Westminster College to welcome author David Hassler as part of the Bleasby Colloquia Series

As part of the Bleasby Colloquia Series, Westminster College’s Department of English and Public Relations will host David Hassler, director of the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University, at 7 p.m. March 19 in Mueller Theater of the McKelvey Campus Center. The event is free and open to the public.

His discussion will center on his play, “May 4th Voices: Kent State, 1970,” which is an expression of the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, which began in 1990 by Sandra Halem, housed in Kent State University Libraries’ Department of Special Collections and Archives.

The project is comprised of over 110 interviews, with first-person narratives and personal reactions to the May 4, 1970 shootings. Weaving these voices and stories together, Hassler’s play tells the human story of May 4th and its aftermath, capturing the sense of trauma, confusion, and fear felt by all people regardless of where they stood that day.

His discussion offers opportunities for educators from middle school through college to teach across disciplines and connect literary studies to sociology, history, drama, political science, mental health, and personal narrative.

This colloquium is part of the George Bleasby Colloquia series of literary events in honor of the late Dr. Bleasby, who chaired the Westminster College Department of English from 1954-1975.  These programs are presentations by department faculty, featured speakers, and majors on individual scholarship, interests and creative projects.

For more information about the event, please contact Deborah Mitchell, professor and chair of the English and public relations department, at 724-946-7030 or email dmitchel@westminster.edu.

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