Art & Social Transformation

New York University Professor Larry Wolff joins us to discuss Wagner’s convictions of “Art and Social Transformation.” Quite beyond Wagner’s revolutionary fervor of 1848-49, he had a deep conviction that art, by its very nature, had the power to clarify, incite, and advance our society.

An in-person talk, followed by a social hour with refreshments, and livestreamed (viewable up to 36 hours from the start of the program). WSNY Members will receive livestream link automatically by e-mail; no need to register in advance.

About the speaker: Larry Wolff is the Julius Silver Professor of History at New York University. He received his A.B. from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Stanford University. At NYU he has previously served as Executive Director of the Remarque Institute and as Co-Director of  NYU Florence at Villa La Pietra. His newest book is The Shadow of the Empress:  Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy (2023).  He is also the author of Woodrow Wilson and the Reimagining of Eastern Europe (2020) and Disunion within the Union: The Uniate Church and the Partitions of Poland (2019), The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to  the Age of Napoleon (2016), Paolina’s Innocence: Child Abuse in Casanova’s Venice (2012), The Idea of Galicia:  History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture (2010),  Venice and the Slavs:  The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment (2001),  Inventing Eastern Europe:  The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (1994), The Vatican and Poland in the Age of the Partitions (1988), and Postcards from the End of the World:  Child Abuse in Freud’s Vienna (1988). He writes frequently about opera, publishing essays and reviews in the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Hudson Review. He has received Fulbright, American Council of Learned Societies, and Guggenheim fellowships, and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Accessibility: The Opera America building has ground-level entry with elevators to the 7th floor.  Wheelchair accessible; modular seating will be arranged to accommodate wheelchairs and walkers. Handicap-accessible restrooms are available on the same floor. The venue is located on the west side of 7th Avenue between 28th-29th Streets, closer to 29th Street. Sidewalk curb cuts at the 29th Street corner are uneven; for easier access and tactile paving enter from the 28th Street corner (at the downtown #1 subway station).