EVENT: Lecture by Jennifer Stoever, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Rochester's Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies, on African-American fiction

Jennifer Stoever, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Rochester's Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies, will discuss a 1943 short story by African-American writer Ann Petry at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 30. The Work in Progress Seminar, sponsored by the Frederick Douglass Institute, will be held in room 314 of Morey Hall on the University's River Campus. It is free and open to the public.

Stoever's seminar, titled "Colorblind but not Colordeaf: Sonic Colorlines in the Work of Ann Petry," will examine how Petty uses the sense of hearing in "On Sunday the Siren Sounds at Noon," which was published in the December 1943 edition of The Crisis. "Although only two pages, 'On Saturday the Siren Sounds at Noon' is an extraordinarily rich text that exhibits many of the key concepts of aurality in African-American fiction," says Stoever.

She is a doctoral candidate in the Program in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Stoever earned her bachelor's degree in English from the University of California at Riverside. Her primary research areas include 20th-century American literature and popular culture, African-American and multiethnic literatures, cultural studies, and popular music.

For more information, contact the Fredrick Douglass Institute at (585) 275-7235.