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Under the guidance of its advisory board,
the International Writers Center of Washington University expanded
its mission and, as a reflection of this growth, in September 2003
became The Center for the Humanities with the
tagline, Dedicated
to Letters and Humanistic Research and Their Presence in the Public
Life. Please see Dr. Early's Director's
Notes in the September 2003
Belles Lettres or Dr. Leng's Editor's
Notes in the September 2003 Figure
in the Carpet for more information. The
expanded mission is as follows:
The Center for the Humanities at Washington University is dedicated
to the promotion and preservation of humanistic thinking and the
pursuit of letters as essential activities in the intellectual,
political, and artistic life of this university, the community
it serves, and the world.
Dr. Gerald Early, Merle Kling Professor
of Modern Letters, became Director of the IWC in 2001. Dr. Jian
Leng is the Assistant Director, and Amanda Beresford is the Program
Coordinator.
Please see the News & Events
section for information on the Center's programs
for 2003-2004.
The International Writers Center opened in October 1990, with William
Gass, the David May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities,
as Director and Lorin Cuoco as Associate Director. See the archive
of past programs for the period of 1990 to 2000 below.
The center was established to build on the strengths of its resident
and visiting faculty writers; to serve as a focal point for writing
excellence in all disciplines and in all cultures; to be a directory
for writers and writing programs at Washington University, in St.
Louis, in the United States, and around the world; and to present
the writers to the reader. To inaugurate the center, the University's
library mounted an exhibit, A Temple of Texts: Fifty Literary
Pillars, consisting of 50 works of literature and philosophy
that have influenced Gass as a writer. A limited edition catalogue
with Gass's comments about each work was published in conjunction
with the exhibit. Other events in the first ten years of the Center's
existence included:
| International Writers Center
Reading Series 1993-2000 |
| 1993-94 |
Marilyn Chin,
Jessica Hagedorn, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Ben Okri |
| 1994-95 |
Paul Auster, David Bradley,
Rosemary Catacalos, Emily Grosholz, and Michael Ondaatje |
| 1995-96 |
Mary Caponegro, Cyrus
Cassells, Lynn Emanuel, and Steven Millhauser |
| 1996-97 |
Anne Carson, Francisco
Goldman, Michael Hofmann, Joanna Scott, and the Nuyorican Poets
Cafe Live! |
| 1997-98 |
David Foster Wallace,
Susan Stewart, Paul Muldoon and Patricia Powell |
| 1998-99 |
Anthony Butts, Ben Marcus,
Lydia Davis and Sarah Lindsay |
| 1999-2000 |
Rikki Ducornet, Ha Jin,
Caryl Phillips and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill |
| Conferences |
In the past the International
Writers Center sponsored international literary conferences.
Writers presented essays on the conference theme and read from
their works. Panel discussions with audience participation accompanied
each essay presentation.
|
1992
The Writer in Politics |
1994
The Writer and Religion |
Breyten Breytenbach
Nurruddin Farah
Carolyn Forché
Antonio Skármeta
Luisa Valenzuela
Mario Vargas Llosa
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Eavan Boland
J.M. Coetzee
William Gaddis
Amitav Ghosh
A.G. Mojtabai
Hanan al-Shaykh
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1997
The Dual Muse: the Writer as Artist, the Artist as Writer
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Jennifer Bartlett
Breyten Breytenbach
Tom Phillips
Derek Walcott
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| Conference transcripts are available
at Olin Library, Washington University. The Writer in Politics,
which includes the essays and discussions from the 1992 conference,
was published in 1996 by Southern Illinois University Press.
The Writer and Religion was published by Southern Illinois
University Press in 2000. |
| Bloomsday |
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1993 marked the first annual
Bloomsday reading at Left Bank Books, in the city's Central
West End. This marathon reading of James Joyce's Ulysses
was presented by the International Writers Center, Left Bank
Books, and The New Theatre, which performed the play Ulysses
in Nighttown every year at midnight. More than 70 members of
the community participated in the 24-hour reading in each of
the five years of the marathon. |
| Other Readings |
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In the past the center has co-sponsored
readings at Washington University by Derek Walcott, Caribbean
poet and Nobel Laureate; Chinese-American author Maxine Hong
Kingston; Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison; Richard Wilbur, former
poet laureate of the United States; and Chilean writer Jose
Donoso. Other writers co-sponsored by the International Writers
Center include former poet laureate Joseph Brodsky, Mexican
novelist Elena Castedo, novelist Robert Coover, poet Tess Gallagher,
novelist and essayist Susan Sontag, Polish poet Adam Zagajewski,
Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal, Australian writer Janette
Turner Hospital, Palistinean/Isreali writer Anton Shammas, Nobel
Laureate Wole Soyinka, Russian writer Tatyana Tolstaya, poet
Charles G. Bell, Taiwanese poet and painter Lo Ch'ing, Mexican
novelist Carlos Fuentes, Irish poet Eavan Boland, novelist Joyce
Carol Oates, poet John Hollander, novelists Benjamin Taylor
and Paul Metcalf, fiction writer Ethan Bumas, Australian novelist
David Malouf, British novelist Martin Amis and poet Czeslaw
Milosz. |
| Other Programs |
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The International Writers
Center works with University departments, and arts and literary
organizations in the community to present other programs.
Select programs in the past have included:
A symposium on Transformations,
an opera composed by Conrad Susa after poems by Anne Sexton,
presented by Opera Theatre of St. Louis in June 1997. The
panel featured poets, psychologists, and members of the 1974
production, followed by a reading from Anne Sexton's work.
Writers' Harvest - the national reading
for hunger relief, was first presented in St. Louis in 1995
and featured David Carkeet, David Clewell, William Gass, Itabari
Njeri, E. Annie Proulx, and Patiann Rogers. In 1996 the readers
featured were Allison Funk, Eddy L. Harris, Ursula Hegi, T.M.
McNally, and Antonio Skarmeta.
National Poetry Month - established in
1996 by the Academy of American Poets. That year we sponsored
a program featuring literary magazines published in the St.
Louis metropolitan area: Delmar, Drumvoices Revue,
Eyeball, River Styx, The Rumor,
Sagarin Review, Salamander, and Sou'
Wester.
April Fool's Revue - an evening of humorous
literature
Arts and Education Weekend - readings of
children's literature and of banned books in 1995 and the
Poetry of Love & Hate in 1996
Literama! - a reading to benefit literacy
program
Thomas Merton Symposium - on the life and
writings of Thomas Merton
We Are Salman Rushdie - a reading and discussion
of The Satanic Verses on the fifth anniversary of
the fatwa in 1994
Young Writers Lecture Series - featured
Anthony Walton, Reginald McKnight and Carolivia Herron in
1991-92 and Elizabeth Alexander, Cornelius Eady, Kenneth McClane
and Thylias Moss in 1992-93 |
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