Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit

Berkovitch to open new lecture series celebrating the literary impact of SU alumus Stephen Crane

Wednesday, November 7, 2001, By News Staff
Share

Berkovitch to open new lecture series celebrating the literary impact of SU alumus Stephen CraneNovember 07, 2001Jonathan Hayjhay@syr.edu

One of Syracuse University’s most noteworthy alumni will be celebrated Nov. 20, as the English department in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences hosts the first installment in the Stephen Crane Memorial Lecture Series.

The lecture will begin at 4 p.m. in the Kilian Room, Room 500 of the Hall of Languages. Sacvan Bercovitch, Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature at Harvard University, will speak on “What’s Funny about Huckleberry Finn?”

Crane, who attended SU in 1891, is best known for his Civil War novel, “The Red Badge of Courage.” The lecture series is co-sponsored by the English Department and the Dikaia Foundation of the Syracuse Chapter of Delta Upsilon fraternity. Crane was a member of the Delta Upsilon while at SU, where he is said to have drafted his novel, “Maggie, A Girl of the Streets.”

“We already have the Raymond Carver Reading Series, which brings to campus poets and fiction writers from across the country,” says Robert Gates, chair of the English department. “Now the Stephen Crane Lecture Series will allow the English Department to bring to Syracuse internationally known teachers and researchers in American literature who can enrich our academic programs and connect our students and faculty to the work of scholars at other schools. We are particularly happy to be able to begin this series with Sacvan Bercovitch, probably the best known scholar in American literature and editor of the ‘Cambridge History of American Literature.””

Bercovitch has been a central figure in American literary studies since the publication of his early book, “The Puritan Origins of the American Self” in 1975. That study pioneered historically grounded rhetorical analysis well before “new historicism” became a household word in the United States. His books, articles and edited collections that followed, “The American Jeremiad” in 1978, “Ideology and Classic American Literature” and “Reconstructing American Literary History” in 1986, “The Office of ‘The Scarlet Letter'” in 1991 (a winner of the prestigious James Russell Lowell Prize for the best scholarly book), “The Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America” in 1992, “Americana Puritana” in 1994, “Games of Chess: A Model of Literary and Cultural Studies” in 1996, and the multi-volume “Cambridge History of American Literature” (1990-present) have each played pivotal roles in the ongoing redefinition of the boundaries, methodologies, and functions of American literary scholarship and criticism.

Bercovitch has lectured widely in the United States and in Europe, China, Japan, and Israel. He served as the president of American Studies Association; has been named a fellow by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and received the Cabot Award for Achievement in the Humanities.

Gates says it is only fitting to bring in a literary scholar of Bercovitch’s stature to celebrate the accomplishments of Crane. Despite a short career, Crane had a great impact on the literary world after leaving SU. Crane, who lived to be only 29, was the youngest of 14 children of a Methodist minister who died when Crane was nine. He lived the life of a penniless artist who became well known as a poet, journalist, social critic and realist. He was noted as being an “original” in his field of work, a pioneer in prose realism and to some degree in poetic free verse.

Crane began writing for newspapers in 1891 when he settled in New York City, where he developed his powers as an observer of psychological and social reality. After he wrote “The Red Badge of Courage,” which earned him international acclaim at age 24, he was hired as a reporter in the American West and Mexico.

Crane covered the Greco-Turkish War and later settled in England, where he made friends with famous writers of the time, including H.G. Wells and Henry James. Wells called Crane “beyond dispute, the best writer of our generation.” He later covered the Spanish-American War for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World.

  • Author

News Staff

  • Recent
  • Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Sam Clemence to Receive Deep Foundations Institute Legends Award
    Thursday, June 1, 2023, By Alex Dunbar
  • Applications Now Open for Spring 2024 Study Abroad Programs
    Thursday, June 1, 2023, By Ashley Barletta
  • June 30 Deadline Set for Fiscal 2023 Year End Business
    Wednesday, May 31, 2023, By News Staff
  • DPS Accepting Sign-Ups for R.A.D. Summer Session
    Wednesday, May 31, 2023, By Alex Haessig
  • Syracuse Stage Adds 2 Musicals to 50th Anniversary Season
    Wednesday, May 31, 2023, By Joanna Penalva

More In Uncategorized

Syracuse Views Spring 2023

We want to know how you experience Syracuse University. Take a photo and share it with us. We select photos from a variety of sources. Submit photos of your University experience using #SyracuseU on social media, fill out a submission…

Awards of Excellence Honoree: Maxwell has Been ‘a Guiding Hand’ in Public Service Career

Standing before an audience of fellow Maxwell School alumni gathered in Washington, D.C., for the second annual Maxwell Awards of Excellence, CNN anchor Boris Sanchez ’09 shared the motivation behind his work as a journalist. Sanchez emigrated from Cuba as…

NASA Honoring Those Who Were Aboard Space Shuttle Columbia And Other Late Astronauts

Sean O’Keefe, University Professor in the Maxwell School, was interviewed for the USA Today article “Twenty years later, loss of space shuttle Columbia still teaches us lessons.” The article emphasizes how NASA’s Memorial Grove is used to honor late astronauts,…

NFL, Eagles and Chiefs All Set To Win The Economics Game In Super Bowl LVII

Rodney Paul, director and professor of sport analytics in the Falk School, was quoted in the Washington Examiner story “The economics of the Super Bowl: Hosting, gambling, ads, and more.” The article talks in-depth about all of the economics that…

CEOs Requiring In Person Work Is Hurting Diversity

Arlene Kanter, director of the Disability and Policy Program and professor in the College of Law, was interviewed for the Business Insider article “Some CEOs are pushing workers to return to the office, but it could come with a cost:…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2023 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.