This year, our Haines Lecturer will be Black Studies, Feminist, and English literary critic Hortense Spillers. She will deliver the 31st Haines Lecture, entitled, "Tales Told Out of School: Race, History, and Public Relations," on Tuesday, April 1, 2025 at 4:30 p.m. in Convocation Hall. 

 

This year's Lecturer

Hortense Spillers is one of the giants of literary criticism, Black Feminism, and Black Studies. Currently the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor (Emerita), and Distinguished Research Professor at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Spillers's most famous essay, "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book" (1987) permanently changed Black Studies, and continues to be a touchstone in multiple fields. It is part of a collection of similarly powerful and influential essays, Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture (2003). Her work continues to speak to wide audiences, inside and outside the academy. 

History of the Haines Lecture

Behind the quiet mien of Stacy Haines lived a great enthusiasm for language, ideas, and the of the mind - an enthusiasm he joyfully shared with his wife Peggy.

Having discovered Sewanee through their son, who was graduated in 1966 with a major in English, Stacy and Peggy moved here when he retired from a career with Sears, Roebuck & Company in Chicago. From the time of their arrival in this community, their home became a place of hospitality for aspiring and accomplished readers and writers. This series of lectures and readings, funded permanently by gifts in Stacy's memory from his family and friends, and administered by the College Department of English, stands as a natural and proper extension of the man and his interests.

Stacy Allen Haines
1919 - 1983

Past Haines Lecturers, Poets, and Writers
  • 2023 - Scott Newstok
  • 2022 - Natasha Trethewey
  • 2021 - Alice McDermott
  • 2018 - Wendy Wall
  • 2017 - Marilyn Nelson
  • 2016 - Danielle Evans
  • 2015 - John Lahr
  • 2014 - Charles Martin
  • 2013 - Jay Parini
  • 2010 - J. Paul Hunter
  • 2009 - Anthony Esolen
  • 2008 - Ann Patchett
  • 2007 - Marjorie Garber
  • 2006 - Geoffrey Wolff
  • 2006 - Andrew Delbanco
  • 2005 - Lawrence Lipking
  • 2004 - James Wood
  • 2002 - Barry Hannah
  • 2001 - Andrew Hudgins
  • 2000 - Paul Muldoon
  • 1999 - Robert Pinsky
  • 1998 - Denis Donoghue
  • 1997 - Madison Jones
  • 1996 - Sir Frank Kermode
  • 1993 - X. J. Kennedy
  • 1990 - Tim O'Brien
  • 1989 - Robert Pack
  • 1988 - Arthur Kinney
  • 1988 - Alan Cheuse
  • 1986 - Anthony Evan Hecht