Literature and the Healing Arts is Topic of English Lecture Series at UAlbany

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Five internationally recognized speakers will address the healing implications of the humanities during the English Lecture Series at the University at Albany. The lectures, which will run from February 7 through April 16, will explore the therapeutic implications of reading and writing, including the mysterious relationship between creativity and illness. They are free and open to the public.

Iliana Semmler, who taught courses on the medical humanities at UAlbany for many years until her recent retirement, will be the featured speaker for the first lecture. It will be held on Thursday, February 7 at 7 p.m. in the Chapel House on the University's Uptown Campus. She will discuss "Fashioning Nature: Literature's Judgment on Aesthetic Surgery."

Each lecture will be approximately one hour long followed by a question-and-answer period. A reception will follow. Most of the lectures will be held from 7-9 p.m. in the Chapel House. The reading by Lucy Grealy will begin at 8 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the Performing Arts Center. Other lectures in the series:

February 19: Lucy Grealy, an award-winning poet and non-fiction writer, will give "A Reading from Autobiography of a Face."

March 19: Sophie Freud, granddaughter of Sigmund and a professor emerita at Simmons College, will discuss "The Humanities and the Healing Arts."

April 4: Michael Kaufman, a literature professor, will present "McMedicine: Tolstoy's Anatomy of Human Frailty."

April 16: Rita Charon, a professor of internal medicine at Columbia University, will discuss "The Parallel Chart."

Established in 1844 and designated a center of the State University of New York in 1962, the University at Albany's broad mission of excellence in undergraduate and graduate education, research and public service engages 17,000 diverse students in eight degree-granting schools and colleges.

For more information about this nationally ranked University, visit https://www.albany.edu. *********

January 28, 2002

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