Wiseman to deliver Honors Forum lecture in honor of Ramsey

?Regret, Revision: Remembering to Write? is the title of the Fifth Annual Jon R. Ramsey Honors Forum Lecture, to be given Tuesday, Feb. 24, by Martha Graham Wiseman. Open to the entire Skidmore community, the event gets under way at 5 p.m. in Gannett Auditorium of Palamountain Hall.

Wiseman, a member of the English Department faculty, explains, ?Regret?over our losses, our missteps, over what we haven?t done, what we haven?t written, or what we haven?t written well?may paralyze us, but it may also ultimately spur us to revise both our lives and our sentences. Loss itself seeks a shape. Creating that shape relies upon memory, which in turn works by revision. Memory not only feeds our attempts at writing but conspires with us to revise. The question is how to exploit that conspiracy.

?The works of Marcel Proust, W. G. Sebald, and Anton Chekhov have nurtured my own exploration of memory and memories, my own desire to write and make sense of the lost moments and years. As I question and remember learning to write, as well as learning to teach, I return to these writers. We are always returning and revising.?

A New York City native, Wiseman grew up in North Carolina, returned to New York for many years, and moved to southwestern Vermont in 1994. She has studied acting, danced and choreographed professionally, and worked as an editor. She has published creative nonfiction, poetry, and fiction; her long story ?Double Vision? won the White Eagle Coffee Store Press Long Fiction Award and was published as a chapbook in 2004. She has also published an essay on Marcel Proust, translations from the French, and book reviews.

In 2005 and 2008, she collaborated on and performed in a dance-theater work, for Ann Arbor Dance Works at the University of Michigan. Wiseman has taught at Skidmore since 2003; she has been teaching honors courses since 2006. In addition to writing, she teaches a course on film adaptations of fiction.

A faculty member has been invited to give the annual Honors Forum Lecture since it was launched in 1999. The talk was re-named in honor of Ramsey in 2004 following his retirement. Ramsey served Skidmore for 28 years, having joined the Skidmore English Department in 1977. Appointed as associate dean of studies and director of student academic affairs in 1981, he became dean of studies in 1994 and served in that capacity and as associate professor of English until his retirement in 2004. He was largely responsible for shepherding both the Honors Forum and the Office of International Programs into being.

David Vella, professor of mathematics and director of the Honors Forum, said that selection of the annual speaker is a student-driven process. ?Every year the Honors Forum students nominate several Skidmore faculty members for this honor. The speaker is chosen by the Honors Council from this list of nominations and is encouraged to lecture on their research or scholarship because that is precisely what the students want to hear. The Ramsey lecture is an opportunity for the Honors Forum students to hear a Skidmore faculty member talk about their academic passion. We think that Martha's topic?writing?is a timely one considering the new college writing initiative.?
In addition to the lecture, first-year students who made the Dean?s List for the fall semester will be recognized at the event. Light refreshments will be served at the conclusion.