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   from the issue of March 10, 2005

     
 
UNL hosts Whitman anniversary event

 BY TOM HANCOCK, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS

UNL is hosting the international "The Leaves of Grass 150th Anniversary Conference," March 31 through April 2. The conference will draw upon the expertise of more than two dozen distinguished Whitman and American literature experts, writers and musicians.



 


 
"The 150th anniversary conference is a major event in Whitman scholarship, bringing together the world's leading experts on the poet and helping to solidify Nebraska's role as a central location for Whitman studies," said Kenneth Price, Hillegass Professor of American Literature at UNL.

"Leaves of Grass is the founding book of American literary democracy," Price said. "Before Whitman, America was politically independent but culturally bound to British fashions and traditions."

Directors for the conference are Susan Belasco, professor of English at UNL, Price and Ed Folsom, Carver Professor of English at the University of Iowa.

Conference events are occurring at the Nebraska Union, Embassy Suites, the Visitors Center, the Lied Center, Love Library and Kimball Hall.

See the Web site at http://www.unl.edu/leavesofgrass/ for information on registering and lodging.

Program sponsors are the senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, the vice chancellor for research, the College of Arts and Sciences, the University Libraries, the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, the School of Music, the Department of English, and the University of Nebraska Press.

Here is the schedule of activities for the conference. Nebraska Union rooms will be posted at the union information center.

March 31

3:30 p.m.: Keynote Address, Ed Folsom, Nebraska Union. Ed Folsom, Carver Professor of English at the University of Iowa, is the editor of "The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review" and is co-director of the "Walt Whitman Archive."

4:30 p.m.: Reception, Van Brunt Visitors Center, 313 N. 13th St.

7:30 p.m. Jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch will perform, Lied Center for Performing Arts, 301 N. 12th St. Hersch is recognized as among the foremost pianists and composers in jazz and has created compositions based on Whitman and his works.

April 1

9 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: Whitman Foreground, Nebraska Union

10:45-11:45 a.m.: Whitman Disciples, Nebraska Union

11:45 a.m.: Lunch, Nebraska Union

1:30 p.m.-3 p.m.: Whitman Biography, Nebraska Union

3:30 p.m.-5 p.m.: Whitman Collecting, Love Library, 13th and R Streets

5 p.m.-6:30 p.m.: Reception, Love Library

7 p.m.: Banquet and poetry reading by Galway Kinnell, Embassy Suites. Poet Galway Kinnell has taught writing at many schools around the world, including universities in France, Australia, and Iran.

April 2

9:15 a.m.-10:45 a.m.: Whitman Vision, Nebraska Union

11 a.m.-Noon: Whitman Cultivations, Nebraska Union

Noon: Lunch, Nebraska Union

1:30 p.m-3 p.m.: Whitman Publishing, Nebraska Union

3:15 p.m.-4:15 p.m.: Whitman Editing, Nebraska Union

4:15 p.m.-7:30 p.m.: Free time

7:30 p.m. Ted Kooser, Poet Laureate of the United States, will read from his works; the UNL Symphony Orchestra and University Singers will perform Paul Hindemith's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" (Requiem for Those We Love); "Mystic Trumpeter" by composer and conductor Tyler White will be given its premiere. Kimball Hall, 301 N. 12th St.

For complete descriptions of the symposium speakers, see the Web site at: http://www.unl.edu/leavesofgrass/participants.html.


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