Scholar David Scott Kastan to present lecture on origins of English literature

Scholar David Scott Kastan to present lecture on origins of English literatureOctober 13, 2005Sara Millersemortim@syr.edu

On Oct. 28 at 4 p.m., David Scott Kastan, the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, will give a lecture, “The Invention of English Literature.” The lecture will be held in the Hillyer Room on the sixth floor of E. S. Bird Library at Syracuse University.

Scholars have pointed to various plausible moments as to when the idea of English literature originated. Kastan’s talk explores the role of the mid-17th-century book trade in forming a coherent notion of English literature, which neither the ambitions of authors nor the understandings of readers could have achieved. Focusing on the publications of Humphrey Moseley in 1645, Kastan will discuss the self-conscious cultural and commercial project that defined a space where literature could be recognized as a distinctive field of interest.

Kastan is also an Honorary Research Professor at University College, London. An erudite yet accessible scholar of Shakespeare and English drama, he has written or edited 16 books, including “Shakespeare after Theory” (Routledge, 1999), “Shakespeare and the Book” (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and “The Death of the Book” (in progress). He has authored scores of articles and papers and received more than 20 honors and awards, most notably Guggenheim and Folger Library fellowships, as well as visiting professorships that have taken him to Budapest, Cairo, Copenhagen and London. Kastan received his A.B. degree from Princeton University and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago.

This free event is sponsored by the SU Seminar in the History of the Book. Paid parking is available in the Marion and Comstock lots.