{"id":73957,"date":"2026-01-20T08:11:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T13:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.utc.edu\/news\/?p=73957"},"modified":"2026-01-20T08:11:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T13:11:06","slug":"pulitzer-prize-winning-poet-and-former-u-s-poet-laureate-natasha-trethewey-to-speak-at-utc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.utc.edu\/news\/2026\/01\/pulitzer-prize-winning-poet-and-former-u-s-poet-laureate-natasha-trethewey-to-speak-at-utc\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey to speak at UTC"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Natasha Trethewey (photo courtesy of Blue Flower Arts)<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the most influential literary voices of the past quarter century is coming to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga not simply to read her work, but to address why the humanities continue to matter in American public life.<\/p>\n

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and two-term U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will deliver a free, public lecture titled \u201cThe Role of the Humanities in Our Personal and Civic Lives\u201d at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 5, in the University Center Tennessee Room. The event is presented as part of the O\u2019Dea Lecture in the Humanities series.<\/p>\n

The University Center is located at 710 Mocs Alumni Dr. (710 E. 5th St. in some GPS systems). Parking is available in the adjacent Lupton Hall Parking Garage (700 Vine St.) and is free beginning at 5 p.m. Other nearby parking garages will be reserved that evening for a basketball game at McKenzie Arena.<\/p>\n

The event will include a lecture by Trethewey, readings from her work, a question-and-answer session and a book signing. Books will be available for purchase at the lecture through Barnes & Noble.<\/p>\n

The lecture is sponsored by The Lyndhurst Foundation, the UTC Honors College O\u2019Dea Lecture Series, the UTC Division of Access and Engagement, The Keese Lecture Series and the UTC Department of English.<\/p>\n

Trethewey\u2019s visit is designed to reach far beyond campus, said UTC Honors College Dean Linda Frost. \u201cWe are bringing a nationally significant voice to Chattanooga, one whose work resonates with students, educators and community members alike.<\/p>\n

\u201cNatasha Trethewey is a very important writer who\u2014as a two-term poet laureate\u2014has had the highest position that a writer can have in the United States. She can talk very eloquently and powerfully about the role of literature, the arts and the humanities in social and civic life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trethewey, a Board of Trustees Professor of English in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University, served two terms as the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States from 2012 to 2014. She is the author of five collections of poetry: \u201cMonument\u201d (2018), which was longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award; \u201cThrall\u201d (2012); \u201cNative Guard\u201d (2006), for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; \u201cBellocq\u2019s Ophelia\u201d (2002); and \u201cDomestic Work\u201d (2000), which was selected by Rita Dove as the winner of the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African American poet. \u201cDomestic Work\u201d won both the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry.<\/p>\n

In addition to her poetry, Trethewey is the author of two memoirs, \u201cThe House of Being\u201d (2024) and \u201cMemorial Drive\u201d (2020), and a book of nonfiction, \u201cBeyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast\u201d (2010).<\/p>\n

Trethewey is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Beinecke Library at Yale, and the Bunting Fellowship Program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. In 2012, she was named Poet Laureate of the State of Mississippi, and in 2013, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n

She will remain on campus the following day to spend time with Honors College students, including first-year Brock Scholars who study her work as part of their Honors curriculum.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents who have been reading her work in class will have the opportunity to meet her and talk with her in a more informal setting,\u201d Frost said. \u201cThat matters. It brings the work off the page and into conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The O\u2019Dea Lecture in the Humanities series is named for retired UC Foundation Professor of English Gregory O\u2019Dea, who spent more than 25 years shaping honors education at UTC. O\u2019Dea joined the faculty in 1990, was selected as assistant director of the honors program in the mid-1990s, and was later promoted to director. After the program evolved into the Honors College in 2013, he served as assistant dean before returning to full-time teaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons for the founding of the O\u2019Dea Lecture in the Humanities series was to reaffirm the importance of humanities-based thinking at a time when its value is often questioned,\u201d Frost said. \u201cNatasha Trethewey will speak powerfully to that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and two-term U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will deliver a free, public lecture titled \u201cThe Role of the Humanities in Our Personal and Civic Lives\u201d at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 5, in the University Center Tennessee Room. The event is presented as part of the O\u2019Dea Lecture in the Humanities series.<\/p>\n

Continue Reading <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1493,"featured_media":73959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_slider":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_featurette":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,12746,15,61,3,205,98,7712,12745,64,661],"tags":[123826,48030,123828,48244,126553,122433,126557,126554,126556,126555],"class_list":{"0":"post-73957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-academics","8":"category-brock-scholars-honors-college","9":"category-campus","10":"category-college-of-arts-sciences","11":"category-community","12":"category-engagement","13":"category-english","14":"category-faculty-and-staff","15":"category-honors-college-2","16":"category-news","17":"category-students","18":"tag-cultivating-a-culture-of-innovation","19":"tag-gregory-odea","20":"tag-leveraging-our-special-place-as-chattanoogas-university","21":"tag-linda-frost","22":"tag-natasha-trethewey","23":"tag-odea-lecture-in-the-humanities","24":"tag-the-keese-lecture-series","25":"tag-the-lyndhurst-foundation","26":"tag-the-utc-division-of-access-and-engagement","27":"tag-the-utc-honors-college-odea-lecture-series","28":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nPulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey to speak at UTC | UTC News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and two-term U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will deliver a free, public lecture titled \u201cThe Role of the Humanities in Our Personal and Civic Lives\u201d at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 5, in the University Center Tennessee Room. 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