BRATTLEBORO — Dartmouth professor Irene Kacandes will examine the broad appeal of memoirs in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on Jan. 2, 2013. Her talk, “The Memoir Boom: Who, What, Why,” is part of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays lecture series and takes place at 7 p.m.
Kacandes, an experimental memoirist, will discuss current approaches to life writing and consider why we continue to love reading about others' lives.
Kacandes is professor of German studies and comparative literature at Dartmouth College, and chair of the German studies department. She is the author of “Daddy's War: Greek American Stories and Talk Fiction: Literature and the Talk Explosion.” She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University.
The Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays series is held on the first Wednesday of every month from October through May, featuring speakers of national and regional renown. Talks in Brattleboro are held at Brooks Memorial Library unless otherwise noted. All First Wednesdays talks are free and open to the public.
Upcoming Brattleboro talks include “Concrete, Culture, and Community: The Impact of the Interstate Highway on Vermont” with UVM professor Frank Bryan on Feb. 6; “Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power” with New York Times Chief Washington Correspondent David Sanger on Monday, Feb. 18 (at First Baptist Church, a rescheduled talk); and “Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln” with Harvard professor John Stauffer on March 6.
The Vermont Department of Libraries is the statewide underwriter of First Wednesdays. The 2012-2013 First Wednesdays series in Brattleboro is sponsored by the Crosby-Gannett Fund of the Vermont Community Foundation.