Robert Darnton, the director of the Harvard University Library and historian of books and print culture will speak at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10. His lecture, titled Old Books and e-books, will take place in the Friends of the USC Libraries Lecture Hall on the second floor of Doheny Library. Presented by the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute and the USC Libraries, the event is part of the EMSI's distinguished lecture series.
Known for his scholarship on Enlightenment France, Darnton is also a publishing and new media entrepreneur and the author or editor of more than 20 books. Published in 1970, The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopedie helped to define the history of print culture as a field of inquiry. His most popular book, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (1984), has been translated into 16 languages and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. During his visit to USC, Darnton will also give a master class on his 1996 book about the role of banned books in nurturing a culture of dissent, The Forbidden Best Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France.