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Noted Cultural Studies Expert Lauren
Berlant to Address "Public Feelings " in Public Lecture Series
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. -- Leading cultural studies
scholar and feminist theorist Lauren Berlant, professor of English at
the University of Chicago, will deliver three public lectures at Smith
this year as the William Allan Neilson Professor in Women's Studies.
The lecture series will address the theme "Public
Feelings: Love, Compassion, and Indifference in the U.S." Each talk
will take place in the Leo Weinstein Auditorium in Wright Hall at 4:30
p.m. and will be followed by a reception in the Neilson Browsing Room.
The events are free of charge and wheelchair accessible.
On Thursday, Sept. 18, Berlant will present "Remembering
Love, Forgetting Everything Else: Now, Voyager," in which she will
explore some of the compromises women and-less often-men make in order
to secure or remain in love relationships. The lecture culls from the
1942 film "Now, Voyager," which starred Bette Davis as a painfully
introverted woman who undergoes a dramatic transformation and begins
a relationship with a married man.
Berlant's second lecture, "Capitalism
and Compassion," will take place on Monday, Oct. 20. Her final talk, "Why
Be Normal? Globalization, Psychoanalysis, and Intimacy," will be
delivered on Monday, Nov. 17.
Over the last decade, Berlant has established
an international reputation for her in-depth cultural analyses of the
social and historical construction of emotions and attachments, particularly
for women.
Her most recent books are "The Queen
of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship" (1997)
and "Our Monica, Our Selves: Clinton, Scandal, and Affairs of State" (2001).
Berlant is the recipient of numerous awards
for her scholarly contributions to gender studies and the humanities.
She received the 1999 Society of American Publishers award for Best Special
Issue of a magazine or journal, which became her book "Intimacy"(2001).
In 1993, she won the Norman Foerster Award for the year's best essay
in American literature for "The Queen of America Goes to Washington
City (Harriet Jacobs, Frances Harper, Anita Hill)," on which she
later based the book of the same title.
The Neilson Professorship, which commemorates
President William Allan Neilson, was established in 1927. Berlant joins
past Neilson professors such as Alfred Kazin (English, 1954-55), Eudora
Welty (English, 1961-62), Charles Hamilton (government, 1988-89) and
Romila Thapar (religion and biblical literature, 1998-99).
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