Vermeer in Bosnia: A Conversation with Lawrence Weschler

Introduced by Rebecca Solnit.

A conversation with American art historian and writer Lawrence Weschler, director of the New York University Institute for the Humanities, author of The Looking Glass, and former long time writer for The New Yorker.

In a world wracked by war and mayhem, Vermeer retreated into a single light-filled room and, for all intents and purposes, invented a notion of peace grounded in the autonomous free agency of his fellow human beings. The terror, though, is conspicuously being held at bay -- in fact, argues Weschler, that is what those paintings are all about. Much as we'd like to believe so, however, artists have not always, like Vermeer, been on the side of the angels -- and Weschler will also invoke obverse instances.

Lawrence Weschler, the director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, was for twenty years a staff writer for the New Yorker. His dozen books include Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder and now Vermeer in Bosnia.

Sponsored by The Graduate School of Journalism and The Townsend Center.

This event took place on September 29, 2004 in Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley.