‘Remembering the Contested May 4 Memorializing Process’ to Launch Jerry M. Lewis May 4 Lecture Series

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Tammy Clewell, Ph.D., professor in Kent State University’s Department of English, will give the inaugural lecture of the Jerry M. Lewis May 4 Lecture Series with her presentation “Remembering the Contested May 4 Memorializing Process.” The lecture and luncheon will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, May 2, in the Kent Student Center Ballroom.

Clewell’s lecture will explore how remembering the contentious process of memorializing May 4, 1970, may help us put into practice the principles of plurality as we pursue a more equitable future. Clewell also curated an exhibit of the same name for the May 4 Visitors Center at Kent State. The exhibit will open at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 28.

The lecture series honors the legacy of Kent State Professor Emeritus of Sociology Jerry M. Lewis, Ph.D., and advances the scholarship of May 4, 1970, and the Vietnam War era. Lewis taught at Kent State from 1966 until 2013. Serving as a faculty marshal in 1970, he witnessed the May 4, 1970, shootings firsthand, and has since devoted time to researching, memorializing and lecturing on the events of May 4. He remains an active leader and voice for legacy and study of May 4, 1970.

Clewell, who has been with the university since 2000, teaches courses in 20th-century British and Irish literature, critical theory, contemporary prose and graphic memoir. She is the author of “Mourning, Modernism, Postmodernism” and editor of Modernism and Nostalgia: Bodies, Locations, Aesthetics. Her articles have appeared in such journals as PMLA, Modern Fiction Studies and the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

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The Jerry M. Lewis May 4 Lecture Series is made possible through a generous donation from Kent State alumnus and former Kent State Board of Trustees member Michael Solomon, a 1974 graduate, and will be cross-disciplinary in nature. Faculty members from all Kent State departments are eligible to submit proposals, and those who are selected to give a lecture will receive an honorarium.

To read more about the lecture series, visit www.kent.edu/may-4-1970/jerry-m-lewis-may-4-lecture-series. For tickets, visit https://ksuevents.universitytickets.com/.

To learn more about Clewell, visit www.kent.edu/english/profile/tammy-clewell.

“The Power of Our Voices” is the theme of this year’s May 4 Commemoration, which offers a return to in-person events for the first time since 2019. To learn more about the events marking this year’s commemoration, visit https://www.kent.edu/may-4-1970/commemoration.