OFSTAD VISITING SCHOLAR PROGRAM

The Clayton B. Ofstad Reading Series

Spring 2026

Wednesday, [date], 2026 | 5 p.m. | Baldwin Little Theatre
SJ Lauro
Reading: “Zombies: Our Mirror Monsters?”

Wednesday, [date], 2026 | 5 p.m. | Baldwin Little Theatre
Jack Smith
Reading: “MADNESS: A Reading”

 

Fall 2026

Wednesday, [date], 2026 | 5 p.m. | Baldwin Little Theatre
Kevin Guzzo
Reading: “Silence: The Role of Ellipsis in Linguistics

Wednesday, [date], 2026 | 5 p.m. | Baldwin Little Theatre
Rainer Diana Hamilton
Reading: “Fictional Poetry

2025

  • January 30, 2025
    Keith Scales
    Reading: “Passages from Overlook City”

2024

  • February 15, 2024
    Nina Furstenau
    Reading and Q&A
  • March 6, 2024
    Julie L. Moore
    Reading and Q&A
  • April 11, 2024
    Kelly Wright
    Lecture: “Linguistic High Crimes”
  • September 12, 2024
    Dr. Doug Reside
    Lecture: “Forbidden Knowledge: The History and Uses of Theatrical Bootlegs”
  • October 17, 2024
    Dr. Janet Sylvester
    Reading: Prize-Winning Work Both Old and New
  • November 15, 2024
    Christine Knapp
    Lecture: “Linguistics and Jobs in Tech”

2023

  • October 19, 2023
    Taylor Jones
    Lecture: The Linguistic Skills of Leaders
  • October 7, 2023
    Alexandra Rowland
    Seminar and Reading: “The Squamish Language Policy and Language Commission”
  • March 2, 2023
    Kyle Eveleth
    Ofstad Scholar Lecture: “The Semiotics of Play, or ‘Teaching History through Cannibalism’”
  • January 26, 2023
    Anand Prahlad
    A Reading with Ofstad Visiting Writer

2022

  • Oct. 20, 2022
    Nzingha Kendall
    Lecture from Visiting Ofstad Scholar Dr. Nzingha Kendall
  • Sept. 16, 2022
    Dr. Caitlin Coons
    “Toward Inclusive Linguistic Typology: What Understudied Sign Languages Contribute”
  • April 1, 2022
    Mark Wisniewski
    A Fiction Reading with Author Mark Wish and Truman Students
  • March 15, 2022
    Dr. Rachel Weissler
    “Approaching Linguistic Discrimination and Social Justice through Sociolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Approaches”
  • Feb. 4, 2022
    Dr. Tabitha Lowery
    “Thank God for Little Children’: Frances Harper’s Children’s Poetry, Social Justice, and the Archives in the Twenty First Century”

2021

  • Oct. 5, 2021
    Angela Shaw-Thornburg
    Lecture, “‘What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black?’ Stories We Tell About Black Childhood”
  • Sept. 16, 2021
    Maria Miranda Maloney
    Reading from Cracked Spaces
  • Sept. 8, 2021
    Megan Figueroa
    “Decolonizing (Psycho) Linguistics Means Dropping the Language ‘Gap’ Rhetoric”

2020

  • October 29, 2020:
    Tricia Levenseller
    “Turning Rejection into Success”
  • October 14, 2020:
    Darcy Browning
    “Hesitation in Asynchronous Media: Twitter Hashtags and Spoken Discourse Markers in Survivor Stories”
  • September 17, 2020:
    Anne Morey
    “‘That’s Marriage’: Gone Girl and the Genealogy of the Paranoid Woman’s Film”
  • April 2, 2020:
    Amanda Nadelberg
    “Life Forms: Poems from Daily Habits”
  • February 19, 2020:
    Nicole Ziegler
    “Technology-Mediated Task-Based Language Teaching and Research”
  • February 11, 2020:
    Amy Levin
    “Dutch Museums as Models for Gender Diversity and Community Engagement”
  • February 4, 2020:
    Neil Hilborn
    A Poetry Reading

2019

  • November 6, 2019:
    Zoe Estelle Hitzel
    A Poetry Reading
  • November 4, 2019:
    Miyabi “Abbie” Yamamoto
    “Reimagining the Ivory Tower”
  • September 18, 2019:
    Sheena Shah
    “SiPhûthî, an Endangered Language of Southern Africa”
  • February 27, 2019:
    Elizabeth  Kissling
    “Accent in the Foreign Language Classroom: Misconceptions, Methodologies, and The Making of a Good Speaker”
  • February 9, 2019:
    Angela Carter
    “Classrooms in Crisis: Disability Pedagogy, Feminism, and The Trigger Warning Debate”
  • February 7, 2019:
    Meg Elison
    A Speculative Fiction Reading

2018

  • October 8, 2018:
    Alexandria Lockett
    “Overflow: The Leaky Politics of Living in The Data Deluge”
  • October 4, 2018:
    Prajwal Parajuly
    Selections from The Gurkha’s Daughter and Land Where I Flee
  • September 19, 2018:
    Marissa Fond
    “Sociolinguistics in the Field(s)”
  • April 4, 2018:
    Dawn Sardella-Ayres
    “Girls’ Literature as Genre and The Importance of Girlhood”
  • March 1, 2018:
    David Elliott
    Reading from Bull, Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc, and other works
  • February 22, 2018:
    Doug Reside
    “Editing Musical Theatre in the Digital Age”
  • February 12, 2018:
    Scott Johnson
    “Egos and Epigraphy: Decoding Maya Hieroglyphs”
  • February 8, 2018:
    Laura McHugh
    Reading from Arrowood and “Endgame”

2017

  • November 9, 2017:
    Arisa White
    A Poetry Reading
  • September 7, 2017:
    Katherine Riestenberg
    “Task-Based Teaching of Endangered Languages: Challenges and Successes of Zapotec Revitalization in Oaxaca, Mexico”
  • February 15, 2017:
    Faith Adiele
    Selections from her Nonfiction Writing

2016

  • September 21, 2016:
    Maggie Messitt
    Reading from The Rainy Season and work-in-progress
  • February 10, 2016:
    Allison Joseph
    A Poetry Reading

2015

  • October 6, 2015:
    Prajwal Parajuly
    Reading from Land Where I Flee
  • March 18, 2015:
    Bennett Sims
    Multimedia Reading of White Dialogues

2014

  • November 19, 2014:
    David Chan
    Reading from City of Ghosts
  • September 30, 2014:
    Saïd Sayrafiezadeh
    A Prose Reading
  • March 18. 2014:
    Cornelius Eady
    A Poetry Performance and Reading
  • April 17, 2014:
    David Chan
    Reading from Utopian Fairytales

2013

  • October 24, 2013:
    Paul Legault
    Reading from The Emily Dickinson Reader and selected poems