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James Gleick — The Telephone: A New History - with Jennifer Ouellette — at Conn Ave
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About This Event
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell spoke the words “Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you” into a contraption he called the telephone, and for the first time a voice was carried along a wire. This feat has long been celebrated as a triumph of individual ingenuity and vision. In fact, the invention was a contest replete with bribery, fraud, and speculation, and no one, not even its inventors, realized what it was good for or how ubiquitous it would become.Over the next century, the phone would prove less an invention than a continuous revolution. It would teach us new words (starting with the once-unfamiliar “hello” and “goodbye”) and a new way to speak, with instant reaction, instant feeling, instant possibilities. It would create an all-female profession—the operator—that by 1920 outnumbered nurses and waitresses put together. It would enable the skyscraper, the world war, the assembly line, and the multinational corporation. And the Bell System would become the largest monopoly in history: the sole owner of every phone in America. The science that Bell Labs created around the telephone, from pulsing wires to glowing vacuum tubes to the electronic transistor, would usher in the Information Age.Along the way, the telephone changed human nature. It augmented our bodies, a prosthetic extension of mouth and ear. It gave us the party line, the busy signal, dial tones, wiretapping, the late-night D.J., and the booty call. It magnified the possibilities of government, of business, of friendship, of love.For a while, the revolution was so successful that it made telephones themselves seem natural, eternal. They settled into the background, on bedside tables, desks, and kitchen walls; in subways and on corners; in novels, movies, songs, and on TV. No one could remember life without them.Today we are more dependent than ever on little objects called phones, although their ability to make “telephone calls” is incidental. The phone book and the phone booth may be vanishing from memory, but as James Gleick shows, the telephone’s legacy is deeply ingrained—in our networks and our sophistication about networks, in the primacy of information, in the need for connection. Gleick is celebrated for his uncanny ability to make complex ideas vivid, understandable, and concrete. In The Telephone: A New History, he gives us a revelation: a story of technological breakthroughs that is also a universal history of intimate life.James Gleick is a historian and biographer whose books include The Information, winner of the Royal Society and PEN/America science-writing prizes, and Chaos, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist. They have been translated into thirty languages. He lives in New York and London.Gleick will be in conversation with Jennifer Ouellette, a senior reporter at Ars Technica, with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. She has been writing professionally about physics and related topics for more than two decades, and was the founding director of the National Academy of Sciences’ Science and Entertainment Exchange from 2008-2010.This event is free with first come, first serve seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.
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Saira Mohamed — What a Country Owes Its Soldiers - with Darin Johnson — at Conn Ave
A clarion call to recognize soldiers' rights, arguing that volunteering to fight and die for one's country does not mean consenting to exploitation in the process.American leaders endlessly profess their admiration for military service members. But these effusive declarations hardly comport with reality. Soldiers receive shoddy equipment and inadequate medical care; they are ordered to commit crimes and deployed to illegal wars. Such treatment is rarely recognized for what it is: a violation of the duty owed to soldiers by their government. When American service members are injured or killed during training, for example, they and their families are barred from suing the military for negligence or malfeasance. And when the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib came to light, the subsequent proceedings focused just on low-ranking perpetrators. The psychological harm done to the soldiers themselves by commanders who ordered them to commit torture in the first place went unacknowledged.Examining statutes, treaties, court cases, and congressional hearings, Saira Mohamed shows how the law encourages the treatment of soldiers as mere instruments, to be used and abused however the government wishes. She also unearths overlooked laws that point in the other direction, suggesting the possibility of robust protections for service members. Paradoxically, these get ignored in part because of the popular adulation of the military--the vision of service members as heroes who selflessly endure unlimited sacrifice. The all-volunteer nature of the force also promotes the misguided notion that soldiers have willingly accepted whatever mistreatment they might endure.What a Country Owes Its Soldiers shows how laws and mindsets can change, enabling genuine respect for soldiers' humanity. Acknowledging their rights can transform our understanding of those who fight America's wars, and of American warmaking itself.Saira Mohamed is Agnes Roddy Robb Chair in Jurisprudence, Ethics, and Social Responsibility and Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.Mohamed will be joined in conversation with Darin Johnson, who has served in the Pentagon, State Department, and White House. He is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School. A professor of law at Howard University, he is a scholar and commentator on international law, national security, foreign affairs, and human rights. He is the author of Digital Coup: The Conspiracy to Thwart Global Democracy (Broadleaf Books 2026). He lives in Washington, DC.This event is free with first come, first serve seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.
D.C. Frost — A Shadow of Jaguars (Detective DJ Arias Mystery #2) / Melanie S. Hatter — All the Pain We Endure - with Saul Gonzalez — at Conn Ave
A Shadow of JaguarsA Shadow of Jaguars by D.C. Frost is a gripping cross-border noir thriller that follows Detective DJ Arias as he navigates murder, Hollywood intrigue, and immigrant struggles across Mexico City and Los Angeles, blending fast-paced suspense and richly drawn characters.In Mexico City for a family funeral, Detective DJ Arias encounters a group of Robin Hood-style thieves who call themselves the Jaguars. Their activities reach across the border into Los Angeles with a Hollywood murder that entangles LA's elite and the nannies, housekeepers, and gardeners who serve them, and threatens DJ's own loved ones. A sequel to the mystery A Punishing Breed, A Shadow of Jaguars finds DJ and partner Bobby Talbot struggling to untangle a murder where Hollywood, wealthy powerbrokers, and an immigrant population struggle to coexist and survive. Throughout it all, his faithful dog Evidence is by his side.-All the Pain We EndureSet in Washington, D.C., All the Pain We Endure follows Raebelle “Rae” Johnson, a biracial massage therapist with an extraordinary ability to glimpse the pain carried by others—but who struggles to confront her own. Haunted by a volatile relationship with her father, Rae finds herself drawn to Kai, a martial artist with his own troubled past. As family tensions and buried wounds resurface, Rae must confront the ways trauma travels across generations and decide whether the pain she has inherited will define her future. Blending psychological realism with an imaginative exploration of empathy, Hatter's novel asks how we break cycles of suffering without losing our capacity for love and connection.-D.C. Frost is a second-generation Angeleno whose debut novel, A Punishing Breed (2024), was reviewed by The New York Times. She has also published several literary short stories in journals including Westwind, UCLA's literary magazine. Before turning to writing full-time, DC had a long career in nonprofit fundraising. She draws inspiration from Southern California's rich blend of class, culture, and natural beauty. Frost lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a pack of rescue dogs.Melanie S. Hatter is the author of Malawi’s Sisters, which was selected by Edwidge Danticat as the winner of the inaugural Kimbilio National Fiction Prize and published by Four Way Books in 2019. Her debut novel, The Color of My Soul, won the 2011 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize, and Let No One Weep for Me, Stories of Love and Loss was released in 2015. Melanie was a licensed massage therapist for fourteen years and currently serves on the Development team at My Sister’s Place, the first domestic violence shelter in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the writing faculty of New Directions in Writing training program and serves on the board of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House. When she’s not working, she enjoys spending time in nature with her dog, Roo.Frost and Hatter will be in conversation with Saul Gonzalez, a veteran television, radio, podcast host, reporter and producer covering local, national and international topics. Winner of multiple Emmy awards, RTNA Golden Mikes, and other journalism honors. Saul was the Los Angeles Radio Reporter of the Year two years in a row by the Los Angeles Press Club.This event is free with first come, first serve seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.
Judith Bowles — They Spoke of the River - with David Keplinger — at Conn Ave
Drawing from narrative traditions and influences such as Mary Oliver and James Wright—two beloved poets of Ohio—as well as the ghazals of Rumi and the plain-spoken wisdom of Robert Frost and William Stafford, poet Judith Bowles traces back the voices and oral histories of her Ohio roots, following the river of their words. Her third collection of poetry, They Spoke of the River is less memoir-in-verse than reliquary of the American experience, one which uses history, childhood, marriage, and elegy as rite and container. In the manner of Thornton Wilder’s stage manager in Our Town, here the past, present, and future fold over each other, as Bowles offers tough attention, all culminating in a volume that feels a bit like myth, a bit like news, and a bit like the dream of a life, experienced by one Ohioan, whose whole vocation has been this act of listening.Judith Bowles is the author of two earlier collections of poetry, The Gatherer (2014) and Unlocatable Source (2019). She has been a resident at Bloedel Reserve, Breadloaf, and the Kenyon Summer Writers Retreat, and she earned her MFA in Creative Writing from American University in 1986, studying under poet Myra Sklarew and novelist Kermit Moyer, later teaching creative writing in the department of English. From 1978 until 1985 Bowles was the poetry program director of the then Iona House, producing three anthologies featuring the work of participants. Her poetry has appeared in Gargoyle, Innisfree Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, Delmarva Review, and other journals.Bowles will be in conversation with David Keplinger, poet, translator, professor, and certified teacher of mindfulness.David is the author of Ice (Milkweed Editions, 2023) and seven other collections of poetry, including The World to Come (Conduit Books, 2021), winner of the 2020 Minds on Fire Prize and Another City (Milkweed Editions, 2018), which was awarded the 2019 UNT Rilke Prize. He has taught at American University in Washington, D.C. since 2007.This event is free with first come, first serve seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.