EDITOR’S NOTE: This event has been cancelled as part of Brock University’s ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of students, faculty, staff and the community in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

This year’s Marilyn Rose Lecture Series talk and reading will honour the late professor’s commitment to justice, communication and the role art can play in facilitating new relationships.

“Marilyn Rose was an excellent scholar deeply committed to thinking through the hardest, knottiest problems facing the country,” says Gregory Betts, Professor with the Department of English and organizer of this year’s lecture. “She was committed to women’s writing, to empathy and to using literature to embody the gesture of listening while speaking.”

This kind of serious listening, empathy and commitment to rethinking is evident in the work of this year’s guest speakers.

Richard Monture, a member of the Mohawk nation, Turtle clan, from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, will be speaking on the legacy of Canadian poets. Monture is the Director of the Indigenous Studies Program at McMaster University, where he is an Associate Professor, and is also the author of We Share Our Matters: Two Centuries of Writing and Resistance at Six Nations of the Grand River.

His talk will explore how the work of 19th century Mohawk poet E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) helps us to imagine and understand contemporary complexities of Indigenous-settler relations.

Accomplished American poet Alice Notley will also be reading from her new book, For the Ride, that considers how language must change in a time of global disaster. Considered one of America’s greatest living poets, Notley has published over forty books of poetry.

“Canada is going through a serious national rethink right now with regards to Indigenous-Canadian relations,” says Betts. “In this time of uncertainty and change, it will be very productive and provocative to think about models of disruption that open up possibilities, rather than just shut things down.”

Now in its fourth season, the annual lecture was launched in 2017 to honour the memory of English Professor and founding Dean of Brock’s Faculty of Graduate Studies Marilyn Rose, who passed away in 2015.

The free lecture is organized by the Centre for Canadian Studies and the Department of English Language and Literature, in collaboration with the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film. Each year’s theme is chosen to reflect Rose’s own passions, which included detective fiction, national and literary iconography, modern and contemporary poetry, and Canadian short fiction.

The public is welcome to attend this free talk. Refreshments are provided.

What: Marilyn Rose Lecture featuring Richard Monture, Director of the Indigenous Studies Program at McMaster University, and poet Alice Notley
Where: Marilyn I Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Room 156
When: Friday, March 13 from 7 to 8:30 pm