Last modified: Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Author Joyce Carol Oates to read, lecture at IU Feb. 16
What: Joyce Carol Oates reading
When: Feb.16, 5 p.m.
Where: The Indiana Memorial Union's Solarium Room
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 3, 2009
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Called "one of the greatest writers of our time" by the late novelist John Gardner, award-winning author Joyce Carol Oates will read and lecture at Indiana University's Indiana Memorial Union on Feb. 16 at 5 p.m.
Joyce Carol Oates
The lecture is part of a "Cultural Conflicts" series presented by the College Arts and Humanities Institute (CAHI). CAHI is financed by IU's College of Arts and Sciences to foster interdisciplinary research and cooperation among arts and humanities faculty.
Andrea Ciccarelli, director of CAHI, said the institute has an ongoing lecture series that explores the themes "Cultural Conflicts" and "Solitude" through the viewpoints of artists, intellectuals, humanists and scientists from both within and outside of the university.
"Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prolific and multifaceted writers today in the English language," said Ciccarelli.
Oates is the author of a number of distinguished books in genres ranging from plays to short story collections. Her many awards include the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in short fiction, the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy-Institute of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the O'Henry Prize for Continued Achievement in the Short Story, the National Book Award for her novel Them, and in 1978, membership in the American Academy-Institute. What I Lived For was nominated for the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award.
Her more recent works include the novels My Heart Laid Bare (1998), Broke Heart Blues (1999), The Tattoo Girl (2003), The Gravedigger's Daughter (2007), My Sister, My Love (2008); the short stories High Lonesome: New and Selected Stories 1966-2006 (2006), Wild Nights (2008), and Dear Husband (2009). She is the author of plays and dramas that include In Darkest America (1991), I Stand Before You Naked (1991), and Dr. Magic (2004), as well as of numerous poetry collections, most recently, The Coming Storm (2009). An accomplished essayist and critic, she also has written works of nonfiction that include On Boxing (1987), (Woman) Writer: Occasions and Opportunities (1988), and Uncensored: Views & (Re)views (2005).
Born in upstate New York, Oates received her Bachelor of Arts from Syracuse University and her Master of Arts from the University of Wisconsin. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University.
Some of the past guest speakers in College Arts and Humanities Institute speaker series include South African writer and Nobel laureate for literature J.M. Coetzee; U.S. Poet Laureates Robert Pinsky, Robert Hass, W.S. Merwin, Louise Gluck, Billy Collins and Kay Ryan; Neuroscientist and author Robert Sapolsky; and animal scientist and autism expert Temple Grandin.
The next speaker in the series will be Alexander McCall Smith, the Zimbabwe-born author of best sellers such as The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, 44 Scotland Street and The Sunday Philosophy Club. He will speak at IU Bloomington's Whittenberger Auditorium on April 20 at 5 p.m.
