Mostly announcements this time:
The 2019 ALSCW Conference (Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers) will take place from October 3-6, in Worcester, Mass., at the College of the Holy Cross. I will be leading a seminar titled “What Is Great Literature?” Students, teachers, writers, professors, and readers are welcome to submit a paper proposal (by June 1). See the guidelines here. There will also be seminars on oratory, Melville, Frederick Douglass, Shakespeare and the Hebrew Bible, and much more–in addition to poetry and prose readings, panels, and a banquet.
Twenty of my ninth-grade students are rehearsing Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, which they will perform at the National English Language Drama Festival in Veszprém (in late May). I will have more to say about that as the date approaches.
My book events in Szolnok and NYC are now bright memories; you can see pictures of the Szolnok event here and of the NYC event here and here. Also, the podcast of my interview on “Leonard Lopate at Large” is available on SoundCloud and other sites.
The band 1LIFE is vying for the chance to open for the Grenma at the Dürer Kert in Budapest on April 27. You can vote for them through Friday. I wrote a piece about one of their songs (as a sort of English-language plug).
Soon I will post some thoughts on Hamlet (and teaching Hamlet), the Hungarian language, cello, and more. This is all for now.
Take Away the Takeaway 