West Virginia Universitys Department of English and the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences will host Gordon Hutner, who is considered by many to be among the nations most influential contemporary literary critics, Thursday, March 8.

Hutners presentation,The Way We Want to Live Now: Privacy and Contemporary American Fiction,is scheduled for noon in Elizabeth Moore Hall.

The event�€which is part of the Eberly Family Distinguished Lecture Series�€will be followed by a reception. It is free and open to the public.

Hutner is an English professor at the University of Illinois. He received his degrees from Kenyon College and the University of Virginia, and he has taught at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Kentucky, Cornell University and as a Fulbright Fellow in Belgium.

He is the founding editor of American Literary History, a journal that will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year.

The professor is author and editor of several books and articles on literary and cultural criticism and American fiction. He has also written about immigrant autobiography, Jewish-American writing and, most recently, the autobiography of Andrew Carnegie.

Hutners latest book,America Reading: Fiction, Class, and Taste, 1920-1960,is devoted to the middle-class realism of the mid-twentieth century.

Through his work in American Literary History, his extensive teaching experience, his numerous publications, and his tireless mentoring of scholars both young and established, Hutner is considered by many to be one of the most significant literary scholars today.

For more information, contact Professor John Ernest, WVU Department of English, at 304-293-3107, ext. 33456 or john.ernest@mail.wvu.edu .