Dr. Stephan Schaffrath, instructor of English at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, will deliver the Seventeenth Annual Emmett Memorial Lecture on Thursday, September 30, at 8:00 p.m., in the Balkans Room of the Overman Student Center on the Pittsburg State University campus.

Dr. Schaffraths lecture topic will be “Metamorphosis and Obsession in Two Infantrymens Narratives: Reese’s ‘Mir selber seltsam fremd’ and Bellavia’s ‘House to House.'”  The lecture will deal with the effects of combat experience on two soldiers, as reported in their autobiographies.

The lecture is free and open to the public.  A brief award ceremony and reception in the Heritage Room will follow the lecture.

The honor of delivering the Victor J. Emmett, Jr., Memorial Lecture goes to the author of the best essay on a literary topic published each year in The Midwest Quarterly.

The Emmett Memorial Award and Lecture are sponsored by the Emmett family, The Midwest Quarterly, and the English Department of Pittsburg State.  The award is given in memory of the late Dr. Victor J. Emmett, Jr., who, before his death in 1990, was for twenty-three years a Professor of English at Pittsburg State, where he served at various times as Chairperson of the English Department, Acting Dean of Graduate Studies, and Editor-in-Chief of The Midwest Quarterly.