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Barbara Benedict from Trinity College delivers annual Conarroe Lecture Oct. 11
Barbara Benedict, Charles A. Dana Professor of English Literature at Trinity College, will present a talk entitled “The Mad Scientist: Birth of a Stereotype” 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 11 in room 224 of Oechsle Hall.
The talk is sponsored by the English department’s Lewis Haupt Conarroe Endowment and the Friends of Skillman Library. A reception will follow the lecture.
Benedict will explore the origin and development of the stereotype of the mad scientist and will also analyze where, how, and why he acquired his peculiar traits.
Benedict’s research focuses on Jane Austen and 18th century English literature. She has published numerous books and articles in scholarly journals. Her works include Curiosity: A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry (2002), Making the Modern Reader: Cultural Mediation in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literary Anthologies (1996), and Framing Feeling: Sentiment and Style in English Prose Fiction, 1745-1800 (1994). She received her Ph.D. and M.A. from University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. from Harvard University.
The Conarroe Lecture series is funded by a bequest to the English department from Lewis Haupt Conarroe ’29, an advertising writer and novelist. Each year, a distinguished scholar and teacher delivers an evening lecture to a general audience and then leads a seminar the following day for English department faculty.