Milan Kundera Book Club Discusses The Unbearable Lightness of Being
tuesday, april 16 | 7-8:30 PM
CZECH CENTER MUSEUM HOUSTON, 4920 SAN JACINTO ST.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Please join us for a series of events exploring the work of Milan Kundera (1929-2023), the Czech writer whose books became an international phenomenon. During the Soviet domination of Czechoslovakia, Kundera reminded the world of his native country’s central place in European culture. Kundera was also drawn to the imagination of France, where he settled in 1975. The cultural form that preoccupied Kundera was the novel. He leaned into its skepticism and comedy to contemplate societies distorted by ideology and vacuousness.
Robert Cremins and Dan Price from the Honors College at the University of Houston will lead us in a discussion of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a best-seller that became a popular film. They will be in conversation with Houston author and physician Ricardo Nuila from the Humanities Expression and Arts Lab (HEAL) at Baylor College of Medicine.
DACAMERA Young Artists will perform music from Beethoven’s late String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135, prominently referenced in the novel.
In September we will meet to consider The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, which back in late 1980 The New York Times called “the most original book of the season.”
Visit Brazos Bookstore or the CCMH to order your copy of Kundera’s novels.
RSVP below
TIME AND LOCATION
Tuesday, April 16, 2024, at 7:00 PM
Czech Center Museum Houston
4920 San Jacinto St.
Houston, Texas, 77004
PARTNERs
If you have any further questions, please email social@czechcenter.org
Robert Cremins is a Senior Lecturer in the Honors College at the University of Houston, where he also directs Creative Work: A Pre-Professional Program. He is the author of the novels A Sort of Homecoming and Send in the Devils. His short fiction has appeared in Critical Quarterly, The Dublin Review, and been broadcast on BBC Radio.
Ricardo Nuila is a writer, internist, and associate professor of medicine. His first book, The People's Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine was featured on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, was a semi-finalist for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and an Amazon Best Nonfiction Books of 2023. In its review, The New York Times notes that Ricardo is a "skillful writer who humanizes his points in meticulous and compassionate detail.” The son of Salvadoran immigrants, Ricardo has worked as a hospitalist and attending at Houston's largest safety net facility, Ben Taub Hospital, for fifteen years. At Baylor College of Medicine, he directs the Humanities Expression and Arts Lab (HEAL) which develops curriculum that weaves the arts into medical education. His essays and stories have been featured in The New Yorker, Texas Monthly, VQR, The New England Journal of Medicine, New England Review, and Best American Short Stories.
Dan Price has taught at the University of Houston's Honors College since 2000. He has a PhD in Philosophy, specializing in French and German Aesthetics and Ethics. After several books on the intersection of ethics, community, and art, he has spent the last decade working toward practical applications of philosophy. He directs both the Community Health Worker Initiative and the Data & Society Program at the Honors College. They collect and analyze data from front-line health workers in disadvantaged communities around the Houston area, creating innovative programs for undergraduates to work side by side with community members to address a wide range of health problems.