Poynter Center Roundtables
The Poynter Center hosted two roundtables this fall. Both were well-attended and lively discussions highlighting recent publications from IU scholars of distinction.
Susan Gubar
The first roundtable of 2012 featured Susan Gubar talking about her book "Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer," a gripping account of her recent battles with ovarian cancer and its treatment. It is at once an intense personal account of suffering, an expose of the state of medical care and a meditation on the gifts of companionship, art and literature. Emeritus Professor Gubar is a distinguished long-term member of the English faculty at IU, known for her path-breaking work in feminist literary criticism as well as her own literary productions. She is a recipient of the 2010 IU President's Medal for Excellence.
John Bodnar
Chancellor's Professor of History John Bodnar presented on his book "The 'Good War' in American Memory" in October. A nuanced and detailed account of how World War II has lived in the American consciousness through the stories, concepts and media that shape remembering, the book has been hailed as "a corrective lens for ... recent myopia." Among the topics discussed at the roundtable were how the topics of memorials vary across communities and states, and how accounts choose to focus on or ignore aspects of war such as suffering, trauma, recklessness and racial injustice.
