In recent years, the English Graduate Organization has begun a new tradition: the EGO Speaker Series. This series of lecture was created to bring distinguished scholars working in the region to Syracuse University in order to foster new connections between the Syracuse English Department and other esteemed programs in the region, to showcase our graduate program in English, and to provide an opportunity for members of the SU community to engage with accomplished scholars working outside our own university.  Scholars that have presented in the series include Ernesto Laclau, Jean Howard, Susan Buck-Morss, Amy Villarejo, Tim Dean, and Shirley Samuels, and the over 600 students from 12 graduate programs that came to listen and engage with the speakers.

What makes the Speaker Series especially exciting, and especially unique, is that it is an event that is entirely designed, operated, and maintained by our graduate students. EGO chooses which scholars to invite; we make all of the arrangements for their visit; we secure all necessary funding for the project, all the way down to eating dinner with the speaker. As such, the Speaker Series is an incredibly valuable professionalization tool — it affords our students the opportunity to work closely with top-notch scholars, as well as to familiarize themselves with all of the administrative and technical procedures that are necessary to organize such an event. The networking potential is another significant benefit.

EGO is committed to ensuring that the Speaker Series has wide interdisciplinary appeal, and as such we have made a special effort to invite scholars whose work will be of interest to students working in a variety of fields. In so doing, the Series has helped raise the profile of our graduate students (and our department) in the university community, the upstate New York region, and beyond.

 

Upcoming Speakers:
Check back for upcoming events!

Recent Speakers: 

February 2014
David Halperin
lecture: “What Is Sex For?”
seminar: “How to Be Gay”

November 2013
Tim Murray
lecture and seminar on art, technology, and philosophy

April 2013
Ania Loomba
lecture: “Liberal Critique and Subaltern Masculinity: The Case of Vijay Tendulkar’s Kanyadaan“
seminar: “The Leopard’s Spots: Race and Embodiment”

Fall 2012
Laura Brown
lecture and seminar: “Non-Human Genres: Love, Paradise, and the Rise of the Animal in English Literature”

February 2012
Jack Halberstam
“Low Theory, Gaga Feminism and The End of Normal”

Barbara Klinger
“Mutations or Mutilations?: The Never-Ending Versions of Classic Hollywood Films”