Each year the English Department at Trent University and the Peterborough Public Library sponsor a series of lectures in memory of the late Barbara Rooke, Chair of the Department from 1969 to 1973. This year we are also honouring the memory of Michael Treadwell, Chair of the Department from 1976 to 1985, whose untimely death last April was a heavy blow to friends and colleagues at Trent and beyond.

The topic of this year's Rooke Lectures is Literary Puzzles & Mysteries. The world of literature and literary scholarship is much more puzzling and mysterious than people generally realize. Many scholars, not least Barbara Rooke and Michael Treadwell, have pursued a lifelong adventure of tracking down and unravelling the puzzles and mysteries to be found in archives, in works of literature, and in writers' lives.

Some of the puzzles and mysteries which we will explore this year are: Who was William Shakespeare? Why are writers and readers fascinated by criminals and other marginal characters? What does James Joyce's Ulysses mean? What aspects of our own literary history still remain to be discovered in archives and other sources? How can we study the "invisible text" of dance? From what unsuspected sources do writers often draw their inspiration? Why is the world of literary scholarship bedevilled with forgeries and other mystifications?

Members of the Trent English Department will be joined in their explorations by a roster of distinguished guests from the worlds of scholarship, literature and the performing arts: Frank Augustyn, Dennis Duffy, Howard Engel, Mark Finnan, Veronica Hollinger, Richard Landon, Jane Millgate, Sharon Ragaz, James Reaney, Michael Sidnell and Eric Wright.

Members of the audience will also be included in this year's adventure. They will be presented with a Mysterious Literary Puzzle of their own to solve. The winner, to be announced at the last lecture of the series, will receive a generous prize, donated by the Trent University Bookstore.

All sessions take place at 7:30 PM on Thursdays at the Peterborough Public Library. Everyone is welcome. For more information, call the English Department Office at 748-1733 or check this site.

Schedule