Eighteenth-century author, diarist, and socialite Hester Thrale Piozzi (1741–1821) kept an enigmatic notebook of literary scraps and excerpts entitled Minced Meat for Pyes. Compiled and expanded throughout the course of her everyday life, this visually striking and formally experimental manuscript functions as both a spatial and textual composition. As much a visual and material artifact as it is a written one, Professor Julie Park (Pennsylvania State University) will consider how Piozzi’s notebook offers a compelling redefinition of life writing, presenting it as a creative practice that unfolds across multiple media in the very act of living the life it documents.

About the Speaker

Julie Park is Paterno Family Librarian for Literature and Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. Her books include The Self and It (2010), the co-edited Organic Supplements (2020), and, most recently, My Dark Room (2023), winner of an honorable mention for the Modern Language Association’s James Russell Lowell Prize, as well as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award. She is sharing work from her book in progress, Writing’s Maker: The Materiality of Life Writing in Eighteenth-Century England (under contract, University of Chicago Press). She is the series editor for the Penn State Series in the History of the Book at Penn State University Press.

The Fales Lecture is co-sponsored annually by NYU Special Collections and the Department of English. Established and sustained by a gift from Haliburton Fales, 2nd (1919–2015), the lecture explores historical, current, and emerging themes in English and American literature. To learn more about The Fales Library of English and American Literature, please visit our website.

As a part of NYU’s commitment to global inclusion, our events and initiatives are open to individuals of all backgrounds and identities.

Image description: Handwritten notebook page detail from Hester Thrale Piozzi’s Minced Meat for Pyes.

Time: 6:00 pm EST

Free!

Registration