MightyCardinal

Congrats to Anne Carson who has been awarded the 2026 #NobelPrize in Literature "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature." Carson taught at Princeton University in the 1980s and was recently on campus to deliver the 2025 Fagles Lecture. Her presentation, titled "Beware the man whose handwriting sways like a reed in the wind," mixed memoir, classical translation, art criticism, boxing exhibition, and performance art in a personal meditation on life and death in the wake of her diagnosis with Parkinson's disease. Like previous Fagles Lecturers, Carson taught a special session of the undergraduate Humanities Sequence course "Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western Culture," whose students read Carson's Sappho translations, If Not, Winter (2002) as part of their syllabus. Carson's lesson plan involved dividing class attendees into small groups of three or four and asking them to leave the classroom for ten minutes spent in search of a "border," physical or otherwise, they could then "redefine." Read more about her recent visit: bit.ly/4hShDyQ