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2012 Woodman Lecture
The English Department is pleased to announce the 2012 Leonora Woodman Memorial Lecture. The lecture will be presented on Thursday, September 13, at 4:30 pm (venue to be announced). A
reception will follow from 6-7.
We are honored to have Vincent Carretta as our distinguished speaker. Professor Carretta hails from the University of Maryland, where he teaches eighteenth-century literature and the literature of the Black Atlantic. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, and has since developed a varied and much-lauded career, incorporating texts and topics that range from classic satire to abolitionism. However, it is his particular specialization in English-speaking authors of African descent that has done the most to energize and reshape the fields of both eighteenth-century transatlantic and Black Atlantic studies.
Professor Carretta is the author of Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage (University of Georgia Press, 2011); Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man (University of Georgia Press, 2005; Penguin, 2007), George III and the Satirists from Hogarth to Byron (University of Georgia Press, 1990, 2007), and “The Snarling Muse”: Verbal and Visual Political Satire from Pope to Churchill (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983). In addition, with Philip Gould, he edited the essay collection Genius in Bondage: A Critical Anthology of the Literature of the Early Black Atlantic (University Press of Kentucky, 2001).
Professor Carretta has also given us a number of invaluable scholarly editions, including Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century (University Press of Kentucky, 1996; revised and expanded, 2004); The Life and Letters of Philip Quaque, the First African Anglican Missionary (with Ty Reese; University of Georgia Press, 2010); The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings, by Olaudah Equiano (Penguin, 1995; revised and expanded 2003); Phyllis Wheatley: Complete Writings (Penguin, 2001); Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery and Other Writings, by Quobna Ottobah Cugoano (Penguin, 1999); and the Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African (Penguin, 1998).
In 2006, Equiano, the African was chosen co-winner of the Annibel Jenkins Prize for Best Biography of the Year by the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies. Called “superbly written” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., it was also named as one of “10 Exceptional Books from University Presses,” by Foreward Magazine (2006); “The Best of the Best of the University Presses: Books You Should Know About,” by the Association of American University Presses (2006); one of the “Top 10 African American Books, Nonfiction,” by Booklist magazine (2006); and “Ten Best Biographies of 2005,” by Amazon.com.
Professor Carretta was awarded the Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize at the University of Maryland in 2007 and named Associate Fellow, Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick (UK), 2007-2010. A prolific and inexhaustible scholar, his recent fellowship awards include the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2009-2010); the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia (2009); the John Carter Brown Library Fellowship (2009); a Massachusetts Historical Society Fellowship (2008); and a Distinguished Visiting Fellowship, Queen Mary, University of London (2008). In 1990, he was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Institute Fellowship.
Please join us in welcoming Professor Carretta.
Contact information
Nush Powell, Assistant Professor of English
Email:
mnpowell@purdue.edu
