Chopin works is lecture focus

Staff report

SHARON, PA.

Penn State Shenango will continue its 2014-15 Faculty Lecture Series with Angela Pettitt, English instructor, and Bonnie James Shaker, a Kent State University adjunct instructor, who will talk about their recovery of a lost and forgotten work of American author Kate Chopin.

Pettitt and Shaker will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday in Sharon Hall, Room 105, located on Penn Avenue in downtown Sharon. The event is free and open to the public.

In addition to teaching English at Penn State Shenango, Pettitt is the coordinator of the campus Learning Center. She received her master’s degree in American culture studies from Bowling Green State University.

Her expertise and interests vary widely and include addressing the needs of underprepared and nontraditional students, as well as examining race, gender and class construction in media and pop culture. Pettitt’s article, “Her First Party’ as Her Last Story: Recovering Kate Chopin’s Fiction,” was co-written with Shaker, who is a former professor at Youngstown State University.

Chopin wrote two novels and more than 100 short stories around the turn of the 20th century. The majority of her fictional writing was on the lives of intelligent, sensitive women and was published in such well-known periodicals as Vogue, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Young People and The Youth’s Champion.

For information about this lecture or topic, contact Pettitt at 724-983-2911 or alp21@psu.edu.