Chancellor Carolyn ‘Biddy’ Martin to speak on ‘Humanities in the Public’

Chancellor Carolyn ‘Biddy’ Martin will give the first Focus on the Humanities Distinguished Faculty Lecture of the Spring 2009 semester on Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 5 p.m. in the Pyle Center Alumni Lounge.

This lecture series is sponsored by the UW–Madison Center for the Humanities and the Institute for Research in the Humanities. In this lecture, Chancellor Martin will discuss how aspects of the humanities have been viewed outside the university over the past several decades and reflect upon how it might be possible to communicate the value of humanities scholarship to a larger audience.

Martin received her Ph.D. in German literature in 1985 from UW–Madison and that same year joined Cornell University’s faculty full-time as an assistant professor of German studies and women’s studies. Martin went on to become provost of Cornell from 2000-2008 before joining UW–Madison in September 2008.

Martin is a distinguished scholar of German Studies and author of numerous articles and two books — one on a literary and cultural figure in the Freud circle, Lou Andreas-Salome, and the other on gender theory.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the center’s Web site, or contact staff at 608-263-3412, info@humanities.wisc.edu.