Distinguished English Scholar to Discuss 'Shakespeare and The Canterbury Tales' at Washington College

Chestertown, MD — Washington College's 2008-2009 Sophie Kerr Lecture Series begins with a presentation by Helen Cooper, one of England's foremost medieval and Renaissance literary scholars, on "Shakespeare and The Canterbury Tales: The Case of A Midsummer Night's Dream," at the Casey Academic Center Forum on Tuesday, September 9, at 4:30 p.m.

Helen Cooper is Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge, and fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. She was an undergraduate, research student and research fellow at Cambridge before being appointed as the first woman fellow at University College, Oxford, in 1978.

In 2004 she returned to Cambridge as Professor of Medieval and Renaissance in English—a post originally created for famed Chronicles of Narnia author and Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis.

Professor Cooper is essentially interested in the continuity of literature across the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The author of numerous works of scholarship, her most recent book (the theme of which is reflected in her forthcoming Washington College presentation) is on romance, from its invention in the 12th century to the death of Shakespeare. She also has published extensively on The Canterbury Tales.

The Sophie Kerr Lecture Series honors the legacy of the late Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, Md., whose generosity has enriched Washington College's literary culture. The 2008-2009 series includes poetry readings, fiction readings, lectures and, as its culmination in March 2009, a special appearance by two-time U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser.

Admission to "Shakespeare and The Canterbury Tales" is free and open to the public. For more information, call 410/778-7879.

August 28, 2008

April 11th Lecture To Examine The Art Of Hieronymus Bosch As A Mirror Of Human Nature

Chestertown, MD, March 27, 2002 — The Washington College Department of Art, the Friends of the Arts and the Washington College Art History Club present "A TASTE OF BOSCH: THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS," a lecture by Reindert Falkenberg, Ph.D., Henry Luce III Professor of Western Art History and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. The talk will be held Thursday, April 11, 2002, at 7:30 p.m. in the College's Casey Academic Center Forum.

Dr. Falkenberg received his Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Amsterdam, and has taught at such universities as Harvard, Princeton and the University of California-Berkeley, in addition to the Graduate Theological Union. His research focuses on Late Medieval and Early Modern Art, and he has taught courses on Pieter Bruegel, Hieronymus Bosch and Late Medieval religious and devotional imagery.

His lecture will examine Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights" as a mirror of the human soul, used to focus self-reflection on the fallen condition and chaotic state of human nature. "The mirror, in late medieval culture," writes Falkenberg, "has a whole variety of meanings and connotations. First of all, and most directly, it relates to the viewer's self-image, how a human being looks, or how he or she is—which is not the same. Moreover, it shows how a human being should not be, or shall be, as in writings such as the "Spiegel der sonden" (the Mirror of sins), or the "Spiegel der salicheit" (the Mirror of salvation). The mirror, therefore, may relate to the visible as much as to the invisible."