"Political Landscapes, Private Hauntings: Violence in Contemporary American Women’s Writing"
A Lecture by Provost Heidi Macpherson.
Ranging across a wide range of contemporary American women’s writing, this talk will focus on how contemporary anxieties are played out in the pages of women’s fiction, as well as the ways in which women’s writing increasingly stages legal conflict, or engages in representations of the aftermath of violence. A primary focus will be on Lionel Shriver’s award-winning novel We Need to Talk About Kevin (recently made into a film with Tilda Swinton) as well as other novels in which mothers come into conflict with the law and negotiate their ‘innocence’ or ‘guilt’ in the face of both real and imagined courts of law.
Monday, Sept. 17, 4 pm, 1309 Centennial Hall