Duke University Faculty Discuss Their Work in Library Series
Dorfman, three other faculty to discuss work in popular library-sponsored speaking series
Noted author and playwright Ariel Dorfman will launch the 2004/2005 Engaging Faculty Series at Duke University on Tuesday, Sept. 14, with a talk on "Ghost Towns and Imperial Towers: A Journey Through Many Americas."
The lectures in the Engaging Faculty Series are informal conversations that give students, faculty and the public a chance to learn about research that is going on at Duke.
Dorfman's talk, in the Rare Book Room in Perkins Library on Duke's West Campus, is drawn from his two most recent books, "Desert Memories: Journeys Through the Chilean North" and "Other Septembers, Many Americas: Selected Provocations, 1980-2004." Dorfman will discuss his reading and understanding of the two Americas, North and South, which he has inhabited and interpreted for the last 25 years.
In addition to Dorfman, three other Duke faculty members will speak in the series sponsored by the Friends of the Duke University Libraries. Classical Studies Professor Gregson Davis will speak this fall, and Marianna Torgovnick of the Department of English and Curtis Richardson of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences will make presentations early in 2005.
Davis will speak Oct. 26 about "Homer in the Caribbean: Epic Narratives of Homecoming in the Poetry of Derek Walcott and Aime Cesaire." Davis will reflect on the way in which Cesaire and Walcott have adapted motifs of the ancient narrative tradition to define the predicament of the postcolonial writer.
On Feb. 8, Torgovnick will speak on a topic that she addresses in her forthcoming book, "The War Complex: World War II After 9/11." In the lecture titled "War Memory in America: Reading Novels, Reading History," Torgovnick will talk about how novels can remind readers of facts they would often prefer to ignore.
Richardson closes out the 2004/2005 series on March 8 with a lecture titled "Wetlands of Mass Destruction," a discussion of how Saddam Hussein's regime destroyed the Mesopotamian marshes of southern Iraq. Richardson will report on the current ecological status of the marshes and the hopes for restoring them as well as assess the future of the displaced marsh Arabs.
All four lectures begin at 4 p.m., are open to the public and will be held in the Rare Book Room.