UCSD's New Writing Series is excited to announce an upcoming reading from Peter Middleton. The reading will take place Wednesday, January 21st at 4:30 pm in the Visual Arts Performance Space (SME 149).

It is FREE and open to the public.

Peter Middleton is the author of the forthcoming Physics Envy (Chicago), a book about American poetry and science in the Cold War due to appear later in 2015. He is also the author of books on poetry and performance, a co-authored book on memory, and a study of masculinity, as well as many essays on modern poetry, and on literature and science, including climate change. He is currently the Secretary of the British Society for Literature and Science. Educated in both the United Kingdom and the United States, he is a Professor of English at the University of Southampton, UK.

"What role does poetry play in public life? This question has led my research for many years. I have studied poetry performance, the gender politics of poetry, poetry as cultural memory, the role of little magazines, changing readerships, and most recently the interplay between poetry and science. Given the rigor required by scientific research, what possible use is a form of writing not grounded in exact knowledge other than as a cheerleader or critic on the sidelines? Recently I have been working with clinical researchers who are challenging the dogma that DNA is our medical fate. They are finding signs that the actions of the genes can be altered by environmental factors, alterations that may even last for generations. We appear to be on the verge of a new era of genetic medicine or epigenetics. Can poetry play any part in this? My talk explores the contribution that poetry can make to the wider public assessment of the linguistic, metaphorical, cultural, and ethical implications of such developments."

For more information and directions, visit:

http://literature.ucsd.edu/news-events/new-writing-series/nws-winter2015.html

or e-mail Kim Schreiber: kaschrei\@ucsd.edu

https://www.facebook.com/events/1521167584811845/?ref=4