UM: Harvard Professor to Discuss Shakespeare in Upcoming President’s Lecture
MISSOULA – A well-known public commentator on literature and literary theory will discuss William Shakespeare, Ray Bradbury and humanities during the next installment of the 2015-16 President’s Lecture Series at the University of Montana.
Marjorie Garber, Harvard University’s William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English, will present “Shakespeare 451: Shakespeare, Ray Bradbury and Humanities Teaching Today” at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, in the University Center Ballroom. The lecture is in collaboration with the UM Department of English, Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library.
She also will lead a seminar earlier that day titled “Identity Theft: Psychoanalysis, Shakespeare and the Crisis in the Humanities” at 3:40 p.m. in Gallagher Business Building Room 123. The lecture and seminar both are free and open to the public.
After earning a doctorate from Yale University, Garber taught there and then at Haverford College before joining the English department faculty at Harvard University in 1981.
In addition to a half-dozen different courses on Shakespeare, her curriculum includes Jane Austen, major English poets, metaphysical poetry, Renaissance drama, Renaissance and 17th-century poetry among others.
She is a well-known public commentator on literature and literary theory. Journalist Charlie Rose has interviewed her on his PBS television program. In 2010, she was chosen to chair the judging committee of the nonfiction category of the National Book Awards. This past summer, she was a featured commentator on the BBC/PBS television series “Shakespeare Uncovered.”
Garber’s has published 17 books, seven volumes of edited works and dozens of major scholarly articles and op-ed pieces. The work she has done on Shakespeare has made her a leader in that field. Newsweek chose her “Shakespeare After All” as one of the five best nonfiction books of 2004 and praised it as the “indispensable introduction to an indispensable writer,” adding, “Garber’s is the most exhilarating seminar room you’ll ever enter.”
Garber’s lecture will be a good introduction to “First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare,” a traveling exhibition from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., that will arrive at UM in May 2016. The exhibition features the first-collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays.
The President’s Lecture Series at UM consists of eight talks throughout the academic year on vital topics by distinguished guest speakers. For more information on the series, visit http://umt.edu/president/events/lectures/ or call UM history Professor Richard Drake at 406-243-2981.
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