#97-01-013
For Release: 1-23-97
Contact: Peter Bailley

Robert Smith, assistant professor of English at Knox College will give a lecture, "The Textual Unconscious in Wide Sargasso Sea," at 4 p.m., Friday, Feb. 7 in the Common Room, Old Main, Knox College. Smith will discuss the relationship between Jean Rhys's 20th-century novel Wide Sargasso Sea and Charlotte Bronte's 19-century novel Jane Eyre.

Smith is the author of a recently published book, The Seductions of Emily Dickinson, released in 1996. Smith has also contributed several articles to The Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia, such as "Dickinson and New Criticism," "Dickinson and William Dean Howells," and "Dickinson and Kate Anthon." His article "Seductions and Dickinson's Male Reader" was published in Emily Dickinson and Audience.

Smith received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from the University of Massachusetts. Before coming to Knox in 1996 he taught at George Washington University.

The lecture is sponsored by the Knox College Caxton Club.

Founded in 1837, Knox is an independent, four-year, liberal arts college, located in Galesburg, Illinois, with 1,100 students from 42 states and 33 nations. Knox's "Old Main," a National Historic Landmark, is the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.