English Department Events

Several exciting events are planned for the coming year:. 

• In October of 2007, Alyson Hagy, author of four works of fiction, will be on campus for several events, including a reading for the public on Thursday, October 25.  She will accompany a small group of students to Björklunden, Lawrence's Conference and Retreat Center in Door County, for a weekend of writing workshops and one-on-one manuscript consultations. 
• In January of 2008, Elizabeth Young (Mount Holyoke College) will give a lecture on gender and Civil War culture.
• Some time in winter or spring term, poet, essayist, and translator Lyn Hejinian will give a reading.  Among her many honors are fellowships from the California Arts Council, the NEA, and the Academy of American Poets.
• Later in the spring, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (Harvard University), Pulitzer-Prize winning author of A Midwife's Tale and Good Wives, two studies of women in early America, will be the visiting Phi Beta Kappa scholar.
• Finally, in April of 2008, fiction writer Charles Baxter will come to Lawrence as part of the Fox Cities Book Festival.  Baxter is best known for his novel, The Feast of Love.  He will read from his work on Friday, April 18.

This full schedule of events is not unusual for us. Over the last few years, in fact, a number of nationally and internationally renowned writers have come to Lawrence. Recent visitors have included novelists Kevin Brockmeier, Jane Hamilton, and Salman Rushdie. Thanks to the generosity of the Mia Paul Fund, we’ve hosted a variety of respected poets, including Robert Creeley, Edward Hirsch, Elizabeth Robinson, Cole Swensen, William Fuller '75, and former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins.

The department has also hosted distinguished scholars of British and American literature. In the spring of 2005, we helped to sponsor an interdisciplinary colloquium on new approaches to the American Civil War. This event brought together scholars from a wide variety of fields, including David Blight (History, Yale University), Kirk Savage (Art History, University of Pittsburgh), and Franny Nudelman (English, Carleton University, Canada). In addition to giving talks on their recent research, all three participated in a roundtable forum on the future of Civil War studies.

Whenever visitors come to campus, Lawrence students have the chance to meet and visit with them. Through small-group lunches, informal conversations in Main Hall's Strange Commons, readings and book signings, students can engage in intimate conversations about writing and scholarship.