Penn State will welcome Caitlin Flanagan and Kimberly Dozier as part of the bi-annual Foster-Foreman Conference of Distinguished Writers. The session will consist of both authors performing their own readings and partaking in a Q-and-A session.
Flanagan will kick off the conference at 7 p.m. tonight at the State Theatre, 130 W. College Ave. In addition to authoring books such as “Girl Land” and “To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife,” Flanagan actively writes for The Atlantic Magazine.
“Girl Land” is a guidebook on how to effectively raise a daughter in the 21st century while “To Hell With All That” debates the roles women have in both the workforce and in the housewife position.
Russ Eshleman, the interim head of the department of journalism, said he expects Flanagan will discuss the recent controversy surrounding greek life, as she wrote an article concerning the dangers of fraternities just last year.
“The Dark Power of Fraternities” consisted of the different scandals fraternities encountered in 2013 and was the fourth most read article on The Atlantic, Gene Foreman, director of the event, said.
The moderator for this event is journalism professor Russell Frank.
Kimberly Dozier will conclude the conference with her lecture beginning at 10:10 a.m. Wednesday in the Freeman Auditorium of the HUB-Robeson Center.
Dozier has worked as a CBS combat correspondent in Iraq and an Associated Press Intelligence reporter. She is currently employed as a Daily Beast contributor, the Bradley Chair at the U.S. Army War College and a visiting professor for both Penn State’s Dickinson School of Law and School of International Affairs.
John Affleck, the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society at Penn State, “Dozier has great reputation from the Washington Bureau as a very able and hard-charging reporter. I think anyone that goes to see her will get a professional sense of her abilities as a journalist.”
The Foster-Foreman Conference for Distinguished Writers is hosted by Penn State’s College of Communications and has been a favored event by students and faculty since its inception in 1999.
Eshleman said the event has hosted roughly 100 accomplished writers and of all those who have presented, 40 of them were Pulitzer Prize winners.
The goal of the conference is to unite students and motivate them toward the positive outcomes of pursuing a career in writing by welcoming accomplished journalists to visit and speak with aspiring writers, Eshleman said.
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Ciara O'Callaghan 