Celebrity Lectures discussing "Women Writers":
Isabel Allende 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...
Maya Angelou 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...
Margaret Atwood 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...
Terry McMillan 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 ...
Joyce Carol Oates 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...
Jane Smiley 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...
Susan Sontag 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...
Amy Tan 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 ...