J. Hillis Miller, a distinguished literary critic and theorist, will give the 2007 Gunn Memorial Lecture at Kansas University.

The lecture “A Defense of Literary Study in a Time of Globalization” will be at 7:30 p.m. March 29 in Alderson Auditorium at the Kansas Union.

Miller is a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California-Irvine and the author of books on 19th and 20th century English, European and American literature and literary theory. Some of his books include “The Disappearance of God: Five Nineteenth-Century Writers,” “Speech Acts in Literature,” “Others,” “On Literature” and “The J. Hillis Miller Reader.”

The event, sponsored by KU’s Department of English, is free and open to the public.