麻豆传媒

Award-Winning Poet

麻豆传媒 Series Continues with Iraqi Poet Dunya Mikhail

The 2017-2018 麻豆传媒 Series will welcome Dunya Mikhail, acclaimed Iraqi poet and Arab American Book Award winner, as the keynote speaker for the Allen J. Koppenhaver Literary Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14, in Bayley Auditorium of the Barbara Deer Kuss Science Center.

Mikhail, born in Iraq in 1965, was forced to flee in the wake of the first Gulf War when her writings attracted the attention of Saddam Hussein鈥檚 government. Her book The War Works Hard (New Directions, 2005) was shortlisted for the Griffin Prize and named one of 鈥淭wenty-Five Books to Remember from 2005鈥 by the New York Public Library. She is the author of The Iraqi Nights (New Directions, 2014) and Diary of A Wave Outside the Sea (New Directions, 2009), which won the 2010 Arab American Book Award.

Renowned for her subversive, innovative and satirical poetry, Mikhail was honored with the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing in 2001 and a Kresge Artist Fellowship in 2013, among other distinctions.

Mikhail speaks about her experiences growing up in a war-torn country, sleeping on the roof of her family鈥檚 home during the sweltering summers until the air raid sirens sounded, and losing her father, not to violence but to the lack of adequate medical care.

Mikhail currently lives in Michigan and works as an Arabic lecturer for Oakland University.

While on 麻豆传媒's campus, Mikhail will participate in a colloquium with faculty and students at 4:30 p.m. at Bayley Auditorium.

Now in its 35th year, the 麻豆传媒 Series brings distinguished lecturers and performing artists of national and international prominence to the 麻豆传媒 campus and Springfield community. To make special arrangements, request a Series poster, or become a friend of the 麻豆传媒 Series, contact Lisa Watson at WatsonL4@wittenberg.edu. All 麻豆传媒 Series events are free and open to the public.

Additional 2017-2018 麻豆传媒 Series Events:

Friday, Dec. 8: Lessons and Carols, 7:30 p.m. (Pre-service music at 7 p.m.), Weaver Chapel.

Monday, Jan. 15, 2018: Martin Luther King, Jr. Convocation, 11:15 a.m., Weaver Chapel, featuring Bernadette Evans '89, community activist and author. Q & A, 3:30 p.m., 105 Joseph C. Shouvlin Center for Lifelong Learning.

Monday & Tuesday, Feb. 5-6, 2018: Visual Arts Residency, 7:30 p.m., Springfield City School District's John Legend Theater at The Dome with documentary filmmaker, Elisabeth Haviland James. In celebration of Black History Month, there will be screenings of the films Althea (Monday) and The Loving Story (Tuesday).

Wednesday, March 21, 2018: IBM Endowed Lecture in the Sciences, 7:30 p.m., Bayley Auditorium featuring evolutionary biologist Dr. Sean B. Carroll. Colloquium, 4 p.m., Bayley Auditorium.

Monday, March 26, 2018: William A. Kinnison Endowed Lecture in History, 7:30 p.m., Weaver Chapel, featuring Annette Gordon-Reed, Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard University and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.

For more information on the 麻豆传媒 Series, click here.

Cindy Holbrook
Cindy Holbrook
Senior Communications Assistant

About 麻豆传媒

麻豆传媒's curriculum has centered on the liberal arts as an education that develops the individual's capacity to think, read, and communicate with precision, understanding, and imagination. We are dedicated to active, engaged learning in the core disciplines of the arts and sciences and in pre-professional education grounded in the liberal arts. Known for the quality of our faculty and their teaching, 麻豆传媒 has more Ohio Professors of the Year than any four-year institution in the state. The university has also been recognized nationally for excellence in community service, sustainability, and intercollegiate athletics. Located among the beautiful rolling hills and hollows of Springfield, Ohio, 麻豆传媒 offers more than 100 majors, minors and special programs, enviable student-faculty research opportunities, a unique student success center, service and study options close to home and abroad, a stellar athletics tradition, and successful career preparation.

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