Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novelist to Give 2014 Albaugh Lecture

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Media contact: Terry Goodrich, (254) 710-3321
WACO, Texas (Sept. 8, 2014 )—Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Marilynne Robinson, is scheduled to speak as a guest of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and its free Roy B. Albaugh Lecture Series on Thursday, Sept. 11.
Robinson was awarded the 2012 National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama, in recognition for her “grace and intelligence in writing.” Her book Gilead received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Housekeeping, Robinson’s first novel, among others such as Home; Mother and Country: Britain, the Welfare State and Nuclear Pollution; The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought and Absence of Mind has gleaned numerous prizes and nominations.
To begin this year’s Albaugh Lecture Series, Robinson will present a free reading from her works from 3:30- 4:30 p.m. in the Alexander Hall Reading Room, 1413 S. Seventh St. in Waco. The event is sponsored by Baylor University's department of English in the College of Arts & Sciences.
To conclude the free series, Robinson will deliver the official 2014 Albaugh Lecture at 7 p.m. in Bennett Auditorium by speaking on this year’s topic “Reconceiving Realism: The Case for a Deeper Attention.”
The Roy B. Albaugh Phi Beta Kappa Lectureship was endowed in the late 1970s by Oma Albaugh in memory of her late husband’s civic and business leadership role in the Waco community. Since then, Baylor University’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter has held the annual tradition of selecting a distinguished scholar to present a public lecture for members of the university and local community to attend.
Local Phi Beta Kappa contact: Dr. William Weaver, Ext. 6317, W_Weaver@baylor.edu.
by Sarah Czerwinski, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
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