Kansas State University

MANHATTAN -- Kansas State University's English department will host several events in the spring semester, ranging from lectures by visiting professors to readings of original works by creative writing students.

Events, which are free and open to the public unless otherwise indicated, include:

* Jonathan Lamb, an assistant professor of English at the University of Kansas, will present a lecture on "Hamlet's Parenthesis" from 4-5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27, in Room 227 of the K-State Student Union. Lamb is a 2004 graduate of Kansas State University's English program.

* English faculty and creative writing students will host a reading of poetry and short prose works at 7 p.m. Friday, March 1, in the Strecker-Nelson Gallery on Poyntz Avenue, Manhattan.

* The department of English, department of women's studies, and the offices of the president and the provost will sponsor the 22nd annual Cultural Studies Symposium from 4-5 p.m. Friday, March 8, in the Little Theatre at the Union. The featured lecturer will be Rey Chow, a cultural studies critic who focuses on ethnicity, critical theory and film. The topic of her lecture will be "The Question of Sound and 'Hiroshima mon Amour.'" Chow has authored more than 12 books and is considered one of the most influential cultural critics of our time. She is currently the Anne Firor Scott professor of literature at Duke University.

* As part of the English department's Spring Colloquium Series, Donna Potts, professor of English, will speak on "This Landscape's Fierce Embrace: Francis Harvey and Environmentalism in Ireland" from 3:30-4:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 13, in Room 227 at the Union.

* Danielle Evans, a fiction writer, will present a reading at 3:30 p.m. Friday, March 29, in the Union's Little Theatre. Evans received a Master of Fine Arts in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and a bachelor's in anthropology and African-American studies from Columbia University. Her short-story collection, "Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self," was a co-winner of the 2011 PEN American Robert W. Bingham Prize for a first book and received a National Book Foundation "5 under 35" selection for 2011, the 2011 Paterson Prize for Fiction, and the 2011 Hurston-Wright Award for fiction. Her work has been anthologized in "The Best American Short Stories" in 2008 and 2010. Evans is currently an assistant professor at American University.

*The department of English, with the offices of the president and the provost, will host the third annual Regional Graduate Student Literature Conference on Saturday, March 30. The event will be from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the K-State Student Union. The theme of this year's conference is "Border(less) Identities." More information can be found at the conference's website, http://www.k-state.edu/english/gslitcon/.

For more information on department of English events, visit http://www.k-state.edu/english/calendar or contact english@k-state.edu.