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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 "...