Sitting In Mrs. Barbauld’s Pew: Anna Barbauld’s Social Activism

Annual Peter Millard Lecture

Sitting In Mrs. Barbauld’s Pew: Anna Barbauld’s Social Activism

by Lisa Vargo

Fri, March 11

1 to 2:30 pm

Arts 108

Lisa Vargo's 2022 Millard Lecture will acknowledge its namesake's advocacy for human rights by considering Anna Barbauld's rich and varied career. Barbauld's place within the intellectual culture of Protestant Dissent, a group whose members were denied civil liberties, represents an earlier example of social activism. Vargo will mix brief reflections about her own experience with analysis of Barbauld's work, and will also survey the transformation of Anna Barbauld's literary reputation as a prelude to discussing her career as a public intellectual.

The Peter Millard Lecture honours Dr. Peter Millard (1932-2001). Dr. Millard, head of the English Department (1985-91), was highly influential in gay and human rights. USask established the Peter Millard Scholarship (1994), Canada’s first university-administered scholarship for research in gay and lesbian studies.