UNC Asheville Hosts Esteemed Poetry Critic Helen Vendler as Dorr Lecturer

Helen Vendler, one of the nation’s foremost poetry critics, will give two talks as part of UNC Asheville’s annual Laurence and Joyce Dorr series, “Aesthetics: Thinking Beyond Experience.” Both events are free and open to the public.

Vendler will discuss “The Problems of the Contemporary Poet” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 1, at UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union Alumni Hall. Vendler will give the annual Dorr Lecture on “The Yeatsian Sequence: Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen” at 12:15 p.m. Thursday, March 2, at UNC Asheville’s Humanities Lecture Hall.

Vendler is regarded by many as the most influential and widely read critic of poetry in the United States. Vendler’s reviews of contemporary poetry and criticism have appeared in New Yorker magazine, New York Review of Books and other publications. Her most recent books include “Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats,” “Coming of Age as a Poet: Milton, Keats, Eliot, Plath” and “Seamus Heaney.” She received the National Book Critics Circle Award for her book “Part of Nature, Part of Us: Modern American Poets.” Vendler currently serves as the A. Kinglsey Porter University Professor of English at Harvard University.

Vendler’s talks are made possible by a gift from Laurence and Joyce Dorr, UNC Asheville emeriti professors, and by support from James Topp and Paula Grillot. The talks are part of the annual Dorr Lecture Series, “Aesthetics: Thinking Beyond Experience.” The endowed lecture series seeks to promote philosophical reflection on the arts.

While at UNC Asheville, Laurence Dorr served as UNC Asheville vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, Philosophy Department chair and Humanities Program professor. Joyce Dorr established, chaired and taught in the University’s Music Department. She also taught in the Arts and Ideas Program.

For more information, call UNC Asheville’s Humanities Program at 828/251-6808 or visit their Web site at www.unca.edu/humanities/events.htm.

Media Contacts:

• Dr. Scott Walters, UNC Asheville Arts & Ideas Program Director, 828/251-6686
• Jill Yarnall, UNC Asheville Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526