Professor Kevin Hart

Wayne State University’s Humanities Center is holding its Fall Symposium on “Silence and Silencing.” The conference will be held in the Alumni House (441 Ferry Mall) on the WSU campus between 9:45 a.m. and 4:45 p.m. on Nov. 9, 2007. The keynote speech will be given by Professor Kevin Hart of the University of Virginia. The event is free and open to the public.

Hart is an important international intellectual figure. His award-winning poetry, published in eleven collections and chapbooks of poetry dating back to 1978, is matched by his output as an internationally recognized critic and philosopher. He has published the highly respected studies: Derrida and Religion: Other Testaments (Routledge, 2004), Samuel Johnson and the Culture of Property (Cambridge University Press, 1999) and most recently, Counter-Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007) on French literary critic and philosopher Maurice Blanchot. Hart is currently the Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies at the University of Virginia, where he teaches in the Department of Religious Studies and the English Department.

In addition to the keynote speaker, nine Wayne State faculty will be presenting at the symposium on the topics listed below:

• Roslyn Abt Schindler (Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures) will present on “The “Unsilencing” of Holocaust Survivors: Voices of Rebirth.”
• Jennifer Sheridan Moss (Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures) will discuss "Silence of the Queen: How Plutarch and a Bunch of Others Silenced Cleopatra.”
• Robert Sedler (Law School) will address "The First Amendment Right of Silence.”
• Caroline Maun (English) will present "Shattering Silence in The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois.”
• Lisabeth Hock (Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures) will speak on "Giving Voice to the Silence of Melancholy: The Friendship of Bettina von Arnim and Karoline von Günderode.” 
• Anca Vlasopolos (English) will address "How to Silence Non-Commercial Writers: The Publishing Business in the 21st Century.”
• Kathryne Lindberg (English) and Thomas Featherstone (Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs) will present "Shot in Silence: Labor
  Photography and Commentary in Black and Red, 1932-34.”
• Ken Jackson (English) will discuss "Kierkegaard and Silence in the ‘trial’ of Shylock.”

For more information concerning the event, please see the website http://research.wayne.edu/hum/symposia/index.html or contact Kelly Bennett at (313) 577-4054.

The Humanities Center at Wayne State is dedicated to promoting interdisciplinary research in the arts and humanities through the funding of several faculty and student fellowships, grants, and other awards. The Center’s director is Dr. Walter F. Edwards, who is also a professor of linguistics in the English department.

Wayne State University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 academic programs through 11 schools and colleges to more than 33,000 students.