Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 08 May
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
This event will now take place at Athenaeum 2 Upstairs.
What makes a great interview? What can public conversation do, and why does it matter? And how does a skilled interviewer handle the various nightmare breeds of interview subject, from The Robot to The Waffler; The Sermoniser to The Sphinx?
In May, we're bringing together two master interlocutors – Paul Holdengräber and our own Sally Warhaft – for a meaningful dialogue about ... meaningful dialogue. Paul Holdengräber was the former curator of conversations at the New York Public Library, and is the founding executive director of the Onassis Foundation LA, a centre for dialogue in Los Angeles which is an outpost of the Onassis headquarters in Athens. Throughout his distinguished career, he's interviewed hundreds of artists, scientists and luminaries, from Salman Rushdie to Jay Z. Sally Warhaft is the Wheeler Centre's in-house news anchor and the host of the popular Fifth Estate conversation series and podcast. She's interrogated big names in Australian politics and high-profile international guests, from the late Malcolm Fraser to Masha Gessen and Ronan Farrow.
How do you get, and keep, your subject on side? And what’s the role of discussion in today’s increasingly partisan political climate? Join Warhaft and Holdengräber at the Athenaeum Theatre, as they talk career highlights, horror stories and the art and purpose of public conversation today.
Also in this series
Featuring
Paul Holdengräber
Paul Holdengräber is the Founding Executive Director of the Onassis Foundation LA (OLA), an outpost of the Onassis headquarters in Athens that began its work as a ‘center of dialogue’ earlier this year. Prior to working at OLA, he was the founder and director of New York Public Library (NYPL)’s Public Programming, and the host of LIVE from the NYPL.
A seasoned interviewer, Holdengräber is known for encouraging his guests to step outside their areas of specialisation and into wider-reaching discussions. His conversational partners have included Patti Smith; Zadie Smith; Jay-Z, Wes Anderson; Salman Rushdie; Christopher Hitchens; RuPaul; David Remnick; Pete Townshend and Werner Herzog.
Over the course of Holdengräber’s tenure at the Library, about 200,000 people attended interviews at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Holdengräber has written essays and articles for journals in France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. He also taught at various universities including Williams College and Claremont Graduate University.
He has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University, and the French government awarded him the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2003. In addition to his work at OLA, Holdengräber sits on The Sun Valley Writers Conference Board of Directors, The Onassis Foundation Board of Directors, and The Paul & Daisy Soros Board of Directors. He hosts the podcast A Phone Call from Paul on Literary Hub.
Sally Warhaft
Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. She is the host of The Fifth Estate, the Wheeler Centre’s live series focusing on journalism, politics, media, and international relations, and The Leap Year ...