Faculty to examine international literary figures

The International Institute and Canterbury Booksellers is presenting a series on international literary figures during May.

The series, on successive Sundays, features UW faculty who have recently authored books. The three remaining programs will focus on Icelandic poet Jónas Hallgrímsson, Danish writer Isak Dinesen and the art of African storytelling.

The talks begin at 4 p.m. at Canterbury, 315 W. Gorham St.

On Sunday, May 11, Dick Ringler, professor emeritus of English and Scandinavian Studies, will discuss his book, “Bard of Iceland: Jónas Hallgrímsson, Poet and Scientist” (University of Wisconsin Press, 2002).

Ringler, one of the premier scholars of Icelandic literature, considers Hallgr’msson the most important poet of modern Iceland. Hallgr’msson, who lived in the 1800s, was also that country’s first professionally trained geologist and a brilliant scientist in several fields, including geography, botany, zoology and archaeology.

This is the first time the poet’s work has been available in a language other than Icelandic.

“A major undertaking, brilliantly accomplished,” says Harvard University reviewer Joseph Harris.

On Sunday, May 18, the series will feature Harold Scheub, Evjue-Bascom Professor of Humanities in the Department of African Languages and Literature, and author of “The Poem in the Story: Music, Poetry, and Narrative” (University of Wisconsin Press, 2002).

Scheub has done extensive and important work on the art of the African storyteller, revealing the complicated relationship between artist and audience, as well as the role poetry plays in storytelling.

“Scheub has gone to much greater length than any scholar to deduce the driving aesthetic impulse in a storytelling tradition, to show why a good story is a good story, whether in an oral or a literate tradition,” says State University of New York-Binghamton reviewer Isidore Okpewho.

On Sunday, May 25, the series concludes with Susan Brantly, professor of Scandinavian Studies and author of “Understanding Isak Dinesen” (University of South Carolina Press, 2002).

The book describes the many-sided writings of the Danish writer, known also as Karen Blixen, perhaps best known for her memoir, “Out of Africa.”

Brantly addresses Dinesen’s personal history and the history of the colonization of east Africa, addressing the controversy surrounding Dinesen’s degree of racism and complicity in colonial oppression.

Brantly’s book has been called “quite possibly the best book on Karen Blixen ever written.”