The Celebrity Lecture Series

Playwright Edward Albee is introduced by Dean John Eadie and Professor Joyce Ramsay of Michigan State University. Ramsay praises Albee as “the most important American playwright who is writing today” while enumerating the playwright's many works and awards. Edward Albee begins his lecture by talking about his chaotic education that eventually led h...

Dean John Eadie and Professor Robert Fiore of Michigan State University introduce Chilean writer, Isabel Allende. Fiore shares Allende's turbulent past with the audience, both in terms of her personal life and literary career. In her lecture, Allende explains that she has been a storyteller since her childhood. She recounts stories of how she first...

Introductions for poet and writer Maya Angelou are made by Dean John Eadie of Michigan State University and poet Diane Wakoski, who details the wide array of Angelou's accomplishments. Angelou begins her lecture topic, poetry, with a poem. To discuss poetry is to reflect on love and the human condition. Angelou stresses the importance of becoming f...

Author Margaret Atwood is introduced by Dean John Eadie and Professor Anita Skeen. Skeen describes the intertwining of human love and cruelty in Atwood's works. Atwood commences the lecture by discussing the nature of being a writer and details that her lecture is to be about the bad behavior of female characters in novels. In her writing, she repr...

Dean John Eadie and Professor Katherine Fishburn introduce popular writer Pat Conroy; Fishburn describes the correlations between the writer's life and his works. Conroy begins his lecture, using humor and captivating storytelling, by detail the hardships of his childhood and family life in the south. He also describes his family members' reactions...

Dean John Eadie and Professor Dixie Durr introduce dancer and educator Jacques d'Amboise. Durr summarizes d'Amboise's career in dance from his childhood spent attending his sister’s ballet class to the founding of the National Dance Institute. d'Amboise addresses the virtue of teaching dance to underprivileged children, suggesting that dance provid...

Publisher, professor, novelist, and playwright Edgar Lawrence Doctorow is introduced by John Eadie, dean of the College of Arts and Letters and Alan Suits, architect and founding president of the Dean’s Community Council. Doctorow commences his lecture by addressing “how writers write,” including the importance of sentence structure within a story,...

Jim McClintock of the Department of English at Michigan State University introduces writer Richard Ford. Ford begins by talking about the nature of writing. He uses language as a way of forcing himself to fit into an environment in which he doesn't belong and as a way of explaining himself to a tough audience, a skill he developed early in his life...

Introductions for Mexican author Carlos Fuentes are made by Dean John Eadie of the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University and Professor George Mansour, chair person of the Department of Romance and Classical Languages. Mansour describes how Fuentes' diverse background led him to become a writer of great perspective and vision. A...

Author David Halberstam is introduced by Wendy Wilkins, dean of the College of Arts and Letters and Stephen Rachman from the Department of English at Michigan State University. Rachman summarizes Halberstam's impressive career and praises the scope and depth of his writing. David Halberstam begins his lecture by talking about current events and the...

This clip begins immediately with author Joseph Heller discussing his writing of ...

Dean John Eadie and Director of Michigan State University's American Studies Program, James McClintock, introduce author Tony Hillerman. McClintock discusses Hillerman’s past occupations and some of his literary works, including mystery novel, ...

Writer John Irving is introduced by Dean John Eadie and poet Diane Wakoski. Wakoski praises Irving's determination to introduce nineteenth century morals to the twentieth century world via his novels, despite numerous setbacks and harsh criticism. John Irving imparts an anecdote from which he wrote a story concerning a red and blue air mattress tha...

Introductions for dancer Judith Jamison are made by Dean John Eadie and Professor Dixie Durr, who describes Jamison's difficult ascent to the top of the world of dance and her successful career thereafter. Jamison commences the lecture by discussing her work with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and its success involving children and the unde...

Novelist William Kennedy is introduced by Dean John Eadie and Professor William Penn. Kennedy begins with an amusing anecdote about writing a short story for ...

Introductions for writer Norman Mailer are made by Dean John Eadie and Professor Kathleen Rout who describes many of Mailer's controversial works for the audience. Mailer begins his lecture by stating that he has no idea about what he is going to lecture. The first topic he stumbles onto is the perks of being an artist, in which he discusses the dr...

Historian David McCullough is introduced by Dean Wendy Wilkins and Professor of History David Bailey. Bailey praises McCullough for the extraordinary amount of passion he puts into his writing. McCullough commences his lecture by talking about a trip he took to England to see its historical gardens that were created in the eighteenth century, and c...

Author Terry McMillan is introduced by Dean John Eadie and Professor Geneva Smitherman. Smitherman summarizes McMillan's literary career and praises her representation of the African American female experience. McMillan lectures on her novel ...

In this clip, dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University, John Eadie and professor of English, Robert Martin, introduce playwright Arthur Miller. Martin recounts the numerous challenges Miller encountered as an aspiring author and playwright. Arthur Miller commences his lecture by announcing his intent to read from his v...

Author Joyce Carol Oates is introduced by John Eadie and Leonora Smith. Oates lectures on the life of a writer as well as her life in Michigan. She relates how moving from the country to Detroit changed her both as a person and as a writer and how her environment affected her literature. Oates also describes the relationship between the city and so...

Introductions for author Philip Roth are made by John Eadie, Peter Levine, and Barry Gross. Roth reads from his book ...

Writer Jane Smiley is introduced by Dean John Eadie and Professor William Penn who discusses the underlying themes in Smiley's novels. Smiley believes that the novels she began reading at age six inspired her to become an author and showed her that she has an inner voice. Smiley discusses the role of writing plays in our society today. Writing is n...

Author and cultural theorist Susan Sontage is introduced by John Eadie and Marcelette Williams who summarizes Sontag's writing career by giving a history of her works and awards. Williams briefly meditates on what is to be the topic of Sontag's lecture, "Illness as Metaphor," commenting on the "danger" of metaphorical usage in our society. Sontag b...

At the beginning of this clip, John Eadie, dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University, and Tess Tavormina, professor of English and associate dean, introduce author Amy Tan. Tavormina praises the attention to detail that Tan gives to the names in her stories. Tan discusses "the ghosts of my imagination" in her lecture and ...

Introductions for writer Paul Theroux are made by Dean Wendy Wilkins and Professor Patrick O'Donnell. O'Donnell discusses the wanderings of Paul Theroux across concepts and continents in order to create "difference" in his writing. Theroux commences his lecture by discussing the oddness of being a stranger when one is traveling. He explains the con...

Dean John Eadie and Professor Barry Gross introduce writer John Updike. Gross enumerates the large number and variety of works written by Updike. Updike, in an attempt to fit his readings to the occasion, reads some of his poetry about his various experiences in the Midwest and continues on to read from a collection of short stories called ...

Introductions for author and satirist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. are made by John Eadie and Nancy Pogel who summarizes Vonnegut's varied career. Vonnegut opens the lecture on his beginnings as an author, and transitions to address the structure of society, stating that in order to lead a "good life" one must accrue a good support system, what he terms an "...

Professor Derek Walcott is introduced by Dean John Eadie and Professor Diane Wakoski. Wakoski compares the originality and beauty of Walcott's poetry to that of Walt Whitman. Derek Walcott talks about his epic poem, ...

John Eadie and William Hixson introduce political historian Garry Wills. Hixson praises the breadth of topics covered, as well as the erudition, in Wills's writing. The topic Wills discusses in his lecture is leadership and the scarcity of leaders in our society today. He enumerates four reasons why we perceive leaders as being in the past but not ...

Joyce Ramsay, professor in the department of theatre at Michigan State University, introduces playwright August Wilson, by summarizing his impressive career in theatre. Wilson opens the lecture by talking about his past and what he has discovered about himself as a person. He speaks eloquently about his discovery of poetry, the theatre, and their...

Journalist and novelist Tom Wolfe is introduced by John Eadie, dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University, and Roy Saper, Community Council member. Saper describes Wolfe's priceless contribution to the writing world with the creation of ...