Rebecca Brittenham, Professor of English, will walk listeners through the strolling life in the second Pop-Up University Lecture of Spring 2021 on March 18th at 7 p.m. All are welcome to join the discussion, titled “Saunter, Meander, Stalk, March, Roll: The Poetics and Politics of Walking,” via Zoom. The talk is developed from two courses she has recently taught on the literature of walking both for undergraduate and graduate students. These courses, she said, were outside of her normal areas of expertise. (Brittenham commonly teaches Composition Studies, Victorian Literature, and Food Studies.)
“The courses included the literature of pilgrimage, it included poets and writers describing and evolving our human relationship to nature and to cities, but it also included fresh perspectives on the everyday activity of walking from anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, among other disciplines,” she said. “I learned so much from both classes, and part of my talk is just about sharing some of the insights that emerged as my students and I worked our way through all this glorious material.”
“Those insights have to do with the power of walking to create better citizens and stronger communities, to heal through meditation and self-exploration, to reignite a sense of wonder.”
Brittenham will also talk about the “intrinsic connections between walking and writing. For me, both have this near-magical capacity to help us ground our experiences, to reflect on them, make sense of them, to make sense of ourselves, whether through steps on the sidewalk or through words on the page.”
Register for this virtual event here by March 16: https://forms.gle/hMiAsLGZhGw1xwC68. Registrants will receive the Zoom link for the lecture via email the week of the event.
Pop-Up University is a public lecture series featuring engaging talks by IU South Bend faculty. The talks, which include time for discussion, seek to inform and inspire community members on a wide variety of topics.
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