qualified to make sense of fast-moving developments while taking the long view,” says Philip Kunhardt, director of the Center for the Study of Transformative Lives at New York University.
James Atlas of the New York University Biography Seminar adds, “As we approach the most rancorous presidential election in the memory of most Americans, the din of public debate grows ever louder. The nation faces not only a choice between candidates; it faces a referendum on the future of our democracy.”
The event – “The Making of the Presidents: The Biographers of Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Obama on the Election of 2016” – will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 25 at 6:30 p.m. at NYU’s Vanderbilt Hall, Greenberg Lounge (40 Washington Square South).
The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. An RSVP is required through the event’s website. For more information, please email transformative.lives@nyu.edu or call 212.998.4291.
Reporters interested in attending must RSVP to James Devitt at 212.998.6808 or james.devitt@nyu.edu.
The event is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Transformative Lives in conjunction with the New York University Biography Seminar.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
The Center for the Study of Transformative Lives at New York University fosters research, teaching, and education centering on the lives of exemplary individuals whose dedication, genius, and moral vision helped shape the course of human events. For more, go to: http://www.transformativelives.org/.
The New York University Biography Seminar was founded in the1970s by Aileen Ward, the highly acclaimed biographer of John Keats. From its origin it has been a distinguished location for academic and career biographers to meet and discuss issues and projects in biography.
