Wallace Stevens and Our Redemption Through Poetry
Glimpse into our Basic Program by joining our First Friday Lecture with Lin Atnip.
About the Event
“After one has abandoned a belief in god, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life's redemption.”—So writes Wallace Stevens, a giant of American modernist poetry, in one of his aphoristic “adagia.” In this lecture, we will attempt to understand what he meant, or might have meant, in this odd and perhaps disturbing formulation. What is the role of poetry in our contemporary world, at turns banal and catastrophe-ridden? We will seek our answer through consideration of some of Stevens' other prose writings and, of course, his poetry--and maybe, if successful, find a little redemption.
Who's Speaking
Lindsay Atnip
Basic Program Instructor
Lindsay Atnip is a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Humanities and Social Change and an Instructor in the Basic Program. She received her PhD in 2019 from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, specializing in the philosophy of literature and twentieth-century American literature, especially “modern apocalyptic” fiction and poetry. She holds a BA in Economics and an MA in Political Philosophy from the University of Chicago. Her academic interests include Western literature, literary theory, and philosophy of literature, film, classic social theory, and philosophy. Ms. Atnip joined the Basic Program in 2015.
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