August 1, 2007

Award-winning author Joyce Carol Oates to speak at Purdue

Joyce Carol Oates
Download photo

"An Evening with Joyce Carol Oates," which is free and open to the public, is at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 30 in Stewart Center's Loeb Playhouse. Oates is the author of more than 100 books, including the recent, "The Gravedigger's Daughter," as well as "The Falls," "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" and "You Must Remember This." Her novel, "We Were the Mulvaneys," was a selection for Oprah's Book Club in 2001, and her novel, "them," won the National Book Award, for which she has been a five-time finalist. "What I Lived For," "Blonde," and "Black Water," were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and 35 of her books have been named New York Times Notable Books of the Year.

"Joyce Carol Oates is famously prolific, but she has also been one of the best writers and chroniclers of contemporary American life, particularly its dark side, since the 1960s," said Porter Shreve, director of the Creative Writing Program and coordinator for Oates' visit. "Her work spans five decades and every imaginable genre, including novels, shorts stories, essays, poetry and books for young adults. She is a powerful storyteller, known for taking traditional forms like gothic tales, ghost stories and mysteries, and reinventing them in brilliant, often chilling ways."

Oates, who is from the countryside of Lockport, N.Y., began writing novels during high school. She won the Mademoiselle fiction contest while attending Syracuse University on scholarship, where she was valedictorian. She earned a master's in English at the University of Wisconsin.

Her publishing career began in 1963, and many of her early short stories and novels, including "them," reflect her experience of living in Detroit and witnessing the city's social tensions during the 1960s and 1970s. Oates published two to three books a year while maintaining a full-time academic career at the University of Windsor in Canada.

In 1978, she and her husband, Raymond J. Smith, moved to Princeton, N. J. Currently, she is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor in the Humanities and professor of creative writing in the University Center for the Creative and Performing Arts at Princeton University. She and Smith also operate a small press and publish a literary magazine, "The Ontario Review."

Her talk is sponsored by the Creative Writing Program in the Department of English.

Oates' talk is part of October's Experience Liberal Arts, which will feature a variety of lectures, films, performances, events and exhibits that reflect the college's ongoing coursework and research in the arts, humanities, social and behavioral sciences. Information about the upcoming events is available by calling (765) 494-7884 and requesting a program guide.

In addition to English, the College of Liberal Arts also is home to the departments of communication, foreign languages and literatures, health and kinesiology, history, philosophy, psychological sciences, sociology and anthropology, speech, language and hearing sciences, and visual and performing arts. Its other 14 programs are: African American studies, American studies, Asian studies, classical studies, comparative literature, film studies, Italian studies, Jewish studies, linguistics, medieval studies, philosophy and literature, religious studies and women's studies.

The College of Liberal Arts enrolls 6,200 undergraduate and 1,100 graduate students at Purdue's West Lafayette campus. The Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences is ranked nationally for its graduate programs. The Department of Communication also is recognized nationally for its organizational, health and interpersonal areas.

Writer: Amy Patterson Neubert, (765) 494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu

Source: Porter Shreve, (765) 496-1651, pshreve@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

To the News Service home page