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LA Colloquium: New York through the eyes of Romanian writers

February 5, 2014

The University of Southern Indiana's College of Liberal Arts spring 2014 Faculty Colloquia begin Friday, February 7, with a lecture by Dr. Oana Popescu-Sandu, assistant professor of English. 

Popescu-Sandu will present "American Experience: Romanian Writers See New York" at 3:30 p.m. in Kleymeyer Hall in the Liberal Arts Center (LA 0101).

Abstract: Romanian poets and playwrights experienced New York through the lenses of their communist and post-communist life and used their craft to render that experience, exploring the east/west, communist/post-communist, socialist/democratic, male/female, and young/old binaries. The result is literature that is haunted by past ghosts while also keenly aware of the freedoms (and excesses) of the American landscape.

Dr. Kevin Allton, associate professor of English, will present "Armed with Madness: Leonora Carrington and the Power of Myth" at 3:30 p.m. Friday, March 21, in Kleymeyer Hall.

Abstract: At the time of her death in 2011, Leonora Carrington's creative work in an astonishing variety of visual media and literary genres had conferred on her an almost mythical status. She was, said her friend, the prestigious Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska, "the most beautiful sorceress," one whose vision of art as a power for the radical re-enchantment of the world makes her a challenging and revelatory figure. 

The final colloquium for spring 2014 will be presented by Dr. Jessica Garcés Jensen, assistant professor of French, at 3:30 p.m. Friday, April 25, in Kleymeyer Hall. Her lecture is titled "Contemporary French Fiction and the Female Reproductive Experience."

Abstract: In the early 1990s, a number of commercially and critically-successful French writers began probing the lived experiences of the female reproductive body, tapping them for both creative inspiration and critical reflection, while expressing them through the voice of the reproductive subject. This presentation identifies key works within the ever-growing corpus Jensen refers to as "hysterographies" (literally "writings of the womb").

The colloquia are a free, public series of lectures featuring faculty research in the USI College of Liberal Arts. For more information, contact Dr. Melissa Stacer, assistant professor of criminal justice studies and coordinator of the colloquia, at mjstacer@usi.edu or 812-465-7089.

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