Signature Event Archive

Search the Signature Event Archive to discover past Library events. Watch videos, hear speaker interviews, and listen to audio recordings of previous presentations. Search by keyword (event title, subject, or presenter name), location or by date range.
Signature Event Video Video Signature Event Audio Audio Signature Event Interview Interviews
E.g., 2019/06/24
E.g., 2019/06/24

In the Attempt Is the Success: A Poet's Way of Life

“To me,” Molly Peacock says, “a sonnet makes impossible emotions possible.” The revered poet, biographer, essayist, and short fiction writer, a former president of the Poetry Society of America, discusses and reads from her poetry and talks about the motivation she has drawn throughout her life from her motto: “In the attempt is the success.”
 
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Revered poet, biographer, essayist, and short fiction writer Molly Peacock discusses and reads from her poetry and talks about the motivation she has drawn throughout life from her motto: “In the attempt is the success.” The former president of the Poetry Society of America conducts a poetry workshop, Scare the Sonnet Into Working for You, earlier in the day.
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Program: 
6:30 pm
Plaza Branch
Event Audio

Molly Peacock Poetry Workshop: Scare the Sonnet Into Working for You

Revered poet Molly Peacock conducts a morning poetry workshop in the Plaza Branch’s lower-level Cohen Center. The session, Scare the Sonnet Into Working for You, is open to writers of all levels. RSVPs are encouraged.
 
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Revered poet Molly Peacock conducts a morning poetry workshop in the Plaza Branch’s lower-level Cohen Center. The session, Scare the Sonnet Into Working for You, is open to writers of all levels. RSVPs are encouraged.
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Program: 
10:30 am to 12:00 pm
Plaza Branch

Eisenhower: Becoming the Leader of the Free World

Louis Galambos, a Johns Hopkins University historian who edited the papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, discusses his new book on Ike, exploring shifts in his identity and reputation over his lifetime and how our 34th president developed his distinctive leadership skills.
 
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Louis Galambos, a Johns Hopkins University historian who edited the papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, discusses his new book on Ike, exploring shifts in his identity and reputation over his lifetime and how our 34th president developed his distinctive leadership skills.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Reception: 
6 pm
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library
Event Audio

Becoming American: Family and Community

The Library continues its examination of immigration in America with a screening of the film My American Girls: A Dominican Story and discussion of the enormous role of family and community in immigrants’ adaptation to American life.

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The Library continues its examination of immigration in America with a screening of the film My American Girls: A Dominican Story and discussion of the enormous role of family and community in immigrants’ adaptation to American life. UMKC historian Sandra Enriquez leads the t discussion.
Monday, April 22, 2019
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library

An Evening With Vartan Gregorian

Vartan Gregorian’s considerable legacy as a scholar and humanitarian stretches from his presidencies of the New York Public Library, Brown University, and philanthropic Carnegie Corporation to his founding and oversight (with actor George Clooney, among others) of the international Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity.

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Carnegie Corporation President and noted library champion Vartan Gregorian helps celebrate the 15th anniversary of the downtown Central Library, joining a public conversation on the continued indispensability of public libraries, the importance of liberal arts, and his work (alongside actor George Clooney and others) with the international Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Reception: 
6 pm
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library
Event Videos

Paired Power: Marshall and Eisenhower

Of all the Americans he knew, Dwight Eisenhower wrote in 1954, “George Marshall possessed more of the qualities of greatness than has any other.”

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Military historian David W. Mills of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College examines the long and fruitful association of Dwight Eisenhower and U.S. Army chief of staff (and future secretary of state) John Marshall, who first recognized Ike’s talent and promoted him.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Reception: 
6 pm
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library

A Conversation With Tom Barbash

Writers at Work

With an award-winning novel, best-selling collection of short stories, and a nonfiction best-seller (On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11: A Story of Loss and Renewal), Tom Barbash knows no literary bounds.

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Accomplished author Tom Barbash joins UMKC’s Whitney Terrell in a Writers at Work discussion of Barbash’s work – including his latest novel, The Dakota Winters. It revolves around the iconic New York City apartment building, the Dakota, that was home to John Lennon and a host of other luminaries.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library
Event Audio

5th District Voyage of Artistic Discovery

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II and his wife Dianne Cleaver honor local high school artists at the annual Missouri 5th Congressional District student art exhibit and celebration.

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U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II and his wife, Dianne Cleaver, recognize local high school artists amid an exhibit of their works at the Central Library, part of the nationwide Congressional Art Competition sponsored by the Congressional Institute.
Saturday, April 13, 2019
Reception: 
1:30 pm
Program: 
2:00 pm
Central Library

Women's Rights, Family Values, and the Polarization of American Politics

The roots of today’s political fractiousness lie, in part, in a four-day gathering in Houston more than 40 years ago.
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University of South Carolina historian Marjorie Spruill looks back at an episode – the 1977 National Women’s Conference – that activist Gloria Steinem said “may take the prize as the most important event nobody knows about.” Feminists and conservative women’s activists battled over abortion, gay rights, and other issues, presaging today’s political fractiousness.
Thursday, April 11, 2019
Program: 
6:30 pm
Plaza Branch
Event Audio

The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age

In its day, there may have been no more stimulating place than London’s Turk’s Head Tavern on a Friday night. There in the mid- to late 18th century, artist Joshua Reynolds and writer Samuel Johnson gathered a select group of intellectual luminaries to dine, drink, and discuss into the early hours.

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In a discussion of his new book, Harvard University’s Leo Damrosch takes us inside the famous Friday night gatherings at London’s Turk’s Head Tavern, where artist Joshua Reynolds, biographer James Boswell, and a select group of other 18th-century intellectuals gathered to dine, drink, and discuss into the early hours.
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library
Event Audio

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