The Sexual Politics of Meat explores a relationship between patriarchal values and meat-eating by interweaving the insights of feminism, vegetarianism, animal defense, and literary theory. The book describes how a process of objectification, fragmentation, and consumption enables the oppression of animals so they are rendered being-less through technology, language, and cultural representation. This cycle links butchering with both the representation and reality of sexual violence in Western cultures that have a tendency to normalize sexual consumption.
Adams is the author and editor of more than 20 other books, including The Bedside, Bathtub, and Armchair Guide to Jane Austen. She has written a pastoral care guide on woman-battering, books of prayers for animals, and most recently co-authored Never Too Late to Go Vegan: The Over-50 Guide to Adopting and Thriving on a Plant-Based Diet. She also co-edited the anthology, Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth.
Adams graduated from the University of Rochester in 1972 with degrees in English and history. While an undergraduate, she advocated for the first women's studies classes that were taught at the University, and was one of the organizers of the 1971 feminist protest of the all-male Boars Head dinner that restricted women to the role of playing barmaid. She received a Master of Divinity degree from Yale University in 1976.
For a decade after graduation, Adams served as the director of the Chautauqua County (NY) Rural Ministry, a not-for-profit organization that works with resettled migrant workers and other dislocated and at-risk individuals. Since 1987, she has lived in Dallas, Texas with her spouse, the Rev. Bruce A. Buchanan.
]]>Carol J. Adams is the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. First published in 1990, the book has been translated into many languages, and will soon have editions in Spanish, Italian, Croatian, and French. Bloomsbury Publishing recognized the 25th anniversary of its publication by selecting it for the Bloomsbury Revelations "Series of Books that Change Consciousness."
The Sexual Politics of Meat explores a relationship between patriarchal values and meat-eating by interweaving the insights of feminism, vegetarianism, animal defense, and literary theory. The book describes how a process of objectification, fragmentation, and consumption enables the oppression of animals so they are rendered being-less through technology, language, and cultural representation. This cycle links butchering with both the representation and reality of sexual violence in Western cultures that have a tendency to normalize sexual consumption.
Adams is the author and editor of more than 20 other books, including The Bedside, Bathtub, and Armchair Guide to Jane Austen. She has written a pastoral care guide on woman-battering, books of prayers for animals, and most recently co-authored Never Too Late to Go Vegan: The Over-50 Guide to Adopting and Thriving on a Plant-Based Diet. She also co-edited the anthology, Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth.
Adams graduated from the University of Rochester in 1972 with degrees in English and history. While an undergraduate, she advocated for the first women's studies classes that were taught at the University, and was one of the organizers of the 1971 feminist protest of the all-male Boars Head dinner that restricted women to the role of playing barmaid. She received a Master of Divinity degree from Yale University in 1976.
For a decade after graduation, Adams served as the director of the Chautauqua County (NY) Rural Ministry, a not-for-profit organization that works with resettled migrant workers and other dislocated and at-risk individuals. Since 1987, she has lived in Dallas, Texas with her spouse, the Rev. Bruce A. Buchanan.
In all of his writing, Akhtar attempts to open a window on the vibrant and complex reality of the Muslim American experience. In American Dervish, he has blown the door open on this world, demonstrating a deft understanding of faith and our complex relationship with it and of pubescent love and caprice.
The novel centers on one family's struggle to identify both as Muslim and American, one boy's devotion to his faith, and the sometimes tragic implications of extremism. As an American-born, first-generation Pakistani-American, Akhtar wanted to recount the rarely told coming-of-age story of a Muslim-American boy. The Shah family copes with faith and belonging in pre-9/11 suburbia, and through them the reader understands the struggles, challenges, value, and cost of being Muslim in America.
Published in 25 languages worldwide, American Dervish was voted a 2012 Best Book of the Year at Kirkus Reviews, Toronto's Globe and Mail, Shelf-Awareness, and O (Oprah) Magazine.
Akhtar is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter. His stage play Disgraced won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as the Jeff Equity Award for Best New Play in 2012. Disgraced is the story of a successful Pakistani-American lawyer whose dinner party spins out of control amid a heated discussion of identity and religion.
As a screenwriter, he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay for The War Within. He has received commissions from Lincoln Center and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Akhtar was born in New York City and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is a graduate of Brown and Columbia Universities with degrees in Theater and Film Directing. He was briefly enrolled at the University of Rochester, where his talent for creative writing was recognized in a fiction class. Since the 1990s he has been a resident of New York City, where he has taught acting on his own and alongside Andre Gregory (My Dinner with Andre, Vanya on 42nd Street).
Akhtar was introduced by one of his former Rochester instructors, Dr. Th. Emil Homerin, professor of religion and chair of the Department of Religion and Classics.
]]>Ayad Akhtar is the author of the critically acclaimed, poignant, coming-of-age novel, American Dervish. Since its debut, the book has been embraced around the world for the richness of its characters and illuminating the everyday lives of Muslim Americans, earning Akhtar a rightful place alongside today's most compelling storytellers.
In all of his writing, Akhtar attempts to open a window on the vibrant and complex reality of the Muslim American experience. In American Dervish, he has blown the door open on this world, demonstrating a deft understanding of faith and our complex relationship with it and of pubescent love and caprice.
The novel centers on one family's struggle to identify both as Muslim and American, one boy's devotion to his faith, and the sometimes tragic implications of extremism. As an American-born, first-generation Pakistani-American, Akhtar wanted to recount the rarely told coming-of-age story of a Muslim-American boy. The Shah family copes with faith and belonging in pre-9/11 suburbia, and through them the reader understands the struggles, challenges, value, and cost of being Muslim in America.
Published in 25 languages worldwide, American Dervish was voted a 2012 Best Book of the Year at Kirkus Reviews, Toronto's Globe and Mail, Shelf-Awareness, and O (Oprah) Magazine.
Akhtar is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter. His stage play Disgraced won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as the Jeff Equity Award for Best New Play in 2012. Disgraced is the story of a successful Pakistani-American lawyer whose dinner party spins out of control amid a heated discussion of identity and religion.
As a screenwriter, he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay for The War Within. He has received commissions from Lincoln Center and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Akhtar was born in New York City and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is a graduate of Brown and Columbia Universities with degrees in Theater and Film Directing. He was briefly enrolled at the University of Rochester, where his talent for creative writing was recognized in a fiction class. Since the 1990s he has been a resident of New York City, where he has taught acting on his own and alongside Andre Gregory (My Dinner with Andre, Vanya on 42nd Street).
Akhtar was introduced by one of his former Rochester instructors, Dr. Th. Emil Homerin, professor of religion and chair of the Department of Religion and Classics.
Her book, Playing with Feelings traces a compelling intellectual history and uses affect theory to rethink some core game studies debates. Aubrey Anable’s insights on casual, indie, and art games are particularly important at this historical moment in game studies.
]]>Aubrey Anable applies affect theory to game studies, arguing that video games let us “rehearse” feelings, states, and emotions that give new tones and textures to our everyday lives and interactions with digital devices. Rather than seeing video games as an escape from reality, Anable demonstrates how they have been intimately tied to our emotional landscape since digital computers emerged.
Her book, Playing with Feelings traces a compelling intellectual history and uses affect theory to rethink some core game studies debates. Aubrey Anable’s insights on casual, indie, and art games are particularly important at this historical moment in game studies.
Ayub is a 2001 graduate of the University of Rochester. She also has a MPA from the University of Delaware. From 2005 to 2007, she served as the Education and Health Officer at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, DC. Photo © Scott Duncan.
Introduction by Paul J. Burgett, Vice President and General Secretary
]]>Ayub has been featured in a number of national news publications and programs including ABC News Person of the Week, ESPN, Glamour Magazine Hero of the Month, CNN American Morning, New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washingtonian, and USA Today.
Ayub is a 2001 graduate of the University of Rochester. She also has a MPA from the University of Delaware. From 2005 to 2007, she served as the Education and Health Officer at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, DC. Photo © Scott Duncan.
Introduction by Paul J. Burgett, Vice President and General Secretary
By employing entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a “what if” can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever.
Bennett graduated from Stanford University and later earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction as well as the 2014 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers. Her work was featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Paris Review, and Jezebel. She is one of the National Book Foundation’s 2016-5 Under 35 honorees.
]]>Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett’s mesmerizing first novel, The Mothers, is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition.
By employing entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a “what if” can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever.
Bennett graduated from Stanford University and later earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction as well as the 2014 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers. Her work was featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Paris Review, and Jezebel. She is one of the National Book Foundation’s 2016-5 Under 35 honorees.
Emily Bernard was born and grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and received her PhD in American studies from Yale University. She has been the recipient of grants from the Ford Foundation, the NEH, and a W. E. B. Du Bois Resident Fellowship at Harvard University. She is the Julian Lindsay Green & Good Professor of English at the University of Vermont.
Note: The initial lecture (April 9, 2020) was postponed until October 10, 2021, when the address was delivered via Zoom.
As a graduate student, Emily Bernard was the victim of a random stabbing in a New Haven café. In this powerful lecture, she shares the story of her journey to ultimately make sense of this bizarre act of violence, including what it taught her about American race relations, the difference between a situation and a story, and the relationship between resilience, writing, and healing. Her latest book, Black is the Body, consists of 13 powerful essays conceived while Bernard was hospitalized after the stabbing.
Emily Bernard was born and grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and received her PhD in American studies from Yale University. She has been the recipient of grants from the Ford Foundation, the NEH, and a W. E. B. Du Bois Resident Fellowship at Harvard University. She is the Julian Lindsay Green & Good Professor of English at the University of Vermont.
Note: The initial lecture (April 9, 2020) was postponed until October 10, 2021, when the address was delivered via Zoom.
Calvin writes "I talk a lot about ape-to-human evolution and all those abrupt climate changes along the way, even about civilization's vulnerabilities to abrupt shocks. But mostly I try to extend Darwin's intellectual revolution to brain mechanisms. What sort of Darwinian brain wiring allows us, in just a split second, to shape up a better thought? To create quality from mere incoherence?… Ethics, morals, a sense of "what's right" are possible only because of a human level of ability to speculate about the future and modify our possible actions accordingly."
Introduction by Dr. Robert Joynt.
William H. Calvin will discuss his book, A Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond. A theoretical neurobiologist with an appointment to Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Calvin will analyze what led to the "Mind's Big Bang" about 50,000 years ago; it was a creative explosion in comparison with the trends of the previous 2.5 million years, in which there was little progress. He will also examine another Homo Sapiens puzzle; whether a big brain is necessary for higher intellectual functions such as creative structured thought. One reviewer wrote that Calvin "provides a sensible and accessible reflection on the cognitive roots of many of our confusions and failings."
Calvin writes "I talk a lot about ape-to-human evolution and all those abrupt climate changes along the way, even about civilization's vulnerabilities to abrupt shocks. But mostly I try to extend Darwin's intellectual revolution to brain mechanisms. What sort of Darwinian brain wiring allows us, in just a split second, to shape up a better thought? To create quality from mere incoherence?… Ethics, morals, a sense of "what's right" are possible only because of a human level of ability to speculate about the future and modify our possible actions accordingly."
Introduction by Dr. Robert Joynt.
He is the writer and illustrator of the 2009 graphic novel Let’s Go to Utah! and his work appeared in highly-regarded comics publications such as Dark Horse Presents and Locust Moon Comics.
His latest graphic novel, Instrumental, is a spirited, suspenseful, formally inventive, visually musical book, that tells the story of an aspiring jazz musician whose desire for success and fame leads him to a series of adventures ranging from the bizarre to the epic.
His lecture will focus on musical symbolism and storytelling rules in Instrumental, and will offer a glimpse into his writing process. It will be followed by a Q&A session and book signing.
Chisholm holds a Doctorate in Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music.
]]>Dave Chisholm is a trumpet player, songwriter, composer, bandleader, educator, and visual artist.
He is the writer and illustrator of the 2009 graphic novel Let’s Go to Utah! and his work appeared in highly-regarded comics publications such as Dark Horse Presents and Locust Moon Comics.
His latest graphic novel, Instrumental, is a spirited, suspenseful, formally inventive, visually musical book, that tells the story of an aspiring jazz musician whose desire for success and fame leads him to a series of adventures ranging from the bizarre to the epic.
His lecture will focus on musical symbolism and storytelling rules in Instrumental, and will offer a glimpse into his writing process. It will be followed by a Q&A session and book signing.
Chisholm holds a Doctorate in Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music.
Following Jonathan Clark's lecture is a reception in Rare Books and Special Collections, 2nd floor of Rush Rhees Library. This is an excellent time to view the exhibit, "An Astonished Eye: The Art of Kenneth Patchen."
]]>Kenneth Patchen's art is the subject of Jonathan Clark's lecture, "Extending the Medium of Words: The Graphic Art of Kenneth Patchen," the first of this season's Neilly Series Lectures. Patchen, one of the 20th century's leading experimental writers, produced over two dozen volumes of poetry prose, along with painted poems, silkscreen prints, drawings and other graphic works. Jonathan Clark acquired an extensive collection of Patchen material, the main source of an exhibition in Rare Books and Special Collections in Rush Rhees Library.
Following Jonathan Clark's lecture is a reception in Rare Books and Special Collections, 2nd floor of Rush Rhees Library. This is an excellent time to view the exhibit, "An Astonished Eye: The Art of Kenneth Patchen."
Through an institutionalized Twelve-Step Program heavy on Bible study, he was supposed to emerge heterosexual and be cleansed of impure urges, stronger in his faith in God for his brush with sin. Instead, even when faced with such a harrowing and brutal journey, Conley found the strength to break out in search of his true self and find the power to forgive himself and his environment. In Boy Erased: A Memoir, he confronts his buried past and the burden of a life lived in shadow, and traces his complex relationships with his family, faith, and community.
]]>As a young man, Garrard Conley, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small Arkansas town, was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality. When he was a nineteen-year-old college student, he was forced to make a life-changing decision: attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that promised to cure him of homosexuality; or risk losing family, friends, and the God he had prayed to every day of his life.
Through an institutionalized Twelve-Step Program heavy on Bible study, he was supposed to emerge heterosexual and be cleansed of impure urges, stronger in his faith in God for his brush with sin. Instead, even when faced with such a harrowing and brutal journey, Conley found the strength to break out in search of his true self and find the power to forgive himself and his environment. In Boy Erased: A Memoir, he confronts his buried past and the burden of a life lived in shadow, and traces his complex relationships with his family, faith, and community.
Conners has published 11 books of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, and edited dozens of volumes of poetry and prose. His nonfiction books – Cornell '77, Growing Up Dead, JAMerica, and White Hand Society — have garnered him a reputation as a leading chronicler of the Grateful Dead, jam band, and countercultural community. In 2017, Cornell '77: The Music, Myth and Magnificence of the Grateful Dead's Concert at Barton Hall was included in the Grammy-nominated Grateful Dead box set, May 1977: Get Shown the Light. Conners currently lives with his family in Rochester, NY. He is executive director and publisher of the award-winning independent publishing house BOA Editions, Ltd.
]]>After a decade of exclusively writing nonfiction books about music and counterculture, the pandemic pushed Conners back into writing prose poetry. In his talk, Conners will read from and discuss his book, sharing personal stories about the origins of the prose poetry/flash fiction collection. A Q&A session and book signing will follow.
Conners has published 11 books of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, and edited dozens of volumes of poetry and prose. His nonfiction books – Cornell '77, Growing Up Dead, JAMerica, and White Hand Society — have garnered him a reputation as a leading chronicler of the Grateful Dead, jam band, and countercultural community. In 2017, Cornell '77: The Music, Myth and Magnificence of the Grateful Dead's Concert at Barton Hall was included in the Grammy-nominated Grateful Dead box set, May 1977: Get Shown the Light. Conners currently lives with his family in Rochester, NY. He is executive director and publisher of the award-winning independent publishing house BOA Editions, Ltd.
Through meticulous excavation or concise alteration, he edits or dissects communicative objects or systems such a books, maps, tapes and other media. The medium's role is tranfsformed, and its content is recontextualized and new meanings or interpretations emerge.
The Neilly Series Lecture will be introduced by Heather Layton, Senior Lecturer of Art and Art History.
]]>Brian Dettmer will speak on Sunday of Meliora Weekend at the Memorial Art Gallery on University Avenue on the topic of "ReMixed Media." Dettmer transforms books into amazing works of art that have been exhibited and collected throughout the world. He will discuss his work, which is part of the Memorial Art Gallery's exhibition Extreme Materials 2.
Through meticulous excavation or concise alteration, he edits or dissects communicative objects or systems such a books, maps, tapes and other media. The medium's role is tranfsformed, and its content is recontextualized and new meanings or interpretations emerge.
The Neilly Series Lecture will be introduced by Heather Layton, Senior Lecturer of Art and Art History.
Dr. Easton and Dr. Knox will discuss the Archimedes Palimpsest, a circa 10th-century parchment manuscript that includes the oldest known copies of seven treatises by Archimedes. This talk will consider the entire restoration project, with emphasis on the imaging and processing techniques used to clarify and enhance the texts.
The pages of the text were erased and overwritten early in the 13th century to make a Christian prayer book. The manuscript was sold at action in 1998 and lent by its new owner to the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, which has led the collaboration of conservators, imaging scientists, and scholars to preserve, image, transcribe, and translate the original writings.
]]>Roger Easton, Professor at RIT's Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, and Keith Knox, UR alumnus and retiree from Xerox Corporation, will present "Ten Years of Imaging between (and through) Lines of the Archimedes Palimpsest" on Thursday, February 23rd.
Dr. Easton and Dr. Knox will discuss the Archimedes Palimpsest, a circa 10th-century parchment manuscript that includes the oldest known copies of seven treatises by Archimedes. This talk will consider the entire restoration project, with emphasis on the imaging and processing techniques used to clarify and enhance the texts.
The pages of the text were erased and overwritten early in the 13th century to make a Christian prayer book. The manuscript was sold at action in 1998 and lent by its new owner to the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, which has led the collaboration of conservators, imaging scientists, and scholars to preserve, image, transcribe, and translate the original writings.
In The Fate of the Species, Fred Guterl '81 offers “a riveting and necessary thought experiment–not merely a scary story, but a fresh perspective on the world we have reshaped through our ingenuity, for better and worse.”
Guterl is the executive editor of Scientific American and has been writing about science for more than 25 years. His narrative in Discover, "Riddles in the Sand,” won the Journalism Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The Overseas Press Club honored his Newsweek article, "The Wasteland," for environmental writing. Guterl led Scientific American to a General Excellence Award from the National Society of Magazine Editors in 2011 for the first time in its 169-year history. Formerly deputy editor at Newsweek International and an editor of Discover and IEEE Spectrum, he has also worked as a foreign correspondent based in London, England. He has appeared on CNN, Charlie Rose, TODAY, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to discuss popular issues in science.
Guterl holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Rochester, and has taught science writing at Princeton University. He lives in the New York City area.
He was introduced by Adam Frank, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
]]>“The sixth ‘mass extinction event’ in the history of planet Earth is currently under way, with over two hundred species dying off every day. Will Homo sapiens be next—a victim of its own success? Humans dominate the Earth, and as our population approaches nine billion, we are more densely packed, more interconnected–and more vulnerable to disease, natural disaster, or technological crisis–than ever before.”
In The Fate of the Species, Fred Guterl '81 offers “a riveting and necessary thought experiment–not merely a scary story, but a fresh perspective on the world we have reshaped through our ingenuity, for better and worse.”
Guterl is the executive editor of Scientific American and has been writing about science for more than 25 years. His narrative in Discover, "Riddles in the Sand,” won the Journalism Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The Overseas Press Club honored his Newsweek article, "The Wasteland," for environmental writing. Guterl led Scientific American to a General Excellence Award from the National Society of Magazine Editors in 2011 for the first time in its 169-year history. Formerly deputy editor at Newsweek International and an editor of Discover and IEEE Spectrum, he has also worked as a foreign correspondent based in London, England. He has appeared on CNN, Charlie Rose, TODAY, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to discuss popular issues in science.
Guterl holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Rochester, and has taught science writing at Princeton University. He lives in the New York City area.
He was introduced by Adam Frank, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
In redefining motivation as the learned rush of joy from conquering challenges, and talent as the sum of current skills that makes learning new ones easier, Haley reframes the way parents and educators understand the power of music education. With an emphasis on communication, Kids Aren’t Lazy empowers families and teachers with breakthrough strategies for fostering musical proficiency and cultivating healthy behavioral patterns in all areas of study.
A violin performance graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Haley is the founder of Lauren Haley Studios, which enrolls 50 young musicians and their families in Houston, TX.
]]>Lauren Alexandra Haley is a violinist, pedagogy expert, and the author of Kids Aren’t Lazy: Developing Motivation & Talent Through Music.
In redefining motivation as the learned rush of joy from conquering challenges, and talent as the sum of current skills that makes learning new ones easier, Haley reframes the way parents and educators understand the power of music education. With an emphasis on communication, Kids Aren’t Lazy empowers families and teachers with breakthrough strategies for fostering musical proficiency and cultivating healthy behavioral patterns in all areas of study.
A violin performance graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Haley is the founder of Lauren Haley Studios, which enrolls 50 young musicians and their families in Houston, TX.
Noted editor at the Washington Post, John Harris will talk about his new book about presidential politics, The Way to Win. Its thesis is that the two people with the greatest understanding about how to win modern presidential campaigns are Bill Clinton and Karl Rove. Though vastly different men, with radically divergent ideas about where they would lead the country, in fact many of Clinton's and Rove's Trade Secrets for winning elections are similar. The person who intends to borrow from the experience and strategic lessons of both men for her likely presidential run in 2008 is none other than Hillary Rodham Clinton.
John Harris was the Post's White House reporter during the Clinton presidency, and is now the National Politics Editor. His history of Clinton's presidency, THE SURIVOR: Bill Clinton in the White House, was a New York Times bestseller and Times notable book of the year. His second book, The Way to Win, was written with co-author Mark Halperin, the political director of ABC News.The hardships and legal battles of immigration are in the headlines every day, yet the nitty-gritty, humor, and heart behind them have rarely been brought to the page. In writing The Book of Unknown Americans, Henríquez was inspired by her father’s Panamà-to-U.S. immigration story and other experiences of real people in Delaware, where she grew up. The novel has been called “a flawlessly written book about immigration.” It is one of the New York Times’ Notable Books of 2014 and made it onto many other Best of 2014 book lists, including those of the Washington Post and NPR.
Henríquez grew up half-American, half-Panamanian. In her lectures, she speaks about identity and addresses common narratives about immigration. A gifted writer with a great talent for creating intimate and authentic character portraits, Henríquez also speaks to aspiring writers about the writer’s creative and technical process. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker and the Wall Street Journal, and she has been a guest on National Public Radio. She earned her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and currently teaches at Northwestern University.
Henríquez will be a guest on WXXI's Connections with Evan Dawson on November 17 at 12 p.m.
Cristina Henríquez is the author of Come Together, Fall Apart: A Novella and Stories, The World in Half, and most recently, The Book of Unknown Americans—a dazzling page-turner about a family’s hopes for its new life in America.
The hardships and legal battles of immigration are in the headlines every day, yet the nitty-gritty, humor, and heart behind them have rarely been brought to the page. In writing The Book of Unknown Americans, Henríquez was inspired by her father’s Panamà-to-U.S. immigration story and other experiences of real people in Delaware, where she grew up. The novel has been called “a flawlessly written book about immigration.” It is one of the New York Times’ Notable Books of 2014 and made it onto many other Best of 2014 book lists, including those of the Washington Post and NPR.
Henríquez grew up half-American, half-Panamanian. In her lectures, she speaks about identity and addresses common narratives about immigration. A gifted writer with a great talent for creating intimate and authentic character portraits, Henríquez also speaks to aspiring writers about the writer’s creative and technical process. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker and the Wall Street Journal, and she has been a guest on National Public Radio. She earned her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and currently teaches at Northwestern University.
Henríquez will be a guest on WXXI's Connections with Evan Dawson on November 17 at 12 p.m.
Dr. Henry was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, receiving a BA in math and a Full Blue in basketball. He is also the recipient of a BA in economics with distinction and highest honors from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While at MIT working toward his PhD in economics, he served as a consultant to the Governors of the Bank of Jamaica and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. In 2008, Dr. Henry led the external economics advisory group for then-Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and was subsequently chosen to lead the Presidential Transition Team’s review of international lending agencies. In 2009, President Obama appointed him to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships.
His first book, Turnaround: Third World Lessons for First World Growth, was released in March 2013.
Peter Blair Henry, economist and former Dean of New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Music, is the April Neilly Series Lecture speaker.
Dr. Henry was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, receiving a BA in math and a Full Blue in basketball. He is also the recipient of a BA in economics with distinction and highest honors from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While at MIT working toward his PhD in economics, he served as a consultant to the Governors of the Bank of Jamaica and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. In 2008, Dr. Henry led the external economics advisory group for then-Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and was subsequently chosen to lead the Presidential Transition Team’s review of international lending agencies. In 2009, President Obama appointed him to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships.
His first book, Turnaround: Third World Lessons for First World Growth, was released in March 2013.
The novels tells the story of a young woman who forges her way to freedom after being abducted from her village in West Africa and sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. The book won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, and both CBC Canada Reads and Radio Canada’s Combat des livres. A television miniseries based on the book is currently in production. For more information about the novel, click here.
*Copies of the book are available at the University of Rochester River Campus Bookstore and at the Rush Rhees Library Circulation Desk.
The Author: Lawrence HillThe son of American immigrants who moved to Canada in 1953, Mr. Hill was greatly influenced by his parents’ work in the human rights movement. Much of his writing reflects on issues of identity and belonging. He is the author of nine books. Mr. Hill has a B.A. in economics from Laval University in Quebec City and an M.A. in writing from John Hopkins University. He lives in Ontario and Newfoundland. For more information about the author, click Lawrence Hill will present "Faction: The Merging of History and Fiction in Someone Knows My Name" on Wednesday, April 9, 2014 from 7:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. in the Hawkins-Carlson Room of Rush Rhees Library. Mr. Hill's lecture is part of the 2013-2014 Neilly Series. The series is sponsored by the Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Endowment and the River Campus Libraries at the University of Rochester. The Neilly Series is free and open to the public. Reserved parking is available in the Library Lot. This event will also be live streamed. A link will become available in the coming weeks.
]]>The novels tells the story of a young woman who forges her way to freedom after being abducted from her village in West Africa and sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. The book won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, and both CBC Canada Reads and Radio Canada’s Combat des livres. A television miniseries based on the book is currently in production. For more information about the novel, click here.
*Copies of the book are available at the University of Rochester River Campus Bookstore and at the Rush Rhees Library Circulation Desk.
The Author: Lawrence HillThe son of American immigrants who moved to Canada in 1953, Mr. Hill was greatly influenced by his parents’ work in the human rights movement. Much of his writing reflects on issues of identity and belonging. He is the author of nine books. Mr. Hill has a B.A. in economics from Laval University in Quebec City and an M.A. in writing from John Hopkins University. He lives in Ontario and Newfoundland. For more information about the author, click Lawrence Hill will present "Faction: The Merging of History and Fiction in Someone Knows My Name" on Wednesday, April 9, 2014 from 7:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. in the Hawkins-Carlson Room of Rush Rhees Library. Mr. Hill's lecture is part of the 2013-2014 Neilly Series. The series is sponsored by the Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Endowment and the River Campus Libraries at the University of Rochester. The Neilly Series is free and open to the public. Reserved parking is available in the Library Lot. This event will also be live streamed. A link will become available in the coming weeks.
Through its ten short stories, Holmes’ book manages to capture the millennial experience and its unique challenges. Her characters are teenagers and young adults trying to navigate a world that is becoming increasingly more complicated and unpredictable as childish expectations face grown-up realities.
Holmes’ choice of topics make her a subtle commentator on twenty-first-century issues. Her book touches upon immigration, sexual identity, urban alienation, bullying, online dating, and slut-shaming with nuance, humor, and compassion.
She currently lives in upstate New York.
]]>Lauren Holmes was born in upstate New York. She received her BA from Wellesley College and MFA from Hunter College. Her first book, Barbara the Slut and Other People, was named a Best Book of 2015 by NPR and Publisher’s Weekly.
Through its ten short stories, Holmes’ book manages to capture the millennial experience and its unique challenges. Her characters are teenagers and young adults trying to navigate a world that is becoming increasingly more complicated and unpredictable as childish expectations face grown-up realities.
Holmes’ choice of topics make her a subtle commentator on twenty-first-century issues. Her book touches upon immigration, sexual identity, urban alienation, bullying, online dating, and slut-shaming with nuance, humor, and compassion.
She currently lives in upstate New York.
Howe has authored two previous books of poetry, The Good Thief and What the Living Do, and co-edited a book of essays, In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS
Pandemic. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, and the Harvard Review. She currently teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College.
The lecture was introduced by Friederike Seligman, Assistant Professor of Russian.
]]>Marie Howe’s new volume of poetry, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, explores the difference between the self and the soul, the secular and the sacred, and where is the kingdom of heaven? How does one live in Ordinary Time—during those periods that are not apparently miraculous?
Howe has authored two previous books of poetry, The Good Thief and What the Living Do, and co-edited a book of essays, In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS
Pandemic. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, and the Harvard Review. She currently teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College.
The lecture was introduced by Friederike Seligman, Assistant Professor of Russian.
War Trash is based heavily on actual historical accounts and is written in homage to the little-known stories of the many Chinese POWs who were held captive by Americans during the Korean War. Set in 1951, War Trash is told in the form of a memoir. The protagonist is a young Chinese army volunteer, fighting unofficially in Korea when he is captured. His fluency in English thrusts him into the role of unofficial interpreter in the psychological warfare-- between the prisoners and teri captors and between rival groups of prisoners-- that defines the often-vicious world of the POW camp.
Ha Jin is known for his ethical quandaries and personal revelations. The New York Times Book Review stated, "Ha Jin produces work of extraordinary moral and aesthetic lucidity." Russell Banks, in his review, wrote that War Trash "is not a large novel, but it is a nearly perfect one."
Ha Jin came to the United States in 1986 as a doctoral student at Brandeis University. Upon completing his doctorate, he planned to return to China, but changed plans after the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. He began learning English in his early 20s and writing fiction in his early 30s.Ha Jin is the author of two volumes of poetry, three volumes of short stories, and several novels. Ha Jin also teaches at Boston University.
Introduction by Greta Niu.
Acclaimed novelist and poet Ha Jin will discuss his work, including his latest novel, War Trash, winner of the 2005 Pen/Faulkner Award. His earlier work, Waiting, won a National Book Award and the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
War Trash is based heavily on actual historical accounts and is written in homage to the little-known stories of the many Chinese POWs who were held captive by Americans during the Korean War. Set in 1951, War Trash is told in the form of a memoir. The protagonist is a young Chinese army volunteer, fighting unofficially in Korea when he is captured. His fluency in English thrusts him into the role of unofficial interpreter in the psychological warfare-- between the prisoners and teri captors and between rival groups of prisoners-- that defines the often-vicious world of the POW camp.
Ha Jin is known for his ethical quandaries and personal revelations. The New York Times Book Review stated, "Ha Jin produces work of extraordinary moral and aesthetic lucidity." Russell Banks, in his review, wrote that War Trash "is not a large novel, but it is a nearly perfect one."
Ha Jin came to the United States in 1986 as a doctoral student at Brandeis University. Upon completing his doctorate, he planned to return to China, but changed plans after the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. He began learning English in his early 20s and writing fiction in his early 30s.Ha Jin is the author of two volumes of poetry, three volumes of short stories, and several novels. Ha Jin also teaches at Boston University.
Introduction by Greta Niu.
During his talk, Joy '73 traced his life’s journey from high school jock to serious college student; from little fish in a big company pond to the grand poobah and supposed master of his destiny as the owner of a small manufacturing company; and then finally, late in life, to changing course again and deciding to pursue a career as a writer. He spoke about his writing process and how he used his experiences with sports and with running a factory to inform American Past Time.
Joy is a 1973 graduate of the University of Rochester and a 1974 graduate of the Graduate School of Management (now the Simon School). He has been married for 41 years to Suzanne Sawada ’73, whom he met during his first year at Rochester. He grew up in Canandaigua, New York.
For 13 years, Joy worked for USG Corporation in Chicago in a variety of financial and strategic planning positions. During his tenure at USG, he became a CPA. In 1989, he acquired a small engine remanufacturing company in Phoenix. For the next 15 years, he and his brother-in-law built Engine Supply, Inc. into the major supplier of remanufactured engines to large retail chain stores such as Auto Zone, NAPA, and Advance Auto Parts.
In 2003, Joy enrolled in an evening writing class at the University of Chicago. Over the next 10 years, he took several more writing courses and attended numerous writer workshops, including the Iowa Festival, Tin House, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Norman Mailer, Skidmore, Sewanee, and Bread Loaf.
His short fiction has appeared in FWRICTION: Review, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Johnny America, Specter Magazine, Washington Pastime, Hobart, Annalemma, and Pindeldyboz. In April 2014, his novel, American Past Time, was published by Hark! New Era Publishing.
Joy is a competitive age-group triathlete. In June 2012, he completed his first (and probably only) Ironman at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He lives in Evanston, Illinois with his wife Suzanne and his two artist daughters who plan to leave home soon. He has a son who is completing his Ph.D. in chemistry from NYU.
Joy was introduced by Curt Smith, senior lecturer in the Department of English.
]]>
Published in April 2014, American Past Time tells the story of the disintegration and redemption of a family after the father, a minor league baseball player, fails to make it to the major leagues. It touches on events in American history from the early 50s to the end of the Vietnam War.
During his talk, Joy '73 traced his life’s journey from high school jock to serious college student; from little fish in a big company pond to the grand poobah and supposed master of his destiny as the owner of a small manufacturing company; and then finally, late in life, to changing course again and deciding to pursue a career as a writer. He spoke about his writing process and how he used his experiences with sports and with running a factory to inform American Past Time.
Joy is a 1973 graduate of the University of Rochester and a 1974 graduate of the Graduate School of Management (now the Simon School). He has been married for 41 years to Suzanne Sawada ’73, whom he met during his first year at Rochester. He grew up in Canandaigua, New York.
For 13 years, Joy worked for USG Corporation in Chicago in a variety of financial and strategic planning positions. During his tenure at USG, he became a CPA. In 1989, he acquired a small engine remanufacturing company in Phoenix. For the next 15 years, he and his brother-in-law built Engine Supply, Inc. into the major supplier of remanufactured engines to large retail chain stores such as Auto Zone, NAPA, and Advance Auto Parts.
In 2003, Joy enrolled in an evening writing class at the University of Chicago. Over the next 10 years, he took several more writing courses and attended numerous writer workshops, including the Iowa Festival, Tin House, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Norman Mailer, Skidmore, Sewanee, and Bread Loaf.
His short fiction has appeared in FWRICTION: Review, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Johnny America, Specter Magazine, Washington Pastime, Hobart, Annalemma, and Pindeldyboz. In April 2014, his novel, American Past Time, was published by Hark! New Era Publishing.
Joy is a competitive age-group triathlete. In June 2012, he completed his first (and probably only) Ironman at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He lives in Evanston, Illinois with his wife Suzanne and his two artist daughters who plan to leave home soon. He has a son who is completing his Ph.D. in chemistry from NYU.
Joy was introduced by Curt Smith, senior lecturer in the Department of English.
And now, Daniel M. Kimmel ’77 updates the myth, and tells the tale from the point of view of the most important character: the Father of the Bride of Frankenstein.
This is not Ms. Shelley’s monster, but a dazzling urbanite, literate and thoughtful… and Jewish?
Film critic and 2018 Skylark Award (formally known as the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction) winner Daniel M. Kimmel ‘77 will speak about science fiction, his creative process, and his latest work, “Father of the Bride of Frankenstein.”
]]>In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, creating the iconic concept, and incidentally creating modern science fiction. In 1935, Elsa Lanchester married the monster.
And now, Daniel M. Kimmel ’77 updates the myth, and tells the tale from the point of view of the most important character: the Father of the Bride of Frankenstein.
This is not Ms. Shelley’s monster, but a dazzling urbanite, literate and thoughtful… and Jewish?
Film critic and 2018 Skylark Award (formally known as the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction) winner Daniel M. Kimmel ‘77 will speak about science fiction, his creative process, and his latest work, “Father of the Bride of Frankenstein.”
His publicist writes: Kevin Kling grew up in Osseo, Minnesota and graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1979 with a B. A. in Theatre. He built his reputation in the Twin Cities during the 1990's with his groundbreaking plays "21A" and "Fear and Loving in Minneapolis," and toured a one man show of "Home and Away" across the US in the early 1990's. While his writing and performing continue unabated, he has also become well know for his regular storytelling contributions to NPR's "All Things Considered, " and has three (soon four) CD collection of his commentaries, "Home and Away," "Stories off the Shallow End," "Wonderlure," and the forthcoming "Fool's Paradise."
He has hopped freight trains, joined a circus, been to Mardi Gras and eaten things before knowing what they were. He loves Mary Ludington, their dogs and motorcycles, in that order. Kling has performed his one-person play "21A" (based on a South Minneapolis bus route) in Sweden, Louisville, KY, Off Broadway in NYC, Sydney and Perth, Australia, Edinburgh Scotland, and the Czech Republic. "Lloyd's Prayer" was work-shopped at the Sundance Institute. His autobiographical play, "Home and Away" has been seen at the Seattle Rep, The Goodman Theater, Jungle Theater, and the HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado among other venues. His adaptation of "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse" continues to be produced in theaters across the US and abroad. Kling's one-man show "From the Charred Underbelly of the Yule Log" continues to play each December at the Guthrie Theatre.
Kevin Kling's newest play "At Your Service" based on ancient Japanese Kyogen tales, opened with Ten Thousand Things Theater Company in March of 2004, and played at a variety of theaters, correctional facilities and shelters. In Spring of 2004 Minnesota Public Radio produced a live variety show by Kevin Kling and Friends, "A Fool's Paradise," which played for one night only on April fool's Day, 2004. This past August, Kling performed a new one-man show at the Minnesota Fringe Festival titled "Whoppers," with 5 sold out shows at the Minneapolis Women's Club. A new one man show titled "Freezing Paradise" is currently in progress with the Guthrie Theater touring many communities throughout the Midwest February and March of 2005. Kling is also writing a new play based on the myth of Persephone, which will open in the spring of 2005 with DC's Imagination Stage, a company who works with a multitude of talents with disabilities. Kevin continues to regularly speak at various health and medical conferences and events, along with teaching and performing at colleges, and universities throughout the country. He recently returned from Istanbul and Eastern Europe on a grant awarded to him by the Guthrie Theater, and also toured a solo show throughout England this past November.
Humorist and playwright Kevin Kling has expressed himself in many different arenas: theatre, television, radio, recording, and literature. His plays, such as The Ice Fishing Play and Gravity vs. Levity, have been seen in national and international festivals, including the Sundance Institute. Kling has also adapted two favorite books, Lyle, Lyle Crocodile and Lilly's Plastic Purse for children's theatre. He is a frequent storyteller on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Kling's NPR commentary's can be heard on www.npr.com (try Minnesota Bus Ride or 'Hockey Hair' and Other Buried Memories). Kling's monologues are compelling, poignant and hilarious, sublimely drawing the listener into his own quirky worldview.
His publicist writes: Kevin Kling grew up in Osseo, Minnesota and graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1979 with a B. A. in Theatre. He built his reputation in the Twin Cities during the 1990's with his groundbreaking plays "21A" and "Fear and Loving in Minneapolis," and toured a one man show of "Home and Away" across the US in the early 1990's. While his writing and performing continue unabated, he has also become well know for his regular storytelling contributions to NPR's "All Things Considered, " and has three (soon four) CD collection of his commentaries, "Home and Away," "Stories off the Shallow End," "Wonderlure," and the forthcoming "Fool's Paradise."
He has hopped freight trains, joined a circus, been to Mardi Gras and eaten things before knowing what they were. He loves Mary Ludington, their dogs and motorcycles, in that order. Kling has performed his one-person play "21A" (based on a South Minneapolis bus route) in Sweden, Louisville, KY, Off Broadway in NYC, Sydney and Perth, Australia, Edinburgh Scotland, and the Czech Republic. "Lloyd's Prayer" was work-shopped at the Sundance Institute. His autobiographical play, "Home and Away" has been seen at the Seattle Rep, The Goodman Theater, Jungle Theater, and the HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado among other venues. His adaptation of "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse" continues to be produced in theaters across the US and abroad. Kling's one-man show "From the Charred Underbelly of the Yule Log" continues to play each December at the Guthrie Theatre.
Kevin Kling's newest play "At Your Service" based on ancient Japanese Kyogen tales, opened with Ten Thousand Things Theater Company in March of 2004, and played at a variety of theaters, correctional facilities and shelters. In Spring of 2004 Minnesota Public Radio produced a live variety show by Kevin Kling and Friends, "A Fool's Paradise," which played for one night only on April fool's Day, 2004. This past August, Kling performed a new one-man show at the Minnesota Fringe Festival titled "Whoppers," with 5 sold out shows at the Minneapolis Women's Club. A new one man show titled "Freezing Paradise" is currently in progress with the Guthrie Theater touring many communities throughout the Midwest February and March of 2005. Kling is also writing a new play based on the myth of Persephone, which will open in the spring of 2005 with DC's Imagination Stage, a company who works with a multitude of talents with disabilities. Kevin continues to regularly speak at various health and medical conferences and events, along with teaching and performing at colleges, and universities throughout the country. He recently returned from Istanbul and Eastern Europe on a grant awarded to him by the Guthrie Theater, and also toured a solo show throughout England this past November.
Annie Glenn, with her picture-perfect marriage, was the envy of the other wives; platinum-blonde Rene Carpenter was proclaimed JFK's favorite; and licensed pilot Trudy Cooper arrived on base with a secret. Together with the other wives they formed the Astronaut Wives Club, meeting regularly to provide support and friendship. Many became next-door neighbors and helped to raise each other's children by day, while going to glam parties at night as the country raced to land a man on the Moon.
As their celebrity rose — and as divorce and tragic death began to touch their lives — they continued to rally together, and the wives have now been friends for more than fifty years. The Astronaut Wives Club tells the real story of the women who stood beside some of the biggest heroes in American history.
The Astronaut Wives Club is being made into a television series on ABC, with head writer Stephanie Savage, creator of Gossip Girl.
Koppel was born and raised in Chicago. After graduating from Barnard College with a degree in English and creative writing, she worked at the New York Times reporting on celebrities. Gawker called her "The Bravest Gossip Reporter Ever." She has written for the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Daily Beast, the Huffington Post, andGlamour, and has appeared on TODAY, Morning Joe, and National Public Radio. Koppel's first book, The Red Leather Diary, introduced readers to her one-of-a-kind journalistic adventures - recovering a young woman's diary from a trunk found in a dumpster outside of her Manhattan apartment and embarking on a treasure hunt to find its owner decades later. She lives in New York City with her husband and their two spacey rescue dogs, Ozzy and Lucky.
Koppel was introduced by Nora Rubel, director of the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies, and associate professor in the Department of Religion and Classics.
A special exhibition curated by staff members in the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation shared the story of how the Rochester community contributed to the space race of the 1960s. Materials highlighted Kodak’s development of the photography equipment that captured some of the first images of the moon from the Apollo 11 lunar orbiter. The exhibition also included photographs of Edward G. Gibson’s experience as an astronaut in the Skylab mission of 1973. Gibson is a 1959 graduate of the University of Rochester.
]]>Lily Koppel is the New York Times bestselling author of The Astronaut Wives Club, in which she gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of a group of women that helped to define an era and usher in a new age of women. As America's Mercury Seven astronauts were launched on death-defying missions, television cameras focused on the brave smiles of their young wives. Overnight, these women were transformed from military spouses into American royalty. They had tea with Jackie Kennedy, appeared on the cover of Life magazine, and quickly grew into fashion icons.
Annie Glenn, with her picture-perfect marriage, was the envy of the other wives; platinum-blonde Rene Carpenter was proclaimed JFK's favorite; and licensed pilot Trudy Cooper arrived on base with a secret. Together with the other wives they formed the Astronaut Wives Club, meeting regularly to provide support and friendship. Many became next-door neighbors and helped to raise each other's children by day, while going to glam parties at night as the country raced to land a man on the Moon.
As their celebrity rose — and as divorce and tragic death began to touch their lives — they continued to rally together, and the wives have now been friends for more than fifty years. The Astronaut Wives Club tells the real story of the women who stood beside some of the biggest heroes in American history.
The Astronaut Wives Club is being made into a television series on ABC, with head writer Stephanie Savage, creator of Gossip Girl.
Koppel was born and raised in Chicago. After graduating from Barnard College with a degree in English and creative writing, she worked at the New York Times reporting on celebrities. Gawker called her "The Bravest Gossip Reporter Ever." She has written for the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Daily Beast, the Huffington Post, andGlamour, and has appeared on TODAY, Morning Joe, and National Public Radio. Koppel's first book, The Red Leather Diary, introduced readers to her one-of-a-kind journalistic adventures - recovering a young woman's diary from a trunk found in a dumpster outside of her Manhattan apartment and embarking on a treasure hunt to find its owner decades later. She lives in New York City with her husband and their two spacey rescue dogs, Ozzy and Lucky.
Koppel was introduced by Nora Rubel, director of the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies, and associate professor in the Department of Religion and Classics.
A special exhibition curated by staff members in the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation shared the story of how the Rochester community contributed to the space race of the 1960s. Materials highlighted Kodak’s development of the photography equipment that captured some of the first images of the moon from the Apollo 11 lunar orbiter. The exhibition also included photographs of Edward G. Gibson’s experience as an astronaut in the Skylab mission of 1973. Gibson is a 1959 graduate of the University of Rochester.
Kress will discuss the art of writing science fiction.
The lecture will be introduced by Jeffrey Tucker, Associate Professor of English.
]]>Rochesterian Nancy Kress has written more than twenty-three books and won four Nebula Awards and a Hugo for her science fiction writing. A one-time corporate copy writer, Kress taught at the State University of New York at Brockport, frequently teaches at summer conferences, and is currently the Fiction columnist for Writer’s Digest. Her works have been translated into more than ten languages.
Kress will discuss the art of writing science fiction.
The lecture will be introduced by Jeffrey Tucker, Associate Professor of English.
Novelist, journalist, teacher, and inventor, Allen Kurzweil shares his unusual story of trauma and transcendence in his nonfiction chronicle,Whipping Boy. In the book, Kurzweil records his decades-long search for the boarding school bully who tormented him when he was just 10-years-old, and confronts the emotional and personal toll that resulted from that youthful encounter by facing down his ancient demon. An “investigative memoir” born of trauma and nourished by obsession, Whipping Boy provides a lens through which audiences young and not-so-young can reflect upon and overcome their own experiences of childhood injustice.
Kurzweil has earned high praise for his talks on writing, financial fraud, creativity, the dividends of procrastination, and the central place of libraries in American society. He regularly speaks before schools, religious organizations, and in corporate settings large and small.
Educated at Yale and the University of Rome, Kurzweil has written for numerous publications, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, theWall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. In addition to his investigative work, Kurzweil is the author of literary fiction (A Case of Curiosities, The Grand Complication), children’s books (the bestselling Leon series), and experiment kits (Potato Chip Science).
]]>“Without time, we cannot learn. Without time, we cannot heal.” -Allen Kurzweil
Novelist, journalist, teacher, and inventor, Allen Kurzweil shares his unusual story of trauma and transcendence in his nonfiction chronicle,Whipping Boy. In the book, Kurzweil records his decades-long search for the boarding school bully who tormented him when he was just 10-years-old, and confronts the emotional and personal toll that resulted from that youthful encounter by facing down his ancient demon. An “investigative memoir” born of trauma and nourished by obsession, Whipping Boy provides a lens through which audiences young and not-so-young can reflect upon and overcome their own experiences of childhood injustice.
Kurzweil has earned high praise for his talks on writing, financial fraud, creativity, the dividends of procrastination, and the central place of libraries in American society. He regularly speaks before schools, religious organizations, and in corporate settings large and small.
Educated at Yale and the University of Rome, Kurzweil has written for numerous publications, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, theWall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. In addition to his investigative work, Kurzweil is the author of literary fiction (A Case of Curiosities, The Grand Complication), children’s books (the bestselling Leon series), and experiment kits (Potato Chip Science).
His book, Spellbound: Seven Principles of Illusion to Captivate Audiences and Unlock the Secrets of Success, was published in 2017.
In his lecture, he will use magic to discuss perception, misdirection, and the science of fooling one’s brain.
]]>His book, Spellbound: Seven Principles of Illusion to Captivate Audiences and Unlock the Secrets of Success, was published in 2017.
In his lecture, he will use magic to discuss perception, misdirection, and the science of fooling one’s brain.
Joan Saab, Associate Professor of Art History/Visual and Cultural Studies, will introduce Susie Linfield.
]]>Susie Linfield, Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University, will speak at the Neilly Series Lecture on "Photojournalism and Human Rights." Linfield directs the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at NYU, and writes about culture and politics for a variety of publications. In her book, The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, she argues that exploring photography and political violence is an ethically and politically necessary act that connects us to our modern history of violence.
Joan Saab, Associate Professor of Art History/Visual and Cultural Studies, will introduce Susie Linfield.
Her book, Earning It: Hard-Won Lessons from Trailblazing Women at the Top of the Business World, offers insights inspired by the experience of more than fifty trailblazing women who broke the glass ceiling and reached the highest rungs of the corporate ladder. In it, Lublin chronicles the major milestones and dilemmas unique to women in the work world, and provides candid and practical advice to women of all ages and at all stages of their career.
Lublin holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in Communications from Stanford University.
Sponsored by Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Endowment, River Campus Libraries, and The Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester.
]]>Joann S. Lublin is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and management news editor for The Wall Street Journal. She was one of the first female reporters at The Journal, and created its first career advice column.
Her book, Earning It: Hard-Won Lessons from Trailblazing Women at the Top of the Business World, offers insights inspired by the experience of more than fifty trailblazing women who broke the glass ceiling and reached the highest rungs of the corporate ladder. In it, Lublin chronicles the major milestones and dilemmas unique to women in the work world, and provides candid and practical advice to women of all ages and at all stages of their career.
Lublin holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in Communications from Stanford University.
Sponsored by Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Endowment, River Campus Libraries, and The Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester.
Mendelson first met Auden while a senior at UR. He later focused his doctoral dissertation on Auden, and, in 1973, Auden named Mendelson his literary executor. Mendelson will discuss “W.H. Auden and the Mystery of the Imaginative Conscience.”
The Lecture will be introduced by Russell Peck, John Hall Deane Professor of English.
]]>Edward Mendelson, UR Class of 1966, is Literary Executor of the Estate of W.H. Auden and Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. He is the author of Early Auden, Later Auden and the editor of W.H. Auden’s Complete Works.
Mendelson first met Auden while a senior at UR. He later focused his doctoral dissertation on Auden, and, in 1973, Auden named Mendelson his literary executor. Mendelson will discuss “W.H. Auden and the Mystery of the Imaginative Conscience.”
The Lecture will be introduced by Russell Peck, John Hall Deane Professor of English.
Her presentation, "The Resurrection Trade and Other Reflections," is the title of a collection of poems which has received rave reviews.
Professor Miller will be introduced by Anne Coon, Professor Emeritus, College of Liberal Arts at Rochester Institute of Technology.
]]>Leslie Adrienne Miller's poetry has won numerous prizes and awards, and has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. She is currently Professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and her sixth collection of poems, Y, will be published in 2012. Her previous collections include Eat Quite Everything You See, Yesterday Had a Man In It, Ungodliness, and Staying Up For Love.
Her presentation, "The Resurrection Trade and Other Reflections," is the title of a collection of poems which has received rave reviews.
Professor Miller will be introduced by Anne Coon, Professor Emeritus, College of Liberal Arts at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Author and Lawyer Robert J. Miller is the March Neilly Series Lecture speaker. Miller is a member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and a practitioner and teacher of Indian Law. He is Associate Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, and recipient of a J.D. from the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College. Miller is Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and sits as a judge for other tribes. He helped found and was on the executive committee of the Oregon State Bar Indian Law Section and the National Indian Child Welfare Association.
His book, Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny, connects Jefferson and Lewis and Clark, to the Doctrine of Discovery.
Author and Lawyer Robert J. Miller is the March Neilly Series Lecture speaker. Miller is a member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and a practitioner and teacher of Indian Law. He is Associate Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, and recipient of a J.D. from the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College. Miller is Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and sits as a judge for other tribes. He helped found and was on the executive committee of the Oregon State Bar Indian Law Section and the National Indian Child Welfare Association.
His book, Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny, connects Jefferson and Lewis and Clark, to the Doctrine of Discovery.
Senior lecturer at Harvard Business School in the Entrepreneurial Management unit, Laura Nash will explore critical problems with dominant models of success today and how they impact performance, leadership, and commitment in a talk titled “Just Enough—Foundation for Lasting Success.” Nash is co- author of Just Enough: Tools for Creating Success in Your Work and Life. Drawing on her extensive research, she presents a different model, based on the metaphor of a kaleidoscope, which captures the chief ingredients of lasting success, i.e., accomplishments that “last” in satisfaction because they are worth it to you and others. Nash explores the critical dimensions of lasting success and ways to use the model to check in, rebalance, and set the next goals in ways that align with these deep aspirations. She explores what constitutes the core ingredients of real success; how to strategize productively about your own needs and opportunities over a lifetime—not to mention the needs of others whom you care about; how to anticipate the key reasons why high achievers can pursue a form of success that they and others around them do not want; and how to foster a reasoned sense of Just Enough. Nash has a PhD in classical philosophy from Harvard University and has written and taught on business ethics and leadership for twenty-five years.
In a wonderful millennium gift, Life Trustee Andrew H. Neilly and his wife, Janet, established a named, endowed library position at the University of Rochester with a $1 million gift. The Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Dean of River Campus Libraries Endowment is used by the dean to support library programs designed to contribute to the intellectual life of the University and to enhance the libraries' collections related to academic initiatives. With this purpose, the Neilly Series was established in 2001.
The libraries have been the focus of Andy Neilly's interest at the University for many years. During the University's Campaign for the '90s, Andy and his co-chair and good friend, Jack Keil, raised several million dollars in support of the libraries.
A graduate of the Class of 1947, Andy had a distinguished career in the field of publishing, serving as president, CEO, and vice chairman of the board of John Wiley & Sons in New York City before his retirement in 1995. Both he and Janet grew up in Rochester. Janet attended William Smith College and Northwestern University. She is a founder of Connecticut Hospice.
Andy has noted on many occasions, "The library is the key to the University. It is the center for everything else that happens here."
In a wonderful millennium gift, Life Trustee Andrew H. Neilly and his wife, Janet, established a named, endowed library position at the University of Rochester with a $1 million gift. The Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Dean of River Campus Libraries Endowment is used by the dean to support library programs designed to contribute to the intellectual life of the University and to enhance the libraries' collections related to academic initiatives. With this purpose, the Neilly Series was established in 2001.
The libraries have been the focus of Andy Neilly's interest at the University for many years. During the University's Campaign for the '90s, Andy and his co-chair and good friend, Jack Keil, raised several million dollars in support of the libraries.
A graduate of the Class of 1947, Andy had a distinguished career in the field of publishing, serving as president, CEO, and vice chairman of the board of John Wiley & Sons in New York City before his retirement in 1995. Both he and Janet grew up in Rochester. Janet attended William Smith College and Northwestern University. She is a founder of Connecticut Hospice.
Andy has noted on many occasions, "The library is the key to the University. It is the center for everything else that happens here."
Nordberg was part of a New York Times team that investigated the United States' efforts to export democracy to Haiti, and that won the Pulitzer Prize for its work on the American freight railroad system. She has also produced and written several documentaries for American television.
Her book, The Underground Girls of Kabul, explores the “bacha posh” phenomenon – girls who are raised disguised as boys in gender-segregated Afghanistan. Translated into more than ten languages, the book raises new questions about gender in children and adolescents, nature versus nurture, religion, sexuality, and the roles of women in war.
Nordberg holds a B.A. in Law and Journalism from Stockholm University, and an M.A. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
]]>Jenny Nordberg is an award-winning journalist, columnist, and television producer. She has worked around the globe reporting on nuclear proliferation, foreign aid, human trafficking, the global financial crisis, as well as many human rights issues. She is currently a foreign correspondent for Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagblade.
Nordberg was part of a New York Times team that investigated the United States' efforts to export democracy to Haiti, and that won the Pulitzer Prize for its work on the American freight railroad system. She has also produced and written several documentaries for American television.
Her book, The Underground Girls of Kabul, explores the “bacha posh” phenomenon – girls who are raised disguised as boys in gender-segregated Afghanistan. Translated into more than ten languages, the book raises new questions about gender in children and adolescents, nature versus nurture, religion, sexuality, and the roles of women in war.
Nordberg holds a B.A. in Law and Journalism from Stockholm University, and an M.A. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
The talk will be accompanied by a slide show of AIDS posters from the University's collection, one of the largest AIDS education poster archives in the world.
Oppenheimer is a professor of history and public health at the CUNY Graduate Center. His research has included analysis of health services, the costs of funding health services for those with HIV/AIDS, and ethical issues raised by the HIV/AIDS epidemic for private health insurance system.
]]>For over three decades, Americans have lived with an epidemic that has now become almost invisible. But earlier in the arc from past to present, HIV/AIDS was a disorder that strained credulity, engendered panic, and called our medical and scientific systems into question. In characterizing HIV/AIDS today, Oppenheimer will discuss the political and ethical challenges raised by an epidemic intimately associated with fundamental changes at home and new demands globally.
The talk will be accompanied by a slide show of AIDS posters from the University's collection, one of the largest AIDS education poster archives in the world.
Oppenheimer is a professor of history and public health at the CUNY Graduate Center. His research has included analysis of health services, the costs of funding health services for those with HIV/AIDS, and ethical issues raised by the HIV/AIDS epidemic for private health insurance system.
In the mid-90s Palattella was a special projects editor at Lingua Franca and co-editor of The Real Guide to Graduate School (Lingua Franca Books, 1997). From 2004 to 2007 he was an editor-at-large of the Columbia Journalism Review, and in 2007 he served as poetry editor of The Nation. Palattella's essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the London Review of Books, The Boston Review, Bookforum, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Washington Post Bookworld, Newsday, Dissent, American Scholar, and the Chronicle Review. In 1995 he was the recipient of the Robert D. Richardson Award in Non-fiction Writing from the Denver Quarterly for an essay about the poet Susan Howe.
Introduction by James Longenbach, Joseph Henry Gilmore Professor of English
]]>John Palattella will discuss magazines and literary culture in the present economic and publishing climate. He is literary editor of The Nation, the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. He received a BA from Washington & Lee University and a PhD from the University of Rochester. His dissertation focused on the early poetry and prose of William Carlos Williams.
In the mid-90s Palattella was a special projects editor at Lingua Franca and co-editor of The Real Guide to Graduate School (Lingua Franca Books, 1997). From 2004 to 2007 he was an editor-at-large of the Columbia Journalism Review, and in 2007 he served as poetry editor of The Nation. Palattella's essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the London Review of Books, The Boston Review, Bookforum, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Washington Post Bookworld, Newsday, Dissent, American Scholar, and the Chronicle Review. In 1995 he was the recipient of the Robert D. Richardson Award in Non-fiction Writing from the Denver Quarterly for an essay about the poet Susan Howe.
Introduction by James Longenbach, Joseph Henry Gilmore Professor of English
His lecture will provide a rare glimpse into the fascinating process of languages creation, and will review the cultural, historical, and linguistic aspects that are taken into account when inventing a new language.
Peterson received his B.A. in English and Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.A. in Linguistics from the University of California, San Diego.
Sponsored by the Neilly Lecture Series, River Campus Libraries, the Humanities Center, and the Sara Nainzadeh Fund.
]]>David J. Peterson is a language inventor and the creator of the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for HBO’s television series Game of Thrones. He is the author of The Art of Language Invention and of Living Language Dothraki. Together with Game of Thrones, he has created languages for a number of films and television series, including Defiance, The Shannara Chronicles, The 100, and Emerald City.
His lecture will provide a rare glimpse into the fascinating process of languages creation, and will review the cultural, historical, and linguistic aspects that are taken into account when inventing a new language.
Peterson received his B.A. in English and Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.A. in Linguistics from the University of California, San Diego.
Sponsored by the Neilly Lecture Series, River Campus Libraries, the Humanities Center, and the Sara Nainzadeh Fund.
ohn Pickstone on “Describing, Analysing and Controlling Life: The Past and Present of Bio-medical (& other) Sciences.” Pickstone is the author of Ways of Knowing: a New History of Modern Science, Technology and Medicine. He leads the ongoing Wellcome (England) project on the history of cancer in Britain, beginning from the Second World War. He is also part of a group examining the recent history of mental health services and looking at recent changes in the NHS more generally. He is particularly interested in the uses of history in determining health policy. His work on Ways of Knowing grew from a conviction that through some of the hundreds of papers produced on the history of science, technology and medicine since the 1960s, we might develop new and better frames for understanding long-term history; and that such frames might allow more ‘fertilisation’ between case studies, across time and across disciplines.
Pickstone is the founding Director of the Centre for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine at the University of Manchester, and Professor of the History of Science at the Centre and at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine.Born in NYC, Rattiner moved to Long Island in 1956 when his father bought a local drugstore. He started Dan's Papersas a summer newspaper between his junior and senior year at the University of Rochester. Also a cartoonist, he has sold his work to Esquire, MacLeans, Redbook, and the Saturday Review of Literature.For several years in the 1990s, he broadcast Dan's Hampton Report on WQXR, the radio station of The New York Times.
Introduction by Richard M. Gollin, Professor Emeritus of English
]]>Born in NYC, Rattiner moved to Long Island in 1956 when his father bought a local drugstore. He started Dan's Papersas a summer newspaper between his junior and senior year at the University of Rochester. Also a cartoonist, he has sold his work to Esquire, MacLeans, Redbook, and the Saturday Review of Literature.For several years in the 1990s, he broadcast Dan's Hampton Report on WQXR, the radio station of The New York Times.
Introduction by Richard M. Gollin, Professor Emeritus of English
From the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, American physicians treated women and girls for masturbation by removing the clitoris (clitoridectomy) or clitoral hood (female circumcision). During this same time, and continuing to today, physicians also performed female circumcision to enable women to reach orgasm. Though used as treatment, paradoxically, for both a perceived excessive sexuality and a perceived lack of sexual responsiveness, these surgeries reflect a consistent medical conception of the clitoris as a sexual organ. In recent years the popular media and academics have commented on the rising popularity in the United States of female genital cosmetic surgeries, including female circumcision, yet these discussions often assume such procedures are new. In Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment, Sarah Rodriguez, Ph.D., presents an engaging and surprising history of surgeries on the clitoris, revealing how medical views of the female body and female sexuality have changed -- and in some cases not changed -- throughout the last century and a half.
During her talk, Rodriguez traced the medical use of female circumcision in the United States as therapy for adult women who either masturbated or who failed to have an orgasm with their husband. Though seemingly paradoxical, with one use meant to curb sexual expression, the other to enhance, the use of female circumcision as therapy for each condition reveals both a medical understanding of the clitoris as an important sexual organ as well as cultural understanding of what constituted normal sexual expression for women.
Rodriguez is a lecturer in the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program, Feinberg School of Medicine, and a lecturer in the Global Health Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, at Northwestern University. She is a medical historian interested in women’s health in the 20th century, in particular women’s reproductive and sexual health. Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment, is her first book.
She was introduced by Theodore M. Brown, Ph.D., professor of history and medical humanities, and the Charles E. and Dale L. Phelps Professor of Public Health and Policy at the University of Rochester.
From the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, American physicians treated women and girls for masturbation by removing the clitoris (clitoridectomy) or clitoral hood (female circumcision). During this same time, and continuing to today, physicians also performed female circumcision to enable women to reach orgasm. Though used as treatment, paradoxically, for both a perceived excessive sexuality and a perceived lack of sexual responsiveness, these surgeries reflect a consistent medical conception of the clitoris as a sexual organ. In recent years the popular media and academics have commented on the rising popularity in the United States of female genital cosmetic surgeries, including female circumcision, yet these discussions often assume such procedures are new. In Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment, Sarah Rodriguez, Ph.D., presents an engaging and surprising history of surgeries on the clitoris, revealing how medical views of the female body and female sexuality have changed -- and in some cases not changed -- throughout the last century and a half.
During her talk, Rodriguez traced the medical use of female circumcision in the United States as therapy for adult women who either masturbated or who failed to have an orgasm with their husband. Though seemingly paradoxical, with one use meant to curb sexual expression, the other to enhance, the use of female circumcision as therapy for each condition reveals both a medical understanding of the clitoris as an important sexual organ as well as cultural understanding of what constituted normal sexual expression for women.
Rodriguez is a lecturer in the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program, Feinberg School of Medicine, and a lecturer in the Global Health Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, at Northwestern University. She is a medical historian interested in women’s health in the 20th century, in particular women’s reproductive and sexual health. Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment, is her first book.
She was introduced by Theodore M. Brown, Ph.D., professor of history and medical humanities, and the Charles E. and Dale L. Phelps Professor of Public Health and Policy at the University of Rochester.
A February 7, 2005 article in The Nation cites Deceit and Denial as being at the center of a controversy involving twenty of the biggest chemical companies in the United States. The companies are attempting to discredit Rosner and Markowitz, and five other academics who recommended that the University of California Press publish the book as part of a high stakes court case scheduled for September, in which the companies face potentially massive liability claims.
Introduction by Ted Brown.
Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, which chronicles the history of environmental and industrial illness, is authored by David Rosner, Professor of History and Public Health at Columbia University and Director of the Center for the History of Ethics of Public Health at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, and Gerald Markowitz. Rosner will discuss attempts by the chemical and lead industries to deceive Americans about the dangers their products pose to workers, consumers, and the public. Journalist Bill Moyers described the book as "The best detective story I've read in years." In the face of other perceived threats, industrial pollution may well be overlooked, but it is holds great consequences for public health.
A February 7, 2005 article in The Nation cites Deceit and Denial as being at the center of a controversy involving twenty of the biggest chemical companies in the United States. The companies are attempting to discredit Rosner and Markowitz, and five other academics who recommended that the University of California Press publish the book as part of a high stakes court case scheduled for September, in which the companies face potentially massive liability claims.
Introduction by Ted Brown.
Scott’s career has included ground-breaking roles in education, banking, and neighborhood revitalization initiatives. She currently serves as a consultant and speaker, and has been a frequent guest on radio and TV news broadcasts in western New York.
Her 2014 memoir, The Circles God Draws, spans decades of opportunity and challenge, from post-Depression years through World War II to today, detailing her life as an educator and businesswoman in Michigan, Cleveland, and Rochester. The book chronicles family experiences, facing discrimination, and personal triumphs.
Scott holds an undergraduate degree (cum laude) in secondary education and sociology from Albion College, graduate degree from Kent State University, a Chief School Administrator and Business certifications from Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, and two Honorary Doctorates, including one from Albion College. She and her husband Bill live in Rochester.
]]>Born and educated in Albion, Michigan, Ruth Holland Scott is an educator, author, and businesswoman who was the first African-American woman elected to serve on the Rochester City Council, and was elected its president in 1986.
Scott’s career has included ground-breaking roles in education, banking, and neighborhood revitalization initiatives. She currently serves as a consultant and speaker, and has been a frequent guest on radio and TV news broadcasts in western New York.
Her 2014 memoir, The Circles God Draws, spans decades of opportunity and challenge, from post-Depression years through World War II to today, detailing her life as an educator and businesswoman in Michigan, Cleveland, and Rochester. The book chronicles family experiences, facing discrimination, and personal triumphs.
Scott holds an undergraduate degree (cum laude) in secondary education and sociology from Albion College, graduate degree from Kent State University, a Chief School Administrator and Business certifications from Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, and two Honorary Doctorates, including one from Albion College. She and her husband Bill live in Rochester.
Scull has written widely on the history of psychiatry, with his essays appearing in leading journals of medical history, social history, law, and medicine, and has written or edited more than twenty books.
His latest book, Hysteria: The Disturbing History, was released in January 2012.
Dr. Scull will be introduced by Stephanie Brown Clark, Associate Professor in Medical Humanities.
]]>Andrew Scull has held faculty appointments at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and the University of California--San Diego, where he has been Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Science Studies since 1994. In 1993, he was President of the Society for the Social History of Medicine.
Scull has written widely on the history of psychiatry, with his essays appearing in leading journals of medical history, social history, law, and medicine, and has written or edited more than twenty books.
His latest book, Hysteria: The Disturbing History, was released in January 2012.
Dr. Scull will be introduced by Stephanie Brown Clark, Associate Professor in Medical Humanities.
Born in Nova Scotia, Canada, she received her BA from the University of Toronto in English Literature, her MA in English and Creative Writing from Concordia University in Montreal, and her PhD in English Literature from Université de Montréal. She is currently pursuing postdoctoral research on contemporary American poetry at the University of Arizona, and will join the faculty there as an assistant professor of English literature in 2014. She is also working to complete a second novel, to be published fall, 2014. She divides her time between Tucson, Arizona and Nova Scotia, Canada.
Johanna Skibsrud’s first novel, The Sentimentalists, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious literary prize, in 2010. The book was subsequently shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Award and has currently been translated into five languages. A book of short fiction, This Will Be Difficult to Explain, and Other Stories, was published in 2011 and shortlisted for Canada’s Danuta Gleed Award. Many of the stories included in the collection had previously appeared in literary journals, including Zoetrope, Ecotone and Glimmertrain. Johanna is also the author of two collections of poetry: Late Nights with Wild Cowboys and I Do Not Think I Could Love a Human Being, both of which were shortlisted for Canadian poetry prizes.
Born in Nova Scotia, Canada, she received her BA from the University of Toronto in English Literature, her MA in English and Creative Writing from Concordia University in Montreal, and her PhD in English Literature from Université de Montréal. She is currently pursuing postdoctoral research on contemporary American poetry at the University of Arizona, and will join the faculty there as an assistant professor of English literature in 2014. She is also working to complete a second novel, to be published fall, 2014. She divides her time between Tucson, Arizona and Nova Scotia, Canada.
This lecture is especially relevant for the University of Rochester, as the River Campus Libraries’ Rare Books and Special Collections Department owns an extensive collection of materials related to Seward and his family.
Mr. Stahr will be introduced by Dr. Thomas Slaughter, Arthur R. Miller Professor of History. Dr. Slaughter is collaborating with the River Campus Libraries to teach a course in which students transcribe and digitize the William Henry Seward archival collection, with a focus on family papers.
This lecture is especially relevant for the University of Rochester, as the River Campus Libraries’ Rare Books and Special Collections Department owns an extensive collection of materials related to Seward and his family.
Mr. Stahr will be introduced by Dr. Thomas Slaughter, Arthur R. Miller Professor of History. Dr. Slaughter is collaborating with the River Campus Libraries to teach a course in which students transcribe and digitize the William Henry Seward archival collection, with a focus on family papers.
Stiles is an assistant professor of English and director of medical humanities at Saint Louis University. She is the author of Popular Fiction and Brain Science in the Late Nineteenth Century (Cambridge UP, 2012) and the editor of Neurology and Literature, 1866-1920 (Palgrave, 2007).
Her current project, Rewriting the Rest Cure: Women Writers and Alternative Therapies, 1870-1920, explores Silas Weir Mitchell’s rest cure and women writers’ responses to it, particularly women who favored alternative healing traditions such as Christian Science, spiritualism, and homeopathy. Writers like Frances Hodgson Burnett, L.M. Montgomery, and Elisabeth Stuart Phelps wrote bestselling fiction that promoted their alternative therapies of choice, and channeled popular discontent surrounding mainstream treatments for anxiety and depression. Such writings also suggest that the late-Victorian conflict between mainstream and alternative medicine involved a battle of the sexes, pitting medical men against women steeped in occult traditions.
]]>Anne Stiles, an expert on the intersection between science and literature during the Victorian era, presents the Neilly Lecture, “Rewriting the Rest Cure in Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden.”
Stiles is an assistant professor of English and director of medical humanities at Saint Louis University. She is the author of Popular Fiction and Brain Science in the Late Nineteenth Century (Cambridge UP, 2012) and the editor of Neurology and Literature, 1866-1920 (Palgrave, 2007).
Her current project, Rewriting the Rest Cure: Women Writers and Alternative Therapies, 1870-1920, explores Silas Weir Mitchell’s rest cure and women writers’ responses to it, particularly women who favored alternative healing traditions such as Christian Science, spiritualism, and homeopathy. Writers like Frances Hodgson Burnett, L.M. Montgomery, and Elisabeth Stuart Phelps wrote bestselling fiction that promoted their alternative therapies of choice, and channeled popular discontent surrounding mainstream treatments for anxiety and depression. Such writings also suggest that the late-Victorian conflict between mainstream and alternative medicine involved a battle of the sexes, pitting medical men against women steeped in occult traditions.
Sze is the author of nine books of poetry, including The Ginkgo Light, Quipu, The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998, Archipelago, and The Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese. He is also the editor of Chinese Writers on Writing, forthcoming from Trinity University Press. His poems have been translated into Albanian, Bosnian, Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, and Turkish. He was poet laureate of Santa Fe from 2006-2008 and is the recipient of many awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, a Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, and two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing fellowships. He is professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Photo © Mariana Cook.
Introduction by James Longenbach, Joseph Henry Gilmore Professor of English
]]>Arthur Sze will discuss "Tyuonyi: Multicultural Perspectives on Poetry." Tyounyi, a Keresan word, is the name of a meeting place situated in Bandelier, New Mexico. Sze has 22 years of experience working with Native Americans at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He translates classical Chinese poetry, and has as a deep interest in Japanese culture. He will show how these strands run through the evolution of his own poetry and how they are an essential part of our world today.
Sze is the author of nine books of poetry, including The Ginkgo Light, Quipu, The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998, Archipelago, and The Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese. He is also the editor of Chinese Writers on Writing, forthcoming from Trinity University Press. His poems have been translated into Albanian, Bosnian, Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, and Turkish. He was poet laureate of Santa Fe from 2006-2008 and is the recipient of many awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, a Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, and two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing fellowships. He is professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Photo © Mariana Cook.
Introduction by James Longenbach, Joseph Henry Gilmore Professor of English
Thatcher is the former director of Penn State University Press. His most significant achievement was to forge a working relationship with the Penn State Libraries that resulted in the joint launching of the Office of Digital Scholarly Publishing in 2005, followed by the merger of the Press into the Libraries later that year. He has served on many boards, including the Copyright Committee of the Association of American University Presses, the Association of American Publishers, and the Association for Copyright Enforcement, overseeing the landmark suit against Texaco. In retirement, he will continue to work part-time as an acquiring editor in social sciences for Penn State University Press. This lecture celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the University of Rochester Press.
Introduction by Suzanne Guiod, Editorial Director, University of Rochester Press
]]>Sanford Thatcher will discuss open access, which is viewed by librarians and their allies in academic administration as an antidote to the domination of certain sectors of higher education publishing by a few large internationally active companies. The talk will explore the various dimensions of the phenomenon, including the relative absence of discussion about open access as it affects book publishing, and attempt an assessment of its promises and pitfalls as a way to effect change to a new model, or models.
Thatcher is the former director of Penn State University Press. His most significant achievement was to forge a working relationship with the Penn State Libraries that resulted in the joint launching of the Office of Digital Scholarly Publishing in 2005, followed by the merger of the Press into the Libraries later that year. He has served on many boards, including the Copyright Committee of the Association of American University Presses, the Association of American Publishers, and the Association for Copyright Enforcement, overseeing the landmark suit against Texaco. In retirement, he will continue to work part-time as an acquiring editor in social sciences for Penn State University Press. This lecture celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the University of Rochester Press.
Introduction by Suzanne Guiod, Editorial Director, University of Rochester Press
Associate Professor in the Department of English Jeffrey Allen Tucker will discuss the process of editing this volume, which included conducting face-to-face interviews with the author and archival research in the River Campus Libraries’ Department of Rare Books Special Collections and Preservation.
]]>One of the most prolific African American authors of his time, John A. Williams (1925–2015) made his mark as a journalist, educator, and writer. Conversations with John A. Williams collects twenty-three interviews with the three-time winner of the American Book Award, beginning with a discussion in 1969 of his early works and ending with a previously unpublished interview from 2005. Gathered from print periodicals as well as radio and television programs, these interviews address a range of topics, including anti-black violence, Williams’s WWII naval service, race and publishing, Martin Luther King Jr., growing up in Syracuse, traveling in Africa and Europe, and his reputation as an angry black writer.
Associate Professor in the Department of English Jeffrey Allen Tucker will discuss the process of editing this volume, which included conducting face-to-face interviews with the author and archival research in the River Campus Libraries’ Department of Rare Books Special Collections and Preservation.
Born in the former Yugoslavia, her work often discusses the collapse of her country, the political turmoil that ensued, and her experience as an exile.
Her firm anti-war stance and criticism of Croatian and Serbian nationalism turned her into a target for public ostracism and persistent media harassment, and eventually made her leave Croatia in 1993.
Ugresic’s books have been translated into more than twenty languages. She has taught at a number of American and European universities, including Harvard, UCLA, Columbia and the Free University of Berlin. She is the winner of several major literary prizes, including the 2016 Vilenica Prize and Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
Her lecture will focus on political resistance and how it affected her writing and shaped her work.
Sponsored by Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Endowment, and Open Letter Press.
]]>Dubravka Ugresic is an Amsterdam-based author who has established herself as one of Europe’s most distinctive novelists and essayists.
Born in the former Yugoslavia, her work often discusses the collapse of her country, the political turmoil that ensued, and her experience as an exile.
Her firm anti-war stance and criticism of Croatian and Serbian nationalism turned her into a target for public ostracism and persistent media harassment, and eventually made her leave Croatia in 1993.
Ugresic’s books have been translated into more than twenty languages. She has taught at a number of American and European universities, including Harvard, UCLA, Columbia and the Free University of Berlin. She is the winner of several major literary prizes, including the 2016 Vilenica Prize and Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
Her lecture will focus on political resistance and how it affected her writing and shaped her work.
Sponsored by Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Endowment, and Open Letter Press.
He will discuss his latest work, Cutting for Stone. Much of his life's work is brought to bear in this debut novel, which has been celebrated by critics around the country. Entertainment Weekly praised the novel as "a lovely ode to the medical profession…The doctor in [Verghese] sees the luminous beauty of the physician's calling; the artist recognizes that there remain wounds no surgeon can mend."
Verghese has also written two nonfiction books: My Own Country, a memoir about treating AIDS patients in rural Tennessee, and The Tennis Partner, about his close friendship with a drug-addicted physician. The Tennis Partner was a New York Times Notable Book and a national best seller.
His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, The Atlantic, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. A moving speaker, he is also acclaimed as a dedicated and inspiring teacher of medicine at the bedside and is a sought-after clinician and diagnostician. All of Abraham Verghese's works, fiction and non-fiction, reflect his view of medicine as a passionate pursuit and a priestly calling. Photo © Joanne Chan.
Introduction by Dr. Seymour I. Schwartz, Distinguished Alumni Professor of Surgery
]]>Abraham Verghese is a renowned physician, best-selling author, and Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He lectures widely on the importance of the doctor-patient relationship, on the samaritan function of physicians, and on where meaning resides in a medical life
He will discuss his latest work, Cutting for Stone. Much of his life's work is brought to bear in this debut novel, which has been celebrated by critics around the country. Entertainment Weekly praised the novel as "a lovely ode to the medical profession…The doctor in [Verghese] sees the luminous beauty of the physician's calling; the artist recognizes that there remain wounds no surgeon can mend."
Verghese has also written two nonfiction books: My Own Country, a memoir about treating AIDS patients in rural Tennessee, and The Tennis Partner, about his close friendship with a drug-addicted physician. The Tennis Partner was a New York Times Notable Book and a national best seller.
His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, The Atlantic, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. A moving speaker, he is also acclaimed as a dedicated and inspiring teacher of medicine at the bedside and is a sought-after clinician and diagnostician. All of Abraham Verghese's works, fiction and non-fiction, reflect his view of medicine as a passionate pursuit and a priestly calling. Photo © Joanne Chan.
Introduction by Dr. Seymour I. Schwartz, Distinguished Alumni Professor of Surgery
Weiner is a reporter for The New York Times, where he has covered the CIA for the past twenty years, as well as wars, coups, and United States foreign policy. In 1988, while a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, in recognition of articles exposing the secret spending of the Pentagon and the CIA.
The lecture will be introduced by Theodore M. Brown, Professor of History.
]]>Pulitzer Prize winner, Tim Weiner, examines the history of the CIA from its creation after World War II, through its battles in the cold war and the war on terror, to its near-collapse after 9/11. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA earned Weiner a National Book Award and was deemed one of the Best Books of the Year by Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Economist.
Weiner is a reporter for The New York Times, where he has covered the CIA for the past twenty years, as well as wars, coups, and United States foreign policy. In 1988, while a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, in recognition of articles exposing the secret spending of the Pentagon and the CIA.
The lecture will be introduced by Theodore M. Brown, Professor of History.
A Rochester native, now Professor of Art History at Rutgers University, she is interested in architecture as a way of understanding society’s values.
The Lecture will be introduced by J. Steven Lamberti, Associate Professor of Psychiatry.
Hawkins-Carlson Room, Rush Rhees Library. 5 p.m.
]]>Carla Yanni will discuss her most recent book, The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States. Yanni tells the story of therapeutic design, from America’s earliest purpose-builtinstitutions to the asylum construction frenzy in the second half of the century.
A Rochester native, now Professor of Art History at Rutgers University, she is interested in architecture as a way of understanding society’s values.
The Lecture will be introduced by J. Steven Lamberti, Associate Professor of Psychiatry.
Hawkins-Carlson Room, Rush Rhees Library. 5 p.m.
The results, while early, are mind-blowing. Already, brain-mapping has improved people’s lives, enabling scientists to implant electrodes in the brain to help people with Parkinson’s regain their ability to walk, and also to give paralyzed people the power to control computers. Zimmer will discuss the manner in which brain mapping may point to better ways of treating disorders such as autism, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease, and, perhaps, help us gain an insight into human nature itself.
Carl Zimmer, in the words of the New York Times Book Review, “is as fine a science essayist as we have.” He was awarded the National Academies Communication Award, and is a three-time winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award. Zimmer is a columnist for the New York Times, and writes regularly for magazines such as National Geographic and Wired. He is also the author of thirteen widely praised books.
]]>Our brains are the foundation for who were are—they store our memories, give rise to our emotions, and enable us to look to the future. But our brains remain a terra incognita, an inner continent that remains barely explored. Only recently have scientists begun to map the brain in its full complexity, some 80 billion neurons and their trillions of connections with each other.
The results, while early, are mind-blowing. Already, brain-mapping has improved people’s lives, enabling scientists to implant electrodes in the brain to help people with Parkinson’s regain their ability to walk, and also to give paralyzed people the power to control computers. Zimmer will discuss the manner in which brain mapping may point to better ways of treating disorders such as autism, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease, and, perhaps, help us gain an insight into human nature itself.
Carl Zimmer, in the words of the New York Times Book Review, “is as fine a science essayist as we have.” He was awarded the National Academies Communication Award, and is a three-time winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award. Zimmer is a columnist for the New York Times, and writes regularly for magazines such as National Geographic and Wired. He is also the author of thirteen widely praised books.