FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Cindy Deppe, media relations, 641-269-4834

October 29, 2007

DISABILITY SCHOLAR TO SPEAK AT GRINNELL COLLEGE

Grinnell College’s Center for the Humanities will host a lecture by disability studies scholar Lennard Davis on Nov. 8 at 4:15 p.m. in the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center, Room 101, on the Grinnell College campus. Davis, who is a distinguished visiting professor at Grinnell this semester, will discuss “Obsession: The Biography of a Disease,” a critical look at a condition that Davis explores in its connection to art and cultural norms about madness and normality.

Davis is a professor in the English Department in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he is also Professor of Disability and Human Development in the School of Applied Health Sciences. He has published numerous articles, books, and op-ed pieces on issues ranging from the English novel to deaf culture. His memoir, My Sense of Silence, won the National Book Award for 2000. He is also the author of The Sonnets: a Novel. From Chicago he directs a think tank called “Project Biocultures,” which explores the intersection of culture, medicine, disability, biotechnology, and the biosphere.

Davis is the third of four lecturers sponsored by Grinnell College’s Center for the Humanities this semester on the topic of “Thinking Interdisciplinarity.” The visiting professors spend three weeks each on the campus, teaching upper-level seminars and public lectures. To learn more about the program, go to http://www.grinnell.edu/academic/CentHumanities/. The Rosenfield Center is located at 1115 8th Ave. on the Grinnell College campus.

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