Humanities Decanted: Josephine Metcalf

Join us for a dialogue between Josephine Metcalf (University of Hull) and Ben Olguín (English) about their new co-edited volume, The Life, Literature and Legacy of Luis J. Rodríguez: In the Long Run. Luis Rodríguez is a prominent Latinx poet, memoirist and activist renowned for his candid visceral accounts of urban working-class life that includes youth gang violence, incarceration and drug abuse, gruelling factory work and union organising activities and collective approaches to redemption and political empowerment, which have resonated across multiple communities in the United States and abroad. Accordingly, whilst Rodríguez has been the focus of some critical scholarship, huge segments of his life, work and legacy remain unexamined. This anthology has commissioned new and unique critical essays and reflections on Rodríguez’s life and works, putting forward new ideas about bringing the voices of ‘barrio organic intellectuals’ to the fore. The anthology deliberately includes traditional academics as well as more public intellectuals and creative writers from across Europe and the Americas to reflect Rodriguez’s own diverse outputs as a prisoner author and activist.

Josephine Metcalf is a Senior Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Hull, UK. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Cultures of Incarceration Centre and Programme Director for the MA in Incarceration Studies.

Ben Valdez Olguín is the Robert and Liisa Erickson Presidential Chair in English and Director of The Global Latinidades Center at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Refreshments will be served.

Cosponsored by the IHC’s Harry Girvetz Memorial Endowment