Author and award-winning podcaster Susan Burton will be the keynote speaker for the Allen J. Koppenhaver Literary Lecture as part of the 2024-2025 Wittenberg Series, now in its 40th season. The event begins at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28, in Weaver Chapel, and is free and open to the public. Burton’s address is titled “The Stories We Tell About Pain.”
Burton is the host, writer, reporter, and co-producer of the Peabody Award-winning podcast series The Retrievals, which recounts the pain experienced by dozens of women undergoing fertility treatment at the Yale Fertility Center. Named the #1 podcast of 2023 by Vulture and Time, the series was selected for numerous “best podcasts of the year” lists, including those from The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, The Financial Times, Fresh Air, and Vogue, and earned an award from the Association of Health Care Journalists.
Burton is also the author of the memoir Empty (Random House 2020), which tells the story of the eating disorders she kept secret for most of her life. The book was selected for Booklist’s Top 10 Memoirs of 2020, Newsweek’s 20 Must-Read Books of the Summer, and Marie Claire’s Best Memoirs 2020 list. An editor at This American Life, she has produced many episodes including “Secrets,” “Ten Sessions,” “Five Women,” “The Thing I’m Getting Over,” and “Tell Me I’m Fat.” Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Slate, The New Yorker, and others, and she is a former editor of Harper’s.
The recipient of a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to do stories about teenagers, Burton has earned numerous awards for her radio documentaries, including an Overseas Press Club citation. The 2006 Christmas comedy Unaccompanied Minors is based on one of her personal essays. A 1995 Yale graduate, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their two sons (one of whom she wrote about in Labor Day: True Birth Stories by America’s Best Women Writers).
Burton will meet with students in Literary Form & Interpretation, taught by Associate Professor of English Scot Hinson, and Podcasting: Digital Storytelling, taught by Professor of Communication & Digital Media Cathy Waggoner, and will participate in a Lunch & Learn for invited students, faculty, and staff to be held in Room 105 of the Joseph C. Shouvlin Center for Lifelong Learning. A book signing will follow the evening lecture, with copies of Empty available for purchase.
The Allen J. Koppenhaver Literary Lecture is presented with appreciation for the life and inspiration of Dr. Koppenhaver through the generous support of private donors. A distinguished professor, musician, author, and critic, Allen J. Koppenhaver joined the Wittenberg family in 1961 as a member of the English department faculty. For more than three decades, Koppenhaver displayed consummate skill in the classroom, encouraging students to think outside the box as they discovered what is possible within the pages of a book. Recipient of Wittenberg’s top faculty prize, the Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Teaching, and a Fulbright Scholar, Koppenhaver earned an international reputation as a librettist following numerous collaborations with composer Robert “Jim” Haskins, Wittenberg class of 1961. Together the two partnered on such critically acclaimed musical and dramatic projects as The Masque of the Red Death, A Piano Comes to Arkansas, and The Night Luther Died.
The Wittenberg Series was created in 1982 during President William A. Kinnison’s tenure. Since its inception, Nobel Laureates, scientists, significant literary figures, most of America’s foremost modern dance companies, as well as hundreds of prominent psychologists, educators, economists, writers, theologians, urban planners, and historians have visited campus to participate.
Doors open 30 minutes prior to the beginning of each lecture or performance.
Upcoming 2024-2025 Wittenberg Series Events:
- Friday, Dec. 6: Candlelight Chapel Service, Lessons and Carols for Advent & Christmas, Weaver Chapel, 7:30 p.m. with pre-service music beginning at 7 p.m.
- Monday, Jan. 20, 2025: Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation, 10:30 a.m. in Weaver Chapel, featuring Nic Stone, bestselling author of Dear Martin and racial and social justice advocate.
- Thursday, April 24, 2025: Fred R. Leventhal Family Lecture, 7 p.m., Weaver Chapel, details forthcoming.
For more information on the Wittenberg Series, click here. To make special arrangements or become a friend of the Wittenberg Series, contact the Office of University Communications at ucomm@wittenberg.edu.
