LOUISVILLE, Ky. — More than 300 literary scholars, critics and writers from around the world are expected at the University of Louisville for the Feb. 22-24 Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900.
UofL’s English and classical and modern languages departments and the Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society sponsor the annual conference with topics ranging from “The Handmaid’s Tale” to Virginia Woolf and from graphic narratives and board games to the role of nostalgia in the present. Keynote addresses listed below are free and public; those speakers are:
–Dominic Pettman, culture and media professor at The New School in New York and author of nine books. He will speak about “The Species without Qualities: Proleptic Reflections on the Posthumanities” at 5 p.m. Feb. 22 in Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library.
–Antonio Tillis, University of Houston Hispanic studies professor and College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences dean and author of several books about Latin American and Afro-Hispanic literature. His talk on “Spanish American Literature: From National Literary Discourse to the Afro-Hispanic” will be at 3:15 p.m. Feb. 23 in Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library.
–M. NourbeSe Philip, Toronto-based poet, playwright, novelist, essayist and short-story author, often on social justice themes, and winner of a lifetime literary award from her native Trinidad and Tobago. She will read from her work at 5 p.m. Feb. 23 in Room 100, Bingham Humanities Building.
–Eliezra Schaffzin, winner of UofL’s 2017 Calvino Prize in fiction, will read from her story “Cingo, Cingere, Cinxi, Cinctum” at 11 a.m. Feb. 24 in Bingham Poetry Room, Ekstrom Library.
–Brent Hayes Edwards, Columbia University English and comparative literature professor, author of prize-winning books about diaspora literature and jazz and co-editor of The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. His talk on “Laying Transparency to Rest” will include a showing of the recently restored experimental film “Sweet Willie Rollbar’s Orientation” 4:45-6:15 p.m. Feb 24 at Speed Art Museum Cinema, 2035 S. Third St.
For more information, contact Alan Golding, 502-852-5918 or alan.golding@louisville.edu, or check www.thelouisvilleconference.com.
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