Joseph Warren Beach Lectures in Literature
For nearly 50 years, the Department of English’s Joseph Warren Beach Lectures in Literature have drawn many of the most respected names in literary criticism to the University of Minnesota. Indeed, the below list of speakers has itself become an inducement in contracting the next Joseph Warren Beach lecturer.
The man whose memory this lecture series commemorates, Professor Joseph Warren Beach, was a scholar of international reputation. His wide-ranging interests in modern literature produced such classic critical works as The Method of Henry James (1918), The Concept of Nature in Nineteenth-Century English Poetry (1936), American Fiction, 1920-1940 (1941), and The Making of the Auden Canon (1957).
Born in Gloversville, New York, he came to study at the University of Minnesota, where his uncle, Cyrus Northrop, was president. After graduating in 1900, he went to Harvard, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1907. He returned to Minnesota and served as an outstanding scholar, poet, and teacher until his retirement in 1948.
During his last eight years at the University of Minnesota, he chaired the Department of English and built it into one of the premier departments in the country. His high standards for himself drew the most distinguished writers, scholars, and teachers to Minnesota. This lecture series, arranged by family and friends in 1959, continues to bring the most eminent speakers to campus and serves to commemorate Joseph Warren Beach.
Joseph Warren Beach Lecturers
- 1959 - Lionel Trilling
- 1960 - Robert Penn Warren
- 1961 - R. P. Blackmur
- 1962 - Elizabeth Hardwick
- 1963 - Morton D. Zabel
- 1964 - Frank Kermode
- 1965 - Harry Levin
- 1966 - Howard Nemerov
- 1967 - Louis Simpson
- 1968 - Eric Bentley
- 1969 - William H. Gass
- 1970 - Allen Tate
- 1971 - R. W. B. Lewis
- 1972 - Richard Wilbur
- 1973 - Mary McCarthy
- 1974 - Mark Schorer
- 1975 - George Steiner
- 1976 - Kenneth Burke
- 1977 - Richard Ellmann
- 1978 - John Gardner
- 1979 - Alfred Kazin
- 1980 - Karl Shapiro
- 1981 - Leon Edel
- 1982 - Stanley Kauffmann
- 1983 - Paul Fussell
- 1984 - Sandra M. Gilbert
- 1985 - Robert Pinsky
- 1986 - Edward W. Said
- 1987 - Walter Benn Michaels
- 1988 - Annette Kolodny
- 1989 - Hayden White
- 1990 - Northrop Frye
- 1991 - N. Scott Momaday
- 1992 - Nikki Giovanni
- 1993 - Peter Matthiessen
- 1994 - Noam Chomsky
- 1996 - Louise Erdrich
- 1997 - August Wilson
- 1998 - Tony Kushner - introduction by Andrew Elfenbein
- 1999 - Robert Hass - introduction by Edward Griffin
- 2000 - Leslie Marmon Silko - introduction by Carol Miller
- 2001 - W. S. Merwin - introduction by Kent Bales
- 2002 - Eavan Boland - introduction by Michael Dennis Browne
- 2007 - Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak - introduction by John Mowitt
- 2008 - Nancy Armstrong - introduction by Lois Cucullu