Wayne G. Basler Chair of Excellence
Integration of the Arts, Rhetoric, and Science
In 1994, the Wayne G. Basler Chair of Excellence for the Integration of the Arts, Rhetoric, and Science was named in honor of an individual who has continuously supported the university over many years. This chair helps to bridge the gap in academia between the sciences, the arts, and the humanities disciplines. Chairholders serve for one semester, or the equivalent, allowing a number of individuals from a variety of fields to participate over time. The primary duties of the chairholder are to teach two courses, typically one undergraduate and one graduate, and to present four public lectures/performances.
Amy Wright, Basler Chair of Excellence for Spring 2022
Events
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Reading of Poerty and Prose
Basler Chair Lecture by Amy Wright
Tuesday, Feb. 1st at 4 p.m.
East Tennessee Room, Culp Center, ETSU Main Campus (Johnson City, TN)
A reading of poetry and prose, followed by a Q&A session with the audience. This reading will enact the dialogue dynamic of Wright's book Paper Concert, which is subtitled A Conversation in the Round. -
Asking Great Questions
Basler Chair Lecture by Amy Wright
Thursday, March 3rd at 7 p.m. The Forum, Culp Center, ETSU Main Campus (Johnson City, TN)
This presentation will discuss the art of the query and detail the components of fruitful investigations. Wright will offer her twenty-years-plus experience as a journalist and researcher on the craft of asking generative questions about science, nature, art, identity, class, and gender. -
The Appalachian Sublime
Basler Chair Lecture by Amy Wright
Monday, March 28th at 7:00 p.m.
The Forum, Culp Center, ETSU Main Campus (Johnson City, TN)This presentation demonstrates ways to reimagine the mountains, stories, and characters of Appalachia through the lens of the sublime and geologic time.
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Translating Emily Dickinson
Basler Chair Lecture by Mauricio Anton
Tuesday, April 12th, 3:45 p.m. Reece Museum (as part of ETSU's Spring Literary Festival)
Over the years, Wright has read, published, and shared dozens of prose translations of Emily Dickinson poems. This project began as an exercise in comprehending the sometimes difficult, sometimes childlike poet, so they demonstrate close reading and create new means to access her work. But these translations can be lyric in their own rights as they reach in prose toward poetry.
Biography
Poet, editor and award-winning essayist Amy Wright is the Spring 2022 Wayne G. Basler
Chair of Excellence. Wright's newest book, Paper Concert, embodies the integrative spirit of the Basler Chair appointment, because it draws
together in conversation artists, scientists, activists, and humanists in a far-reaching
dialogue about the issues that concern us, have concerned us, and will concern us
for decades to come.
Published by Sarabande Books in August 2021, Paper Concert was named by Buzzfeed as one of "18 Books from Small Presses You'll Love" because
it invites readers "to slow down and consider complicated questions for which there
are no absolute answers." In her review, poet Eleni Sikelianos says, "Touching on
art, philosophy, race, class, poetry, ecology, and more, this is a good guide for
the present disasters, leading us back along the strong lines of Wright's web to what
is most beautiful and inspiring in the human endeavor." Pushcast-Prize-winnning essayist
Joni Tevis says, "This is a book whose form Wright has chosen—like the patchwork quilts
of her inheritance—and whose pieces she has fitted together to make something large
and sheltering. This work feels especially important to me now, given the times we
are living in."
Amy grew up on a dairy farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia, the
world-be seventh generation in her family to tend those foothills. Instead, she became
an Appalachian writer who cultivates connections between nature and people in her
work. In addition to Paper Concert, she has published three books of poetry, six chapbooks, and over 180 individual
poems, essays, and interviews, including two science articles, on which she is listed
as a co-author. Three-time nominee for a Pushcart Prize, Wright's essays have been
praised for integrating "big ideas" in "beautiful moving ways" and for being consistently
"interested in something bigger" than her personal story and family history, although
both inform everything she writes.
The celebrated writer David Huddle, who grew up in a similar rural county as Wright, calls her "a Bluegrass writer and therefore a practitioner of understated virtuosity."
Wright coordinates the Creative Writing Program at Austin Peay State University, where she also teaches writing, and serves as the senior editor for Zone 3 journal and the nonficition editor for Zone 3 Press. She has been awarded two Peter Taylor Fellowships to the Kenyon Review Writers' Workshop, an Individual Artist Fellowship through Humanities Tennessee, and a fellowship through the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been invited to read or lead workshops nationally and internationally from Boulder, Colorado to Reykjavík, Iceland, and many places between, including Savannah College of Art and Design, Massey University of New Zealand, and the University of Denver—where she earned her Ph.D.
Yet if you ask Amy about her accomplishments, she will point to current and former students whose work has been published, or who have gone on to successful careers in editing, writing, and education. She is looking forward to returning to the mountains to work with the students and community at ETSU.
Nominations
Nominations are solicited from faculty during the spring semester; notification is
distributed to the faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences via e-mail. A nomination should
consist of a letter of nomination and the nominee's CV. The letter should justify
the choice, with emphasis on how the individual would contribute to the interdisciplinary
nature of the position, and should address his/her public speaking and ability to
interact with students. It will be assumed that the nominator has consulted with the
individual and determined that he/she would be interested in the position, should
it be offered.
Basler Chair Selection Committee
Chelsea Wessels
Literature and Language
2020-22
Jane MacMorran
Appalachian Studies
2020-22
Sean Hawthrone
Music
2020-22
Robert Funk
Theater & Dance
2021-23
Alan Stevens
Music
2021-23
Ted Olson
Appalachian Studies
2021-23
Previous Basler Chairs
2019-2020 Dr. Mauricio Anton
2018-2019 Dr. Eric Avery
2017-2018 Dr. Liam Campbell
2016-2017 Dr. Karl Hasenstein
2015-2016 Dr. Jeff Todd Titon
2014-2015 Dr. Lee Anne Willson
2013-2014 Mary Jane Jacob
2012-2013 Dr. Thomas Schmickl
2011-2012 Dr. Jennings Bryant
2010-2011 Dr. Molly Faries
2009-2010 Dr. Phillip Rhodes
2008-2009 Dr. Graham Leonard
2007-2008 Ivars Peterson
2006-2007 Dr. George Kampis
2005-2006 Dr. Martin A. Hendry
2004-2005 Mr. Mel Chin
2003-2004 Mr. John Blake, Jr.
2002-2003 Dr. John Shelton Reed
2001-2002 Dr. Anne LaBastille
2000-2001 Dr. George Gale
1999-2000 Lia Alther
1999-2000 Pat Cronin
1998-1999 Corame Richey Mann
1997-1998 Gustavo Perez Firmat
1996-1997 John Bowers