My Books

-- Love and language, happiness and sorrow, on the Great Blasket Island.
-- A much-loved natural material and its man-made imitators.
-- A popular history of tourism through the lens of Nice, France
-- The man who taught us not to stop and smell the roses
-- A rags to intellectual riches story of genius incarnate.
-- Masters and apprentices among elite scientists

Talks

Upcoming and Recent


Readings, signings, and discussions, in 2013, for On an Irish Island

February 10: Ben McNally Books, Authors Brunch
Toronto, Ontario

February 23: New Mercury Reading Series
Baltimore, MD

April 8: Pages Books
Calgary, Alberta


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November 14, 2012: Public lecture, International Education Week, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL

"Foreign Places, Distant Times: Adventures in the Fact Trade"


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Readings, signings, and discussions, in 2012, for On an Irish Island:

February 8, Harvard Bookstore, Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 9, Odyssey Books, South Hadley, Massachusetts
February 10, Book Court , Brooklyn
February 15, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore
March 1, Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA
March 14, Octavia Books, New Orleans
March 17, Politics & Prose, Washington, Washington, D.C.
March 22, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
March 27, Barnes & Noble, Baltimore
March 28, Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia
March 30, Labyrinth Bookstore, Princeton, NJ
June 13, Village Learning Place, Baltimore


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February 15, 2012, American Conference for Irish Studies, New Orleans

"A French Woman on an Irish Island: Marie-Louise Sjoestedt on the Great Blasket"


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December 23, 2011, Mumbai, "Ramanujan as Everyman," Homi Babha Auditorium, Tata Institute for Fundamental Research

December 26, 2011, Chennai: "Ramanujan as Everyman"

December 29-30, 2011, Bangalore: science writing workshop, Indian Academy of Sciences

December 30, 2011, Bangalore: "Ramanujan as Everyman"

January 2, 2012, Hyderabad: "Ramanujan as Everyman," C.V. Raman Auditorium, University of Hyderabad

January 4, 2012, New Delhi: "Ramanujan as Everyman," University of Delhi


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May 15, 2010, The Compleat Biographer, national conference of Biographers International Organization, University of Massachusetts Boston

Panel on "The Proposal"



April 23, 2010, Middlebury College, mathematics colloquium

"Infinity + 20"



April 9, 2010, keynote address, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education/​Mathematics annual conference, West Chester University, West Chester, PA

"Infinity + 20"



October 10, 2009, John Millington Synge conference, The Blascaod Mor Commemoration 2009, Blasket Centre, Dun Chaoin, Co. Kerry, Ireland

"Visitors to the Blaskets and Their Influence"


October 29, 2007, O.M. Stewart Colloquium, Department of Physics, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

"Making Hard Work Easy: Writing About Science and Other Difficult Things"


October 28, 2007, Campus Writing Program, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

Brown Bag discussion, "Writing to Learn, Learning to Write"


October 28, 2007, Cultural Association of India, 50th Anniversary Celebration, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

"Infinity + 20": Almost two decades after beginning work on The Man Who Knew Infinity, I tell of Ramanujan's increasing presence in the cultural and scientific life of the West.


September 29, 2007, Leather Industries of America, Annual Members Meeting, Jacksonville, FL

On Faux Real


September 25, 2007, MIT Writers Series, Cambridge, MA

On Faux Real


September 20, 2007, Fall Lecture Series, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE

On Faux Real


June 1, 2007, Business History Conference, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland

"All Shortcomings Have Been Eliminated," talk given for a panel, "Who Needs the Real Thing?" with Regina Lee Blaszczyk, Miriam Levin, and David Hounshell


April 20, 2007, American Society of Journalists and Authors conference, New York

Moderated panel, "Making Hard Work Easy: Writing About Science and Other Difficult Things," with Alan Burdick, Rebecca Skloot, and Jonathan Weiner

Past Talks


Over the years I've lectured on writing, and on subjects of my writing, in numerous settings, including:

Commonwealth Club, San Francisco; Smithsonian Associates, Washington, D.C.; National Institutes of Health; Goddard Space Flight Center; Western Maryland College; Council for the Advancement and Support of Education; Washington, D.C. Public Library; Goucher College; American Chemical Society; National Coalition of Independent Scholars; Marine Biological Laboratory; Center for the Advancement of Academically Talented Youth; Johns Hopkins Hospital; American Mathematical Society; Herbert Quandt Stiftung, Washington, D.C.; Society for the History of Technology; Philosophical Society of Washington

See Old News, too