KNOXVILLE — The James Agee Centennial Celebration, a monthlong series of events marking the 100th birthday of the Knoxville native and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, screenwriter, journalist, author and poet, continues this weekend with exhibits, lectures and film screenings that explore the connections between Agee, photojournalist Walker Evans and former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
New York Times book critic, editor and author Dwight Garner will speak on “Why Agee Matters: It’s Not for the Reasons You Think,” Saturday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m. in Frank H. McClung Museum, Circle Park Drive. The lecture will be preceded by a reception at the museum.
On Sunday, Nov. 15, at 1 p.m. in the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay St., Jeff L. Rosenheim, curator of photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, will speak on “Reappraising ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’: The Curious Camerawork of Walker Evans.” Related exhibitions at the history center include “The East Tennessee Streetscape,” which gives a sense of the Knoxville of Agee’s youth, and “Voices of the Land: The People of East Tennessee,” which echoes the poverty-stricken Southerners profiled in the Agee/Evans collaboration, “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.”
David Madden, a Knoxville native, novelist and scholar of James Agee and Abraham Lincoln, will discuss “Seeing Agee in ‘Mr. Lincoln,'” 3 p.m. Sunday at the John J. Duncan School of Law at the Knoxville campus of Lincoln Memorial University, 611 West Summit Hill Drive. Following the lecture, Michael Lofaro, UT Knoxville English professor, Agee scholar and organizer of the monthlong celebration, will screen “Agee’s ‘Mr. Lincoln,'” from the “Omnibus” 1950s educational television series. The Knoxville Museum of Art, 1050 Worlds Fair Park Drive, is hosting a related exhibition on young Abraham Lincoln, “His Ambition Knew No Rest.”
All events are free and open to the public.
The James Agee Centennial Celebration wraps up on Sunday, Nov. 22, with an evening of music at Laurel Theater and lectures at the UT University Center Ballroom and the Knox County downtown public library.
For the full schedule of Agee Centennial events, visit http://web.utk.edu/~english/news/agee100.html.
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C O N T A C T :
Michael Lofaro (865-974-4928, mlofaro@utk.edu)
Charles Primm (865-974-5180, primmc@utk.edu)