Orhan Pamuk is visiting Penn tomorrow—and I’m proud that Kelly Writers House & the Middle East Center have joined together to make these events possible. Pamuk’s 6 PM reading at KWH is full (no seats left), but we will be streaming the event live. That’s tomorrow—Thursday, October 12—starting at exactly...
Video recording of Herman Beavers‘s recent reading from his new book of poems—at Kelly Writers House: http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/multimedia/tv/reruns/watch/215160 I was honored to give the introduction, which included a page or so of a review I’m writing of the book. Save Save
During her visit to Kelly Writer House as a KWH Fellow, Lydia Davis spent an hour with me in conversation. In the course of the house I asked her to read several of her pieces and we were then able to discuss these in detail. Thanks for Domenic Casciato of...
How does a book make it from the author’s hand to your bookshelf? And what role does an agent play in this? Beth Kephart leads a panel of writers and agents at the Kelly Writers House to dig into the business of publishing and marketing a book. For full information...
After the construction of Perry World House we were able to build a new fence and then—just recently—enjoyed the planting of new flowers, bushes and trees for our Class of 1942 Garden. Today was a gorgeous Philly spring day so I took a few photos of the garden nearly in...
Last night at the end-of-academic-year “hub party” at the Kelly Writers House I had the pleasure of announcing the winner of the Beltran Family Award for Innovative Teaching & Mentoring—for 2017-18. She is Jamie-Lee Josselyn! Jamie-Lee is an utterly remarkable teacher. On the 0-4 scale used for student evaluations, Jamie-Lee’s courses...
When I teach my course on representations of the holocaust, I don’t lecture (for what it’s worth, it’s an ethical stance for me—but that’s for another comment sometime) and I rarely if ever record our sessions. As can be imagined—since, as I say, these are discussions, not lectures—the sessions are intense...
People associated with ModPo in the last few years will know Camara Brown as a TA and participant in a number of ModPo videos. We at KWH & ModPo are proud of her for being featured in this article: Proud and excited for my student, advisee, KWH staff colleague Camara...
Two voices I hear via podcast series—Stephen Metcalf, who hosts the Slate “Culture Gabfest,” and Wesley Morris of the New York Times who since September ’16 has hosted “Still Processing“—came along with their whole selves, to the Writers House, the other day. I moderated a conversation with them. And HERE is...
I moderated a conversation with new Penn faculty members Sharon Hayes and Brooke O’Harra to discuss teaching, collaboration, and multidisciplinary art. Hayes — a painter, sculptor, and conceptual artist — and O’Harra — an experimental theater and performance artist — have brought together their varying media for several outside-the-box projects....
Al Filreis is Kelly Professor, Faculty Director of the Kelly Writers House, Director of the Center
for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Co-Director of PennSound, and Publisher of Jacket2—all at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his books are Secretaries of the Moon,
Wallace Stevens & the Actual World, Modernism from Left to Right, and Counter-Revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-60. His new book is 1960: When Art & Literature Confronted the Memory of World War II & Remade the Modern (Columbia University Press, 2021). He is currently writing a book about online pedagogy. He has taught a massive open online course, "ModPo," to 265,000 participants in 192 countries since 2012.
Founder/Faculty Director, Kelly Writers House—intro video ][ events calendar
Convener/teacher, “ModPo.” an open online course on modern & contemporary U.S. poetry—overview of the course ][ intro video
Publisher of Jacket2 magazine—my Jacket2 commentary series ][ "First Readings"
Producer/host, PoemTalk podcast series—co-sponsored by Kelly Writers House & the Poetry Foundation
Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing—Creative Writing ][ RealArts internships ]
Co-founder & co-director of PennSound—50,000 files ][ 15 million downloads annually
Teacher & host, "Kelly Writers House Fellows"—since 1999 ][ Susan Sontag, John Ashbery, Jamaica Kincaid, Laurie Anderson, Adrienne Rich, Joan Didion, John Edgar Wideman & more
Teacher, "Representations of the Holocaust"—a course on survivor testimony ][ my holocaust site
Click on the image for information about the book.