Pulitzer Winner to Speak at UTEP’s Literature Lecture

Last Updated on April 03, 2018 at 9:20 AM

Originally published April 03, 2018

By UC Staff

UTEP Communications

Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Matteson, Ph.D., distinguished professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, will be the keynote speaker at UTEP’s 33rd annual Literature Lecture at 7 p.m. April 5, 2018, in Room 106 of the Undergraduate Learning Center.

The prominent literary figure won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for biography for his 2007 book, “Eden’s Outcasts,” about Louisa May Alcott, author of “Little Women,” and her father. 

His lecture, “But I Cannot Leave Them: Whitman, Alcott and Illness and Recovery in the Civil War,” is about the role Alcott and Walt Whitman, considered by many to be America’s greatest poet, played as Civil War nurses, and how that experience shaped their literary work.

Brian Yothers, Ph.D., professor of English and the event’s lead organizer, said the lecture should draw a diverse audience because it resonates with various disciplines such as English, history, nursing, health care and military science.

Yothers said Matteson wanted to come to UTEP because its mission as a Hispanic-Serving Institution mirrors that of his own institution, which is part of the City University of New York.

“We are thrilled to be able to host Dr. Matteson, and he is quite excited to be coming,” Yothers said. “This is a perfect opportunity for UTEP and our community.”

The event is sponsored by UTEP’s colleges of Liberal Arts and Health Sciences, departments of English and History, the Liberal Arts Honors Program, and the Frances Spatz Leighton Endowed Distinguished Professorship.