RELEASED: November 5, 2009

By Abby Malik

DANVILLE, KY—On Thursday, Nov. 12, Humana lecturer David Quammen will discuss his book The Reluctant Mr. Darwin at a convocation at 7 p.m. in Newlin Hall.

The book is this year's first-year student required reading. Quammen will discuss his work, which considers how a shy, flawed and brilliant man struggled with the implications of research and conclusion that cause controversy to this day.

Wallace Stegner Distinguished Professor of Western American Studies at Montana State University, a Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Yale, Quammen has written several works of fiction and non-fiction, including articles in National Geographic, Harper's and Rolling Stone.

Quammen is not a Darwin scholar and was educated by Jesuit priests and Southern novelists, according to his faculty web page. He calls himself a non-fiction writer, eschewing the labels of "nature writer" or "environmental essayist."

He lives in Montana with his wife, Betsy Gaines, a conservationist.

On Tuesday, Nov. 10, visiting Irish poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin spoke in Vahlkamp Theater on campus.

Ní Chuilleanáin was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1942, the daughter of a novelist and a college professor.

Ní Chuilleanáin grew up on the campus of University College Cork, where her mother was a professor of Irish. She graduated from that institution in 1962 with a B.A. in English and history, followed by a master's in English in 1964. She later studied at Oxford.

She is an associate professor of English, dean of the faculty of arts (letters), and a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin.

She edits the literary journal, Cyphers, with two other poet-editors, including her husband, MacDara Woods.  She and her husband have a son, Niall.

Ní Chuilleanáin is often cited not only as a major poet in the generation after poets Kinsella, Montague and Murphy, but also as the foremost female poet now writing in Ireland and Great Britain.

In 1992, Ní Chuilleanáin was awarded the prestigious O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award by The Irish American Cultural Institute, which called her "among the very best poets of her generation."

Have comments, suggestions, or story ideas? E-mail leigh.ivey@centre.edu with your feedback.

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