Baylor University's Armstrong Browning Library to Host Browning Day

Media Contact: Lori Fogleman, 254-710-6275
Follow Baylor Media Communications on Twitter: @BaylorUMedia

WACO, Texas (April 18, 2018) – In celebration of the lives and work of poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Baylor University’s Armstrong Browning Library (ABL) will host its annual Browning Day event at 3 p.m. Friday, April 20, in the ABL, 710 Speight Ave.

The event will kick off with a reception in Cox Reception Hall of the library, followed by music and a guest lecture at 3:30 p.m. in the Foyer of Meditation. Justin Kroll and Julia Powers, both graduates of Baylor’s Master of Music Program in vocal performance, will perform “A Lark on the Wing: The Brownings in Melody,” featuring songs from the ABL’s Browning Music Collection.

Kirstie Blair, Ph.D., head of school in the School of Humanities at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, will present the 2018 lecture, "Such Very Fierce Radicals: The Brownings and Working-Class Culture." This discussion will explore the interactions working-class audiences had with the Brownings’ poetry.

Blair served as Margarett Root Brown Chair in Robert Browning and Victorian Studies at Armstrong Browning Library in 2012 and frequently references the Browning collections for her research. She is an expert in Victorian literature and culture, particularly poetry and poetics, Scottish Victorian popular culture and literature, working-class writing, literature and religion, and literature and medicine. She also has growing research and teaching interests in children's literature from the 19th century to the present.

Joshua King, Ph.D., associate professor of English at Baylor and the current holder of the Margarett Root Brown Chair in Robert Browning and Victorian Studies, and students from his fall 2017 Romantic poetry class will discuss the exhibition they curated last semester, “Romanticism at the ABL: Perceptions and Relationships,” currently on display in the Hankamer Treasure Room of ABL.

A.J. Armstrong, Ph.D., former chair of Baylor's English department and founder of the Armstrong Browning Library, began Browning Day shortly after his arrival to campus in 1912 as a means of honoring poet Robert Browning, whose works of dramatic verse are said to have influenced Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the Armstrong Browning Library website, or call (254) 710-3566.

by Brooke Battersby, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 17,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.

ABOUT THE BAYLOR UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

The Baylor University Libraries support excellence in teaching and learning, enhance research and discovery and foster scholarship and success. Through its Central Libraries and special collections – Armstrong Browning Library, W.R. Poage Legislative Library and The Texas Collection – the Libraries serve as academic life centers that provide scholarly resources and technological innovation for the Baylor community and beyond.