Shakespeare the focus of humanities lecture

“Shakespeare in the Closet,” the final installment in the Hall Center for the Humanities’ 2002-03 Humanities Lecture Series, will explore literal and metaphorical closets in houses and theaters, as well as imagination and sexual desire in Shakespeare’s time.

The lecture will be delivered by Kansas University English professor David Bergeron at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Spencer Museum of Art. The event is free and open to the public.

Bergeron is an internationally recognized authority on Shakespeare. For more than 30 years, he has served on the editorial board of Shakespeare Quarterly. In his talk, he will focus on Hamlet and how characters find or construct private space in their world.

The 2002-03 lecture series also included authors Paule Marshall and Jared Diamond and reporter Robert Kaplan.

Environmental author to begin Haskell residency

Naturalist, environmental activist and acclaimed author Terry Tempest Williams will be speaking Monday at Prairie Park Nature Center.

The event, scheduled from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Prairie Park Nature Center, 2730 Harper Ave., is free and open to the public.

Williams’ talk is part of a five-day residency at Haskell Indian Nations University sponsored by the National Book Foundation. Her visit is part of American Voices, a community outreach project designed to promote reading and writing as a means of preserving American Indian culture.

The Raven Bookstore will be selling copies of her books at the event, including her latest, “Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert.” Williams also is the author of “Refuge,” “Leap,” “Coyote’s Canyon,” “Pieces of White Shell” and “An Unspoken Hunger.”

East Coast poet to sign books at Raven

In connection with Williams’ visit, poet and National Book Foundation assistant director Meg Kearney will read from and sign copies of her book, “An Unkindness of Ravens,” from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at The Raven Bookstore, 6 E. Seventh St.

Kearney published the book in 2001.

Her work also appears in Agni, Ploughshares, Gettysburg Review and other journals. She is the former poetry editor of Echoes and past president of the Hudson Valley Writers Assn.