Internationally acclaimed novelist Janette Turner Hospital will deliver USC Sumter’s 40th Anniversary Opening Convocation address August 22 in the Arts and Letters Building lecture hall. Hospital is Carolina distinguished professor of literature and distinguished writer in residence at USC Columbia.
“We’re extremely pleased that Dr. Hospital has accepted our invitation to be our Opening Convocation keynote speaker,” said USC Sumter Dean C. Leslie Carpenter. “Dr. Hospital’s distinguished and diverse professional history includes positions as a high school teacher in her native Queensland, Australia, and as a librarian at Harvard University. Additionally, she has held numerous writer-in-residence positions at institutions in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Colgate University.”
Hospital’s extensive list of publications includes novels, short stories, a novella, and a crime thriller. Her works have been translated into at least 11 languages, and she has been honored with various literary awards.
Hospital’s crime novel, Due Preparations for the Plague (Norton, 2003) won Australia’s prestigious $20,000 Patrick White Award and the $25,000 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award. New York’s Time Out Magazine noted that, "Due Preparations for the Plague is… unputdownable… and does for the post-September 11 era what John le Carré did for the Cold War.” The novel also won Australia’s Davitt Award from “Sisters in Crime” for the best crime novel of the year by an Australian woman.
The first Opening Convocation was observed on the Sumter campus August 24, 1966, when the institution first opened its doors as Clemson University at Sumter, before becoming USC Sumter in 1973. The tradition of marking the opening of a new academic year “as a campus community looking forward” continues to this day, making the 2005-’06 event the campus’ fortieth.
Open to the public, the Opening Convocation’s bagpiper-led procession will begin promptly at 11:48 a.m. at the Lawrence Peace Garden located directly behind the USC Sumter Administration Building and travel throughout the campus to the Arts and Letters Building. After the ceremony, an informal lunch will be served to all attending.
For additional information on the event, call Terrie Smith, planning committee chair, at 803-938-3710.
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Janette Turner Hospital
