Lisa Klein, author of the young adult novel Ophelia, discusses her reinterpretation of �Ჹ���������as a tale told from Ophelia’s point of view. Klein will talk about the process of transforming the heroine from Shakespeare’s stage to her page, and now to the screen in the forthcoming major motion picture based on her novel and starring Daisy Ridley, Naomi Watts and Clive Owen. In giving this character a new voice, Klein invites us to consider how we retell great stories to make them meaningful for our time.

The lecture will be held on Friday, April 12 at 5 p.m. in Neville Hall Room 101. This event is free and open to the public.

The post Lisa Klein on her novel “Ophelia: ‘Hamlet’s Girlfriend Gets a Life'” appeared first on Stephen E. King Chair in Literature.

Curious about how television gets made? Do you like to write or act? Have you ever watched television?

Come join Emmy Award-winning television writer and Executive Producer of Will & Grace Adam Barr as he leads a hands-on workshop on the essentials of creating an original episode of TV. In a fun, three-hour session, you’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be in an actual Hollywood TV writers’ room. You’ll learn how to generate stories, create characters, wrestle with dramatic structure, and maybe even pitch jokes. Open to any members of the 91���� community interested in media, performance, writing, and entertainment — or anyone who simply wants to observe and quietly judge. Advanced registration is required for those wishing to sit around the table and participate.

(Quiet observers/judgers need not register, but must maintain respect for the workshop and its participants.)

Contact Stephen E. King Chair, Caroline Bicks, to express your interest in registering: caroline.bicks@maine.edu. Include a few lines explaining your connection to the University and why you want to participate. Space is limited.

This is a free event.

The post “Will and Grace” writer Adam Barr on “Writing to Keep Hollywood Relevant” appeared first on Stephen E. King Chair in Literature.

Adam Barr is a writer and producer of film and television in Los Angeles. He was born and raised in Lewiston, Maine, where he attended Lewiston High School, then went on to study American History & Literature at Harvard University. For nearly 30 years, he has written for a number of shows, including The New Adventures of Old Christine, Desperate Housewives ���Ի������ܲ��ܰ������ٴǰ���.��He worked on the pilot of Will & Grace in 1999, and remained a writer/producer on the show for its entire first run, winning an Emmy Award in 2000. He currently serves as Executive Producer of the series’ revival, while working on various other television pilots and screenplays.

Join us for a social starting at 4 p.m. before the lecture. This lecture is free and open to the public.

The post “Will and Grace” writer Adam Barr on “Writing to Keep Hollywood Relevant” appeared first on Stephen E. King Chair in Literature.

Lisa Klein, author of the young adult novel Ophelia, discusses her reinterpretation of �Ჹ���������as a tale told from Ophelia’s point of view. Klein will talk about the process of transforming the heroine from Shakespeare’s stage to her page, and now to the screen in the forthcoming major motion picture based on her novel and starring Daisy Ridley, Naomi Watts and Clive Owen. In giving this character a new voice, Klein invites us to consider how we retell great stories to make them meaningful for our time.

The lecture will be held on Friday, April 12 at 5 p.m. in Neville Hall Room 101. This event is free and open to the public.

The post Lisa Klein on her novel “Ophelia: ‘Hamlet’s Girlfriend Gets a Life'” appeared first on Stephen E. King Chair in Literature.

Adam Barr is a writer and producer of film and television in Los Angeles. He was born and raised in Lewiston, Maine, where he attended Lewiston High School, then went on to study American History & Literature at Harvard University. For nearly 30 years, he has written for a number of shows, including The New Adventures of Old Christine, Desperate Housewives ���Ի������ܲ��ܰ������ٴǰ���.��He worked on the pilot of Will & Grace in 1999, and remained a writer/producer on the show for its entire first run, winning an Emmy Award in 2000. He currently serves as Executive Producer of the series’ revival, while working on various other television pilots and screenplays.

Join us for a social starting at 4 p.m. before the lecture. This lecture is free and open to the public.

The post Stephen E. King Chair Lecture: “Made for TV: Writing to Keep Hollywood Relevant” appeared first on Stephen E. King Chair in Literature.

This discussion, led by Adam Barr, writer and producer of hit shows including The New Adventures of Old Christine ���Ի���Will & Grace, will address topics such as how ideas age and how television can adapt to address changing attitudes towards social issues. Barr, using clips from the original seasons of Will & Grace (from 1999-2000) and the 2018-19 reboot, will offer his perspective on what it’s like to revisit a show 15 years after it’s gone off the air, specifically the ways in which a show, initially groundbreaking in featuring openly gay main characters, ages and changes with time.

This event will be held in the Orono High School Library. Parking is available in front of the school.

The post Humanities Collaboration Discussion of “Keeping Hollywood Relevant” appeared first on Stephen E. King Chair in Literature.

Curious about how television gets made? Do you like to write or act? Have you ever watched television?

Come join Emmy Award-winning television writer and Executive Producer of Will & Grace Adam Barr as he leads a hands-on workshop on the essentials of creating an original episode of TV. In a fun, three-hour session, you’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be in an actual Hollywood TV writers’ room. You’ll learn how to generate stories, create characters, wrestle with dramatic structure, and maybe even pitch jokes. Open to any members of the 91���� community interested in media, performance, writing, and entertainment — or anyone who simply wants to observe and quietly judge. Advanced registration is required for those wishing to sit around the table and participate.

(Quiet observers/judgers need not register, but must maintain respect for the workshop and its participants.)

Contact Stephen E. King Chair, Caroline Bicks, to express your interest in registering: caroline.bicks@maine.edu. Include a few lines explaining your connection to the University and why you want to participate. Space is limited.

This is a free event.

The post “Will and Grace” writer Adam Barr on “Writing to Keep Hollywood Relevant” appeared first on Stephen E. King Chair in Literature.

Leigh Gilmore is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Wellesley College. She is the author of Tainted Witness: Why We Doubt What Women Say 91���� Their Lives (Columbia UP 2017); The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma and Testimony (Cornell UP 2001); Autobiographics: A Feminist Theory of Women’s Self-Representation(Cornell UP 1994); and co-author with Elizabeth Marshall of Witnessing Girlhood: Life Writing, Trauma, and Childhood (Fordham UP, forthcoming). She writes for NPR’s The Conversation and Cognoscenti and has appeared widely as a guest analyst of the #MeToo movement.

Gilmore gave her talk in Minsky Recital Hall at the University of Maine on Oct. 30, 2018. Video recording of this event will be available soon.

The post Leigh Gilmore, feminist critic and writer, on “Testimony, Confession, and the #MeToo Movement” appeared first on Stephen E. King Chair in Literature.

Archive from November 12, 2017

Theater professionals Pier Carlo Talenti and Toby Bercovici conducted a post-show discussion after the matinee of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Hauck Auditorium. This post-show discussion was sponsored by the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature.

The post From Page to Stage: “Midsummer Night’s Dream” Post-Show Discussion appeared first on Stephen E. King Chair in Literature.

Archive from March 7, 2018.

Presented by James M. Smith, an Associate Professor in the English Department and Irish Studies Program at Boston College. His book Irish Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment, was praised by Colm Tóibín as essential reading “for anyone interested in the fear and cruelty surrounding women’s sexuality in the Ireland of the recent past.” The Magdalen laundries were workhouses in which many Irish women and girls were effectively imprisoned because they were perceived to be a threat to the moral fiber of society. In 1993, a public scandal was triggered when the remains of 155 inmates, buried in unmarked graves on the property, were exhumed, cremated, and buried elsewhere in a mass grave. Smith’s work with archival materials and survivors is, in Colum McCann’s words, a “brilliant, art driven examination of a story or history, that needs to be told over and over and over again, lest it be forgotten to sleep into the ambient noise.”

Smith serves on the Advisory Committee of Justice For Magdalenes Research (JFMR), the advocacy group that brought these institutions to the attention of the UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) in Geneva.

James Smith’s lecture (3/7) “Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, Academic Advocacy and Restorative Justice” is now online for public viewing. You may access the video .

The post Professor James Smith on “Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, Academic Advocacy, and Restorative Justice” appeared first on Stephen E. King Chair in Literature.