[341] Renowned Poet/Author/Educator Balakian Plans March 18 MTSU Lecture

RENOWNED POET/AUTHOR/EDUCATOR BALAKIAN PLANS MARCH 18 MTSU LECTURE
Topic of Free Event is ‘The Armenian Genocide and Modernity’

FOR RELEASE: March 7, 2011
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Dr. Mark Doyle, mdoyle@mtsu.edu

(MURFREESBORO)—Award-winning poet and author Dr. Peter Balakian will bring his expertise on the Armenian genocide to MTSU on Friday, March 18, as part of the university’s ongoing Distinguished Lecture Series.
Balakian’s free public lecture, “The Armenian Genocide and Modernity,” is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. March 18 in the State Farm Lecture Hall, Room S102, of the MTSU Business and Aerospace Building.
Balakian is the Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English at Colgate University, where he also runs the Creative Writing Program and was the first director of the university’s Center For Ethics and World Societies.
He is a well-known advocate for greater recognition of one of the 20th century's worst episodes of mass violence, in which some 1.5 million Armenians, including members of his own family, were killed by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
The professor has appeared on “60 Minutes,” “Fresh Air,” “The Charlie Rose Show” and numerous other national programs discussing the killings and the struggle to obtain Turkish recognition of the genocide.
In addition to his Pen/Albrand Prize-winning memoir, Black Dog of Fate, and the first English translation of Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir Of The Armenian Genocide, 1915-1918 by his great-uncle, Grigoris Balakian, Balakian is also the author of six books of poems, most recently Ziggurat, published in September 2010 by the University of Chicago Press. His essays on poetry, culture, art, and social thought have appeared in many respected publications, and he is co-founder and co-editor with the poet Bruce Smith of the poetry magazine Graham House Review, which was published from 1976 to 1996, and is the co-translator with Nevart Yaghlian of the book of poems Bloody News From My Friend by the Armenian poet Siamanto.
The lecture is sponsored by the MTSU History Department, Department of English, the Holocaust Studies Committee and the MTSU Distinguished Lecture Fund.
Visitors planning to attend Balakian’s free lecture should park in the large MTSU parking lot east of Rutherford Boulevard and ride the Raider Xpress shuttle to the Business and Aerospace Building to avoid traffic congestion caused by construction in the area.
For more information on the Balakian lecture, contact MTSU history professor Dr. Mark Doyle at mdoyle@mtsu.edu or the College of Liberal Arts at 615-494-7628.

Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree—the only one in Tennessee—as a model program. MTSU recently unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.

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IN BRIEF: Award-winning poet and author Dr. Peter Balakian will bring his expertise on the Armenian genocide to MTSU on Friday, March 18, as part of the university’s ongoing Distinguished Lecture Series. Balakian’s free public lecture, “The Armenian Genocide and Modernity,” is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. March 18 in the State Farm Lecture Hall, Room S102, of the MTSU Business and Aerospace Building. Balakian, the Rebar Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English at Colgate University, is a well-known advocate for greater recognition of one of the 20th century's worst episodes of mass violence, in which some 1.5 million Armenians, including members of his own family, were killed by the Ottoman Empire during World War I. For more information, please contact the MTSU College of Liberal Arts at 615-494-7628.

For MTSU news and information anytime, visit www.mtsunews.com.




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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For a color JPEG of Dr. Balakian, please contact Gina E. Fann in the Office of News and Media Relations via e-mail at gfann@mtsu.edu or by calling 615-898-5385. Thanks!