The July Calendar: Events for Each Day This Month

Naomi Klein. Roxane Gay. Doris Kearns Goodwin. Sharon Salzberg. July brings a surfeit of smart presenters, plus intriguing talks on mindfulness, English architecture, and tiki culture.

Wednesday, July 1: Take a breath of fresh air with the Honorable Sally Jewell, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior, as she leads a panel tackling a bold solution to the climate crisis: U.S. public lands.

Thursday, July 2: Know that our response to current catastrophes in not preordained: disaster capitalism expert Naomi Klein speaks with Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner about potential positive paths forward.

Friday, July 3: Light a virtual firecracker for a lunchtime lecture that looks at how we celebrated the Fourth of July in the early 19th century, especially on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden.

Saturday, July 4: Hold certain truths as self-evident during a conversation with founding father Thomas Jefferson himself as the National Archives and the Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero, host their first-ever virtual Independence Day.

Sunday, July 5: Become mindful of mindfulness as Taoist healing and meditation arts practitioner Darryl Aiken–Afam leads a Think Olio session dedicated to Seeing the Subconscious: Mindfulness, Psychology, and the Road to Healing Racism.

Monday, July 6: Follow along with Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin as she gives an unscripted talk on Lincoln, the Roosevelts, LBJ, and leadership in challenging times. Temple Emanu-El.

Tuesday, July 7: Listen in with author Helena Dea Bala as Shakespeare & Co. hosts a virtual book launch for Craigslist Confessional: A Collection of Secrets from Anonymous Strangers.

Wednesday, July 8: Meet up with the final resting places of many of the luminaries in Bill Greer’s new A Dirty Year: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in Gilded Age New York, looking at an action-packed 1872. Green-Wood Cemetery.

Thursday, July 9: Try not to be infected by misinformation, as Yale economist Robert J. Shiller explains in a 92nd Street Y talk on Economics, Narrative, and Pandemics.

Friday, July 10: Celebrate the 164th birthday of Nikola Tesla, prophet of our modern technological world, with a virtual tour of his NYC.

Saturday, July 11: Improvise a way to hear bestselling author Roxane Gay, who will recite some of her writing and inspire Toshi Reagon and Celisse Henderson to perform “answer songs” in response. The Strand.

Sunday, July 12: Open up and say “om” as The Tantra Institute leads a global virtual community gathering complete with dance, connections, and guided meditation.

Monday, July 13: Travel back to the moment when partisanship really began to rend the seams in America as NYU School of Law hosts historian Julian Zelizer for a presentation of his book Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, The Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party.

Tuesday, July 14: Be fashionably on time for a talk on everyone’s favorite Scot pattern with fashion designer Jeffrey Banks, co-author of Tartan: Romancing the Plaid. The National Arts Club.

Wednesday, July 15: Matriculate for a version of the most popular class in Yale history of Yale, Psyc 157 “Psychology and the Good Life,” as psychology professor Dr. Laurie Santos shares her expertise in “The Science of Happiness.”

Thursday, July 16: Blast off with the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum and and a Virtual Astronomy Live evening dedicated to astronaut art and photography.

Friday, July 17: Seek out the hidden-in-plain-sight “lost” mansions of midtown with “Daytonian in Manhattan” Tom Miller and a New York Adventure Club virtual tour.

Saturday, July 18: Let mourning become you on a shadowbox workshop dedicated to Victorian hair work, with master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann.

Sunday, July 19: Lend an ear to Erick Whitacre’s Virtual Choir as singers around the world lift their voices for a new piece, “Sing Gently,” written expressly for the pandemic.

Monday, July 20: Travel to a world “trapped between faith and irony, between tragedy and farce” as Carlos Fonseca presents his new novel, Natural History. McNally Jackson.

Tuesday, July 21: Witness history in the making as shared pandemic archive material is unpacked on Providence’s Coronavirus Chronicles and audio recordings are shared from the remote-recording platform Storycorps Connect.

Wednesday, July 22: Remind yourself that it’s 5pm somewhere and join the Brooklyn Historical Society for Liquid Vacation: A History of Tiki Cocktails.

Thursday, July 23: See yourself in Jia Tolentino‘s latest, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, a collection of essays she’ll discuss with Today in Focus presenter Rachel Humphreys.

Friday, July 24: Enjoy the eccentricity of English architecture as art history professor Janetta Rebold Benton leads a 92nd Street Y session on building across the eras.

Saturday, July 25: Journey with Colin Dickey through uncanny realms as he talks about his examination of The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained.

Sunday, July 26: Do some long-distance adventuring—across distance and time—as Atul Kumar, head of the Art Deco Society in Mumbai, leads a virtual visit to the second-most-Deco city in the world.

Monday, July 27: Peer back into another pivotal time with newscaster Chris Wallace, presenting his new book Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World. Temple Emanu-El.

Tuesday, July 28: Be logical about figuring out hat puzzles with math professor Peter Winkler, who leads a Museum of Mathematics evening.

Wednesday, July 29: Feel blue—in a hopeful way—when the New York Restoration Project talks about the potential for “blue carbon,” stored by coastal ecosystems, to mitigate climate change.

Thursday, July 30: Relive one of the most consequential blunders in American foreign policy history with author Robert Draper and his new To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq.

Friday, July 31: Connect with inner peace, or at least move in that direction, with meditation pioneer Sharon Salzberg, who joins the New York Open Center for the evening session Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves & the World.

For a printable PDF of the July 2020 calendar, click here.

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