Adam Gopnik and VF at the British Academy

26/05/2022, 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

The renowned writer and journalist, Adam Gopnik, will be giving a lecture, followed by a drinks reception, at the British Academy in London on Thursday 26 May, 2022 to celebrate the publication of the Complete works of Voltaire.

The lecture title is ‘Once, a Philosopher: Voltaire the Liberal’ and starts at 5pm.

Attendance is free but please RSVP to birgit.mikus@voltaire.ox.ac.uk.

A staff writer for the New Yorker since 1986, Adam Gopnik was born in Philadelphia and raised in Montreal. He received his BA. in Art History from McGill University, before completing his graduate work at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. His first essay in The New Yorker, “Quattrocento Baseball”  appeared in May of 1986.

In addition to his work as a writer, Adam has been an active lecturer.  He has given lectures and readings in almost every major American city, and some smaller ones, too, from Jackson, Mississippi to Seattle, Washington. In addition to the Massey series, his more formal and extended lectures have included the New York Public Library/Oxford University Press lectures in New York; the Phillips Lecture in Washington and the Whitney Lecture in New York, and the Shapiro Lectures at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.  In 2006, he also hosted and presented an hour-long film about New York, “Lighting Up New York,” for the BBC in London.

He has won the National Magazine Award for Essays and for Criticism three times, as well as the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting, and the Canadian National Magazine Award Gold Medal for arts writing. His work has been anthologized many times, in “Best American Essays”, “Best American Travel Writing,” “Best American Sports Writing,” “Best American Food Writing,” and “Best American Spiritual Writing.” In March of 2013, Gopnik was awarded the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Republic. Two months later, he received an honoris causa from McGill University. He lives in New York with his wife, filmmaker Martha Parker, and their two children, Luke Auden and Olivia Esme Claire.