Italian scholar and author Umberto Eco, a pre-eminent literary theorist, has been chosen to deliver the ninth series of the Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature on Oct. 5-7.

The series, titled “Confessions of a Young Novelist,” will kick off with a lecture titled “How I Write” and conclude with a book signing on Tuesday night.
Eco is the author of best-selling novels, including The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum, Baudolino and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana.

Eco has held distinguished academic appointments at numerous European and American universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Collège de France, Harvard, Yale and Columbia.

In addition to novels, Eco has written nonfiction works on semiotics, linguistics, aesthetics and modern culture.

Eco is currently president of the Scuola Superiore di Studi Umanistici (Superior School of Humanities) at the University of Bologna and has been elected to the Academy of Science in Bologna, the International Academy of the Philosophy of Art, the Académie Universelle des Cultures and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Ronald Schuchard, Goodrich C. White professor of English, directs the lecture series named for the late literary scholar and Emory professor Richard Ellmann.

An international committee of scholars convenes during each lecture series and, with help from the current lecturer, selects the next speaker. Nominations from students and faculty are also encouraged.

“We try to bring to the Ellmann lectures people of this stature who can step outside of their writing and lecture on some topic that is of importance to them in a language with no jargon that is addressed to a serious reading audience,” Schuchard said. “I think [Eco] suits this perfectly. He is a man of great precision in language.”

Schuchard said Eco wanted to come to Emory to pay homage to Ellmann, who wrote one of the first important reviews of Eco’s first novel, The Name of the Rose.

During this three-day event, “people will be in the presence of one of the most imaginative writers of our time,” Schucard said.

“The opportunity to hear Eco’s reflections, as well as a reading from his work, is a not-to-be-missed occasion for students, scholars, writers, artists and readers,” Rosemary Magee, vice president and secretary of the University, wrote in an e-mail to the Wheel.

All events are free and open to the public. Tickets are not required.

— Contact Kate Borger.

Source: www.emorywheel.com