'Pursuit Of Happiness'
Author Is Alumnus (Los Angeles Times, April 6)
Thomas Rogers, 79, whose first novel, "The Pursuit of Happiness," was
a National Book Award finalist and became a movie, died Sunday
in State College, Penn. He appeared to have had a heart attack
and died after a single-car crash in which he drove off the road,
according to the State College Police Department. The son of two
chemists, Rogers was born in 1927 in Chicago. He earned a bachelor's
degree in English literature and history from Harvard in 1950 and
a master's degree and a doctorate in English literature from the
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA.
Department Calendar
Apr. 18 (Wed.), 4:00-5:00 p.m., Gerber Lounge—Hanna
Griff, Director of Programs, Eldridge Street Project,
New York City, will give a talk titled “If These Walls
Could Speak: Diaspora & the
Power of Sacred Space”
Apr. 19 (Thr.), 3:45-5:15 p.m., Richey Ballroom, 3rd floor, IMU—The
Graduate Awards Ceremony
Apr. 19 (Thr.), 7:30 p.m., UI Museum of Art—Riley
Hanick, writer-in-residence at the UI Museum of Art
and a student in the Nonfiction Writing Program, will giving
a reading with Robin Hemley and Patricia
Foster.
Apr. 20 (Fri.), 8:00 p.m., Danforth Chapel—The NWP Third-Year
Readings Series presents Elizabeth Cowan, Bernadette
Esposito, and Rossina Liu reading from
their work.
Apr. 24 (Tue.), 3:45 p.m., Gerber Lounge—Department
Meeting: discussion and vote on appointing Steve Kuusisto
Apr. 26 (Thr.), 3:30 p.m., Old Capitol Senate Chamber—Executive
Vice President and Provost Michael J. Hogan will
give his spring address in an event sponsored by the Faculty Senate.
Apr. 27 (Fri.), 3:30-5:00 p.m., the Museum of Art's Lasansky
Print Room and Willis Atrium—Undergraduate Honors
Award Ceremony. Thesis advisors: Please note this date
on your calendars and that this year the event is scheduled on
a Friday rather than a Thursday as has been the tradition in the
past.
Apr. 27 (Fri.), 8:00 p.m., Danforth Chapel Gerber Lounge—The
NWP Third-Year Readings Series presents Rebecca Butorac, Matthew
Davis, and Brian Goedde reading
from their work.
Apr. 30 (Mon.), 11:00 a.m., Gerber Lounge—Matt Weiland, the
Deputy Editor of Granta and its Associate Publisher for
the U.S. will speak
on publishing and answer questions.
Apr. 30 (Mon.), 7:00 p.m., Prairie Lights—Kevin
Brockmeier,
Christopher Coake, and Yiyun Li, all three included
among the "Best of Young American Novelists" named by Granta magazine,
will read
from their fiction. Li is a graduate of the Nonfiction Writing
Program. A DI article about the reading is here. You can attend the
reading, listen live on the Internet at http://writinguniversity.uiowa.edu,
or catch a broadcast on the WSUI's "Live from Prairie Lights" series.
Hour-long episodes air at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturdays, and 7 p.m.
Sundays on AM 910 WSUI in Iowa City, AM 640 WOI in Ames and AM 1010
KRNI in Cedar Falls. A program is also broadcast at 5 p.m. Sundays
on 91.7 FM KSUI in Iowa City.
May 1 (Tue.), 7 p.m., Gerber Lounge—The
Nonfiction Writing Program presents the first night of Writers
Gone Public,
two end-of-the-semester evenings
of undergraduate
readings. See and hear the finely crafted writing that results
from remarkable teaching: the undergraduate students of grad student
faculty: Elizabeth Cowan, Matthew Clark, Matt Davis, Bern Esposito,
Ori Fienberg Kirsten Giebutowski, Brian Goedde, Andrea Jonas, Rossina
Liu, Nate McKeen, Steve McNutt, and June Melby.
May 2 (Wed.), 3:30 p.m., Harper Hall, Voxman Music Building—Steeldrum
workshop and presentation by Ray Holman,
composer and performer from Trinidad. This event
is part of the Caribbean, Diaspora and Atlantic Studies
Program’s Spring
Lecture and Performance Series: Caribbean Discourses
and Contrapuntal Modernity and is co-sponsored with
the School of Music.
May 2 (Wed.), 7 p.m., Gerber Lounge—The Nonfiction Writing
Program presents the second night of Writers Gone Public, two end-of-the-semester
evenings of undergraduate readings. See and hear the finely crafted
writing
that results from remarkable teaching: the undergraduate students
of grad student faculty: Elizabeth Cowan, Matthew Clark, Matt Davis,
Bern Esposito, Ori Fienberg Kirsten Giebutowski, Brian Goedde,
Andrea Jonas, Rossina Liu, Nate McKeen, Steve McNutt, and June
Melby.
May 4 (Fri.), noon-2:00 p.m., Gerber Lounge—Celebration
to mark the retirement of Bill Kupersmith
May 4 (Fri.), 2:30-4:00 p.m., 331 EPB—The Early Modern
Reading Group will meet to discuss a paper about King Lear by
Doug Trevor. Please contact Stacy Erickson (stacy-erickson@uiowa.edu)
for more details.
May 5 (Sat.), 3:00 p.m., Clapp Recital Hall, Voxman Music Building—World
Percussion Concert with Ray Holman.
This event is part of the Caribbean, Diaspora and Atlantic Studies
Program’s Spring Lecture and Performance Series: Caribbean
Discourses and Contrapuntal Modernity.
Nov. 1-3 (Thr.-Sat.)—NonfictioNOW Conference
Other Calendars
UI
Master Calendar of Events | UI
Academic Calendar | The
Writers Workshop Reading Schedule
Future Issues
Please send any items for Reading Matters or the departmental
calendar to Carolyn Jacobson at carolyn-jacobson@uiowa.edu.
Reading Matters appears every other Thursday during the semester,
and submissions
should be received by 5 p.m. the day before.
The next issue, the last issue of the 2007-07 school year, will
appear on Thr., May 3. Please send submissions by
5
p.m.
on
Tue.,
May
2. Thanks
very much.
And congratulations to Ed Folsom for his Guggenheim Award, which
he will use to write "Walt Whitman's 'Leaves
of Grass': The Biography of a Book." The UI news release included
the following description of the project: 
Cambridge University Press China has just brought out
a Chinese edition of Bob Sayre's
New Essays on Walden.
The essays themselves will be presented
in English, but the surrounding matter,
such as the preface, will be translated.