Author, environmentalist and multimedia artist Janet Kauffman, Ph.D., will read from her work at 8 p.m. Feb. 7 for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences.
The talk — part of The Writing Program’s spring Reading Series — is free and open to the public and takes place in Hurst Lounge, Room 201, Duncker Hall.
Kauffman, who lives on a farm in Hudson, Mich., is the author of the forthcoming book “Trespassing: Dirt Stories & Field Notes,” which combines stories and nonfiction pieces to illustrate the impact of modern factory farms — confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs — on her rural community.
She also is the author of three novels that make up her “Flesh Made Word” trilogy: “Collaborators” (1987), “The Body in Four Parts” (1993) and “Rot” (2001).
Other books include “Five on Fiction” (2004), a collection of prose poems, as well as three books of short stories: “Characters on the Loose” (1997), “Obscene Gestures for Women” (1988) and “Places in the World a Woman Could Walk” (1983).
Born in Lancaster, Pa., and raised on a tobacco farm, Kauffman teaches at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Mich., where her courses often focus on mixed media projects and imaginative writing, particularly visual/hybrid texts.
Her own mixed media work includes a series of recycled plastic “hand/books”: “Telescopic Heavens” (1998), “This is the House That Jack Built” (1999) and “Armed Bug-Women and Other Planetary Forces Confront the Lenawee County Road Commission” (2000).
Kauffman’s numerous honors include a 1997 Michigan Arts Award; Creative Artist Grants from the Michigan Council for the Arts, in 1984 and 1987; a 1985 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; and a 1983 Rosenthal Award from the American Academy-Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1987, “Collaborators” was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.
For more information, call 935-7130 or email dschuman@wustl.edu.