Literature and culture conference features authors in free keynote sessions

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The wide-ranging Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900 will attract more than 300 writers, critics and literary scholars from around the world to the University of Louisville’s Belknap Campus Feb. 20-22.

UofL's English, comparative humanities and classical and modern languages departments and the Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society sponsor the annual conference with topics ranging from theatrical ghosts to war literature and from beat-generation writers to identity, gender and migration. Keynote addresses listed below are free and public; those speakers are:

--Kaja Silverman, University of Pennsylvania contemporary art professor, feminist theorist and author of nine books. Her talk on “Before the Picture” begins at 5 p.m. Feb. 20 in Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library.

--Margie Sarsfield, winner of UofL’s 2019 Calvino Prize. She will read from her winning story, “Behavioral Sink,” and other work at 11 a.m. Feb. 21 in Bingham Poetry Room, Ekstrom Library.

--Coral Bracho, author of several poetry collections noted for her impact on Mexican poetry. The Mexico City-based writer will read from her work at 3:15 p.m. Feb. 21 in Bingham Poetry Room, Ekstrom Library.

--Forrest Gander, translator, writer and editor of more than a dozen books and whose poetry collection “Be With” won a 2019 Pulitzer Prize. He will read from his work at 5 p.m. Feb. 21 in Room 100, Bingham Humanities Building.

--Marisa Parham, Amherst College English professor and director of the independent Immersive Reality Lab for the Humanities. She will discuss “Breaking, Making, Dancing: Digital Poetics and the Black Computational” at 6 p.m. Feb. 22 in Ballroom B, University Club.

For more information, contact Alan Golding, 502-852-5918 or alan.golding@louisville.edu, or check www.thelouisvilleconference.com.

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