In Honor of Katherine K. Buckner 

Katherine K. Buckner, a graduate of Randolph Macon College in Virginia and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has led a distinguished career in the field of family counseling, including a position as Director of Family Services in Durham, North Carolina.  Mrs. Buckner has served as an interdenominational counselor for over thirty years, giving invaluable time and resources for the betterment of her community.

Endowed by Charles F. Green, III

Charles F. Green, III is an alumnus of UNCW, class of 1971.  His generosity has made it possible for the English Department to bring in prominent guest lecturers and writers.  Mr. Green also endows two graduate fellowships: the Alton Yates Lennon Graduate Fellowship and the Philip Gerard Graduate Fellowship.  He also supports under-graduate English students by endowing the Anne Green Sans and the Louise Jackson Green Scholarships.

Previous Speakers

2008-2009

Susan Cheever, author of American Bloomsbury, among numerous other books, was the Buckner Lecture speaker for Spring 2009.  Her talk, on the writers Alcott, Emerson, Fuller, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, was sponsored by the Department of English in partnership with the Department of Creative Writing.

Tina Gianquitto, Associate Professor in the Division of Liberal Arts and International Studies at the Colorado School of Mines and author of Good Observers of Nature: American Women and the Scientific Study of the Natural World, 1820-1885, gave a lecture entitled "Dangerous Liaisons: Darwin's Carnivorous Plants and the Language of Flowers"

2007-2008

Azar Nafisi, author of Rereading Lolita in Teheran: A Memoir in Books spoke on "The Republic of the Imagination"

John Updike, author of 22 novels, 7 volumes of poetry, and many other works, gave a talk to a capacity crowd in which he read a number of poems, followed by a response to questions 

2006-2007

John Schilb, Culbertson Chair of Writing and Associate Professor of English at Indiana University, is the editor of College English. His lecture was entitled "Race, Nation, memory, Refusal: Frederick Douglass Dedicates a Monument"

Cecelia Tichi, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at Vanderbilt University and author of several books on technology, the environment, and traditions of social criticism in the United States. Her lecture entitled, "Betting the House: The Home Front in Today's U.S. Fiction," focused on what today's writers have to tell us about home ownership in America. 

2005-2006

Ken Burns, acclaimed documentary filmmaker, spoke to a capacity crows about his work in film

Mary Ann Caws, Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature, English and French at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, discussed "Eccentric Women Writing and Painting"

Paul John Eakin, Ruth N. Halls Professor of English Emeritus at Indiana University, and author of a number of books on autobiography, gave a talk entitled "Talking About Ourselves: Autobiography, Narrative Identity, and Everyday Life"

2004-2005

Susan Gubar, Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Indiana, spoke on "In Rooms of Our Own."

Sorayya Khan, novelist and short story writer, presented "Silence and Forgetting in the War: The Story of Noor"

William D. Lutz, a lawyer and Professor of English at Rutgers University spoke on "Doublespeak, Public Discourse, and the Condition of the Body Politic"

2003-2004

Virginia Holman, author of Rescuing Patty Hearst, presented "When a Family Member is Psychotic: The Need for Early Intervention and Consistent Treatment"

Christopher Ricks, Professor of Humanities and Co-Director of the Editorial Institute at Boston University.  He is the author of ten books, including Dylan's Visions of Sin, Allusion to the Poets and Reviewery, and spoke on "Poetry and Pain"

Daniel Robb, Author of Crossing the Water, addressed the question:  What makes it easy for most of us to obey the rules and what makes it almost impossible for others to do so?

2002-2003

Sara Suleri Goodyear, Professor of English at Yale University, lectured on "Reconstructing Postcolonial Memory: Gender's Parting of the Ways"

Catherine Lutz, Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, lectured in "Making War at Home: War's Wages in Fayetteville, NC"

2001-2002

James Nagel, J. O. Eidson Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia, lectured on "Hemingway: The True Story behind A Farewell to Arms." Reception and book signing followed.

Matthew Bruccoli, Professor of English at the University of South Carolina, lectured on "Writing About Writers: Experiences as a Literary Biographer." Reception and book signing followed.

2001-2002

Leverett T. Smith, curator of the Black Mountain College Collection

Mark Boren, former visiting lecturer and now Associate Professor of English at UNCW, read from his book Student Resistance: A History of the Unruly Subject.

Janet Ellerby, Professor of English at UNCW, read from her book Intimate Reading: The Contemporary Women's Memoir.

1999-2000

Claudia Tate, Professor of English at Princeton University, lectured on "The Enigma of Black Femininity." 

Charlotte Pierce-Baker, Professor at Duke University met with the Feminist Colloquium to examine her first book, Surviving the Silence: Black Women's Stories of Rape.

Alison Lurie, Pulitzer Prize-Winning author and Spring 1999 Visiting Writer-in Residence, presented a reading.  

Houston Baker, director of the Center for the Study of Black Literature and Culture at the University of Pennsylvania and a visiting lecturer at Duke University, lectured on April 16

John Holman, novelist, presented a reading.

Tony Hillerman, acclaimed mystery writer, read with a reception and book signing followed.

Michael White, UNCW professor, and Dennis Sampson gave a poetry reading. 

1998-1999

Clyde Edgerton, Visiting Distinguished Professor at UNCW, presented a reading with interludes of music.  Reception and book signing followed.

Wendy Brenner, fiction. UNCW professor Brenner's 1996 book of stories, Large Animals in Everyday Life, won the Flannery O'Connor Award.  She received the Henfield AWP Intro awards for her short stories.  Her works have appeared in many journals, including Story and Mississippi Review.

Rebecca Lee, fiction.   UNCW professor Lee, winner of the Rona Jaffe Award for Fiction, published her short story, "The Banks of Vistula," in the Atlantic Monthly.  This story was performed on National Public Radio's 1997 "Selected Shorts."

Jorie Graham, Poet.   Author of seven volumes of poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize-Winning collection The Dream of the Unified Field.

1997-1998

John Shelton Reed, Professor of Sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill.  Author of Whistling Dixie and 1001 Things Everybody Should Know About the South.

Mark Strand, Poet.   Author of eight volumes of poetry.  Recipient of MacArthur Fellowship and Bollingen Prize.  Poet Laureate of the United States, 1993-94.

Philip Levine, Poet. UNCW Visiting Writer-in-Residence, Spring 1998.  Winner of two National Book Awards, and the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for The Simple Truth.

William McCranor Henderson, Novelist.  Author of I, Elvis: Confessions of a Counterfeit King.  He is also an acclaimed Elvis impersonator and, with his band, performed as Elvis.

Alice Fulton, Poet.  Fall 1997 Visiting Writer-in-Residence.  Author of Sensual Math.  Recipient of a MacArthur Award.

1996-1997

W.O.S. Sutherland, Professor of English at the University of Texas-Austin.   Recipient of the Press Associates' Teaching Award.

David Bevington, Professor of English at University of Chicago.  Recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships.

1995-1996

Kaye Gibbons, Novelist.  Author of A Virtuous Woman and Ellen Foster, both selections for Oprah Winfrey's Book Club.

1994-1995

Jane Tompkins, Professor of English at Duke University.  Author of West of Everything and A Life in School:  What Teachers Learned.