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SUNY Fredonia’s English Department will welcome Wai Chee Dimock, a professor of English and American Studies with Yale University, as the keynote speaker for the fourth annual Mary Louise White Symposium, which will be held May 6 and 7 on the Fredonia campus. All of the symposium events are free and open to the public.

This year’s theme, titled “Remapping World Literature,” focuses on the way literature is thought of within the United States, and compares similarities, common concepts and metaphors from other cultures, genres and periods around the world.

Dr. Dimock’s presentation, “High to Low: World Migrations of Genres,” will take place on Wednesday, May 6, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in 105 Fenton Hall. During her talk, she will put her work on deep time, remapping genre, transnational citizenship, and American literary globalism in the context of histories and debates over world literature.

“In her recent work, Dr. Dimock has put American literature in a global context, without assuming the U.S. is at the center of the world,” said Dr. Bruce Simon, an associate professor of English at Fredonia who is organizing the symposium. “Her talk at Fredonia will build upon her earlier studies of literary dialogues across nations and time periods by focusing on the ways in which U.S. science fiction meditates on World War Two and the firebombing of Dresden via the epic tradition of Homer and Dante.”

Then, on Thursday, May 7 from 2 to 4 p.m. in Rosch Recital Hall, Dr. Dimock will participate in a roundtable discussion on the implications of her work for teaching strategies, curriculum, professional development, and strategic planning in English at SUNY Fredonia. She will be joined by several Fredonia English faculty including, Dr. Jan McVicker, Dr. Shannon McRae, Dr. Birger Vanwesenbeeck and Dr. Simon. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Saundra Liggins, a fellow faculty member.

Dr. Dimock has written several books on various topics. She is currently working on a textbook titled, “American Literature and the World.” Her most recent book, “Through Other Continents: American Literature Across Deep Time,” was released in 2006 and received Honorable Mention for both the James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association and the Harry Levin Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1982 and her B.A. from Harvard University in 1976.

“I’m looking forward to getting a sneak preview of Professor Dimock’s latest research on world literature and having a chance to discuss with her and my colleagues its potential implications for the ways we approach course design and teaching here in the Fredonia English department,” Simon added.

This year’s symposium topic was borne of last year’s English Department retreat on global and world literatures. Previous topics have included “Being Human: Taking the Humanities beyond the Classroom,” and “Emerging Literacies.”

For more information, contact Dr. Simon at 716-673-3856 or simon@fredonia.edu