Ramon and Judith Sender and the Noe Valley Ministry,
our co-sponsors, invite you to a reading by:
Authors Maurice Bassan and Manfred Wolf
FREE ADMISSION
Maurice Bassan has taught for over 50 years at San Francisco State
University and the Fromm Institute. His "Twice-Told Poems" (2008) are lively
modern prose versions of famous poems by Chaucer, Spenser, Blake and Whitman--
and two dozen more.
Born and raised in the Bronx, Professor Bassan began his academic
career at New York University. He taught his first English class over fifty years
ago while studying for his doctorate at UC Berkeley. After teaching at the
University of Arizona and at the University of North Carolina, he returned to
the Bay Area with his family in 1963 to take up a professorship at San
Francisco State University where he is now Professor Emeritus of English. He
has taught a great variety of courses in British and American literature
specializing in the American Transcendentalists and in modern drama. As a
Fulbright Professor he also taught for a year at the University of Valladolid in
Spain. His books include Hawthorne’s Son: The Life and Literary Career of
Julian Hawthorne, Haight Ashbury Sketches (2003). and his most recent Twice-Told Poems (2008).
Manfred Wolf will read from his most recent book, Almost a Foreign Country, a
collection of columns, articles and aphorisms, which answer questions such as
Is it time to negotiate with bin Laden? Is lying about sex ever -- or perhaps often -- a good idea?
To what extent do religion and culture shape the ways in which we communicate? What is the
mysterious syndrome called CHOIS, with which many long-time pessimists suddenly find
themselves diagnosed?
In the grand tradition of Harry Golden, Adam Gopnik, and other opinionated observers of modern
culture, Professor Wolf brings his unique perspective to bear on a broad range of aspects
characterizing our current reality and the way we live now. From love and the relationships between
men and women to time and aging, from current political and social issues to the ever-changing
face of language, the author tackles them all, often combining humor with a sharp, somber
perception of the issues that concern us all. His point of view is always unflinching, original, and unapologetic.
Manfred Wolf's fascinating life story makes him uniquely qualified to comment on both domestic and foreign
affairs. Reared in the Netherlands, Wolf, along with his family, fled Europe in a daring escape from
encroaching Nazi forces, and spent his childhood and adolescence on the Caribbean island of Curacao
in the West Indies. Arriving in the U.S. at the age of seventeen, he went on to graduate from Brandeis
University and to teach at such prestigious institutions as Berkeley and San Francisco State University.
He is a translator and freelance writer whose work has appeared in numerous European and American
publications. He is also a world traveler who has spent time in several very different cultures, always returning
to his long-time residence inthe Bay Area, where he .is a prominent member of the lterary community and a l
long-time contributor to many international, national and local publications.
May 25, 2009, 7:30 PM
The Odd Mondays Series presents
Annie Hershey's film "Tillie Osen: A Heart in Action"
Tillie Olsen was an internationally acclaimed writer and activist whose work and life combined and celebrated her
“four great colleges” of working class jobs: motherhood, literature and social justice activism. Hershey’s film
is an inspiring homage to Olsen — a renegade, revolutionary, distinguished fiction and non–fiction writer, feminist,
humanist, labor organizer and social activist. Olsen’s short stories “Tell Me a Riddle” and “I Stand Here Ironing”
immortalized the lives of working class women and single mothers. Extended interviews with Olsen during the
last years of her life are interspersed with footage from her readings, as well as with comments from notable
feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Alice Walker.