Tuesday, October 16, 2001

WILMINGTON, NC – UNC Wilmington English professors Janet Ellerby and Mark Boren will read from their works at 8 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 30, in the Warwick Center, Center Stage Cafe. This event is free and open to the public.

Ellerby will read from Intimate Reading: The Contemporary Women’s Memoir which was published this year by Syracuse University Press. It blends the author’s own memoir of a long-held secret, her pregnancy at 16 and the adoption of her first daughter, with an examination of a dozen contemporary memoirs by American women. In the book, Ellerby describes the costs of secrecy and explores the possibilities of breaking intractable codes of silence in American society. An associate professor of English and coordinator of the Women’s Studies Program, Ellerby earned a Ph.D. from the University of Washington.

In Student Resistance: A History of the Unruly Subject, which was published earlier this year, Boren chronicles international activism that examines the role of students and the nature of protest. Drawing on major incidents of student activism, including civil rights protests in the United States, the 1968 student riots in Paris, the German Baader-Meinhof Gang, and Tiananmen Square, Boren shows that “there is much to learn from students fighting for reform.” Boren earned a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Georgia and a Masters of Fine Arts in painting and sculpture from SUNY Buffalo.

The readings are sponsored by the Katherine K. Buckner Distinguished Presentations Series. There will be a reception and book signing following the reading.

For more information, contact UNCW’s Department of English at 910/962-3320. Photos of the speakers are available to download at www.uncwil.edu/news/releases/october01/readings.html.