Belfast Writer Ciaran Carson to Read at Atlantic Archipelagos Research Project

The Irish writer "is one of the most gifted writers of his generation."

By Dave Marr The welcome reception to the 2013 Atlantic Archipelagos Research Project at the University of Georgia will feature a reading by poet and novelist Ciaran Carson of Belfast, Ireland. The April 10 reception in the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries will begin at 7 p.m. The reading will take place in the building’s auditorium. The conference is organized by the Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and supported by a State-of-the-Art Conference grant from the Office of the Provost. Carson is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including “First Language: Poems” (1994), which was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry; “For All We Know” (2008); “On the Night Watch” (2010); and “Until…

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Public conversation with R.E.M. adviser Bertis Downs to be held in Athens, Ga.

The free talk on Feb. 18 at 4pm will be held in the UGA Chapel.

By Dave Marr Bertis Downs, an Athens entertainment lawyer and longtime adviser to Athens-based band R.E.M., will take part in a talk Feb. 18 at 4 p.m. in the University of Georgia Chapel. Downs will join UGA’s Nicholas Allen, Franklin Professor of English and director of the Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. The structured conversation on “Bertis Downs in Conversation: Don’t Get Me Started—On Athens, Music Lessons and, of course, Good Schools for All Kids” is part of the Willson Center’s Global Georgia Initiative. Downs, a 1981 graduate of the UGA School of Law and a retired adjunct professor in the school, represented R.E.M. throughout the group’s 30-year career. He continues to serve as an adviser in R.E.M.’s ongoing…

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Jim Cobb to Deliver Lecture on Jan. 29 as Part of the Global Georgia Initiative

Cobb is a history professor at UGA and a prolific writer.

Willson Center’s Global Georgia Initiative begins with lecture by James C. Cobb

Cobb is a history professor at UGA.

By Dave Marr James C. Cobb, a University of Georgia professor known for his expertise on the history of the American South, will kick off the Global Georgia Initiative, a new series that brings world-class thinkers to the podium on the UGA campus. On Jan. 29 at 4 p.m., Cobb will discuss “De-Mystifying Dixie: Southern History and Culture in Global Perspective” in the UGA Chapel. “My hope is to demonstrate that much of the South’s perceived weirdness relative to the rest of the United States falls away when it is viewed in global context,” said Cobb of his lecture. “In other words, seen as ‘a part of the world,’ it seems less ‘a world apart.’” Cobb, the B. Phinizy Spalding Distinguished Professor in the History of the American South, is the …

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