IRVING, Texas (Nov. 25, 2024) — Author, journalist and literary critic Cynthia L. Haven will speak at the next event in the McDermott Lecture Series.
Haven has held visiting fellowships at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and at Stanford University, which continues to host her blog, The Book Haven.
She is a prominent articulator of the work of René Girard, the French-born American historian, literary critic and philosopher whose work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy. He is best known for his theory of mimetic desire. Haven wrote the award-winning Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard in 2018 and edited a Penguin Classics anthology of Girard’s writings, All Desire Is a Desire for Being, which was published earlier this year. She is also the author of 2021’s Czesław Miłosz: A California Life, about the Polish poet.
“In 2022, I visited the University of Dallas for the first time to speak at the Catholic Imagination Conference,” said Haven. “This year, I am privileged to return to this campus to share the wisdom and vision of someone I am honored to call a mentor and dear friend, the French theorist René Girard, who gave the McDermott Lecture in 1994. He is one of the truly great thinkers of our times.”
This year’s McDermott Lecture will take place on Feb. 27, 2025, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Multipurpose Room of SB Hall.
The McDermott Lecture Series began in 1974 when Mr. and Mrs. Eugene McDermott endowed the Eugene McDermott Lectureship, established to honor the vision of early University of Dallas leaders Donald and Louise Cowan. The series brings public intellectuals to the university each year.
About the University of Dallas
The University of Dallas, known for its rigorous undergraduate Core Curriculum and robust graduate and professional programs in business, ministry, education and the humanities, strives to be the premier Catholic liberal arts university in the country. According to national rankings, the University of Dallas has one of America’s most challenging, comprehensive undergraduate interdisciplinary programs, offered at an excellent value to some of the happiest students in the country. With campuses in Texas and Italy, UDallas stands apart as a thriving community of learners committed to an education that forms students intellectually, socially and spiritually for a life well-lived. For more information, visit udallas.edu.
