FOL University Features the Jazz Age, and the Dynamism of English

FOL University, the Friends of the Library’s lecture program, returns Sunday, November 5 at 1:30 p.m. with two renowned scholars. Dr. Charles A. Riley II, newly named director of the Nassau County Museum of Art, will lecture on Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age, and Dr. John McWhorter, best-selling author, linguist and Columbia University professor, will speak on his most recent book, Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still.

Dr. Riley at 1:30 p.m. will discuss how the Jazz Age continues to weave its fascinating spell with stories of the wild times and masterpieces of a tightly connected group of geniuses and artists (Picasso, Leger, Le Corbusier, Chanel, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Gershwin, and Porter to name a few). The emphasis will be on how F. Scott Fitzgerald turned the manuscript he had been working on here on Long Island into the masterpiece we know as The Great Gatsby.

Dr. Riley is the author of two books on the Jazz Age, the newly published Free as Gods: How the Jazz Age Reinvented Modernism and The Jazz Age in France.

The Dynamism of English

Following a brief refreshment break, at 3 p.m. Dr. John McWhorter will discuss Words on the Move, in which he encourages us to marvel at the dynamism and resilience of the English language. Drawing examples from everyday life and employing a generous helping of humor, he shows that shifts are common to all languages, and that we should embrace these changes, not condemn them.

Dr. John McWhorter is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia and the author of The Language Hoax, The Power of Babel, and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.

“We are so pleased to welcome these two accomplished scholars discussing such culturally important and interesting topics,” said Ellen Zimmerman, vice president of the Friends and co-chair of FOL University. For more information on FOL events see www.pwpl.org/fol/ or email fol@pwpl.org.