From a poet to a former U.S. attorney general, University Forum will bring a diverse array of speakers to the University of Southern Mississippi this spring. Starting Feb. 4, the Honors College lecture series is designed to provoke intellectual thought and discussion in the Hattiesburg area. All presentations are at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays in Bennett Auditorium. The lectures help fulfill the Honors College mission of providing the academic experiences of a smaller liberal arts college within a comprehensive university.
All presentations are free and open to the public.
He is widely recognized for his commentaries on the role of poetry in contemporary society. In the 1980s, after graduating from Harvard with an MBA, Gioia worked as a corporate vice president at Kraft General Foods. Simultaneously, he was a serious and increasingly influential poet and critic of contemporary poetry. In 1992, Gioia started working full time as a writer. Essays on Poetry and American Culture was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award in Criticism.