{"id":1188,"date":"2026-03-10T13:07:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T17:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/lecturesincriticism\/?page_id=1188"},"modified":"2026-03-26T18:35:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T22:35:18","slug":"spring-2026","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/lecturesincriticism\/spring-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\n“Far Fetched: On the Poetry of Walking”
\nSusan Stewart<\/span><\/h2>\n

Abstract
\n<\/strong>Susan Stewart will discuss the synergy between walking and the imagination, with a focus on poems by William Cowper, William Wordsworth, and others<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Susan Stewart<\/strong>
\nAvalon Foundation University Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus; Professor of English, Emeritus; Princeton University<\/strong>
\nA poet, critic, and translator, Susan Stewart is the Avalon Foundation University Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English. She is a member of the Associated Faculty of the Department of Art and Archaeology and serves as the editor of the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets.\u00a0 From 2009 to 2017, she was the Director of Princeton\u2019s Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts. She teaches the history of poetry, literary criticism, and aesthetics.<\/p>\n

Stewart\u2019s newest book of criticism is\u00a0<\/span>The Ruins Lesson: Meaning and Material in Western <\/span>Culture<\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>Her other recent books of prose include<\/span>The Poet\u2019s Freedom: A Notebook on Making<\/em><\/a>;\u00a0<\/span>Poetry and the Fate of the Senses<\/em><\/a>, which won the Christian Gauss Award for Literary Criticism from Phi Beta Kappa and the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism;\u00a0<\/span>The Open Studio: Essays on Art and Aesthetics<\/em><\/a>, a collection of her writings on contemporary art;\u00a0<\/span>Crimes of Writing<\/a>;\u00a0<\/span>On Longing<\/a>;\u00a0<\/span><\/em>and\u00a0<\/span>Nonsense<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0Her most recent books of poetry are\u00a0<\/span>Cinder: New and Selected Poems<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/em>(2017, Graywolf Press);\u00a0<\/span>Red Rover<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>Columbarium<\/em><\/a>, which won the 2003 National Book Critics Circle award, and\u00a0<\/span>The Forest<\/em><\/a>. Her translations include\u00a0<\/span>Love Lessons: Selected Poems of Alda Merini,<\/em>\u00a0and she has published co-translations with her Princeton colleague Sara Teardo–Laudomia Bonanni\u2019s novel,\u00a0<\/span>The Reprisal<\/em>— and, with Patrizio Ceccagnoli, two books of poetry by Milo De Angelis–<\/span>Theme of Farewell and After-Poems<\/em>. She also has translated Euripides\u2019\u00a0<\/span>Andromache<\/em>\u00a0with Wesley Smith and the poetry and selected prose of the Scuola Romana painter Scipione with Brunella Antomarini.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stewart often collaborates with artists and composers. Her song cycle, \u201cSongs for Adam,\u201d commissioned by the Chicago Symphony with music by the composer James Primosch, had its world premiere with baritone Brian Mulligan and the CSO, Sir Andrew Davis conducting, in October 2009. She also has worked with the Italian painter Sandro Chia, the Network for New Music, and, most often, the artist Ann Hamilton. In 2016-2017, her long poem,\u00a0<\/span>Channel,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>appeared in\u00a0<\/span>The Paris Review<\/em>\u00a0and was part of an installation by Hamilton presented in Philadelphia and Minneapolis.<\/span><\/p>\n

A former MacArthur Fellow and recipient of Princeton\u2019s Behrman Award in the Humanities, Stewart served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2005-2011. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005 and in the Spring of 2009 she received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2014, she was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. In 2020 she will deliver the Clarendon Lectures at Oxford University.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Far Fetched: On the Poetry of Walking” Susan Stewart Abstract Susan Stewart will discuss the synergy between walking and the imagination, with a focus on poems by William Cowper, William Wordsworth, and others Susan Stewart Avalon Foundation University Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus; Professor of English, Emeritus; Princeton University A poet, critic, and translator, Susan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16661,"featured_media":1195,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/lecturesincriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/lecturesincriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/lecturesincriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/lecturesincriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/lecturesincriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1188"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/lecturesincriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1216,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/lecturesincriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1188\/revisions\/1216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/lecturesincriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/lecturesincriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}