Chris Foss, associate professor of English at the University of Mary Washington, will give a lecture on Wednesday, April 2, which has been declared World Autism Day by the United Nations. The talk, “Emerging from Emergence: Towards a Rethinking of the Recovery Story in Eight Contemporary Nonfiction Autism Narratives,” will take place in Combs Hall, Room 139 at 4:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
The author of more than 10 scholarly articles and 20 academic conference papers, Dr. Foss specializes in 19th-century British literature with a secondary interest in disability studies. This semester he is teaching a first-year seminar on Representations of Autism in Contemporary Literature and Film.
Dr. Foss received a bachelor’s degree from Concordia College, a master’s degree from Northeastern University and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is a member of several organizations including the Modern Language Association, the Virginia Humanities Conference and the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association.
Dr. Foss also will hold screenings of the films used in his seminar. “Rain Man” will be shown on Monday, April 7 in Combs Hall, Room 139 at 7:30 p.m.; “Mercury Rising,” on Wednesday, April 9 in Chandler Hall, Room 102 at 7:30 p.m.; “Snow Cake,” on Monday, April 14 in Combs Hall, Room 139 at 7:30 p.m.; and “Mozart and the Whale,” on Wednesday, April 16 in Chandler Hall, Room 102 at 7:30 p.m.
For more information about the lecture, contact the Department of English, Linguistics and Speech at (540) 654-1035.