Columbia's Adam B. Kirsch to deliver 40th Annual Effron Lecture

Adam B. Kirsch, director of Columbia University's Master's Program in Jewish Studies will speak on the question, "Is There Such a Thing as Jewish Literature?" when he delivers the 40th Annual William and Sadie Effron Lecture in Jewish Studies at Marist College on Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 7:00 p.m. The lecture will take place in the Nelly Goletti Theatre in the Murray Student Center. It is free and open to the public. 

The Effron Lecture, through generous support from the Effron family in Poughkeepsie, was established in 1976 to raise awareness of Jewish history, culture, and current affairs at Marist and in the community. 

Adam B. Kirsch is a poet and literary critic who directs Columbia University’s Master’s Program in Jewish Studies. 

He has published several collections of poetry and books of criticism and biography, including Rocket and Lightship: Essays on Literature and Ideas (W.W. Norton, 2014) and Why Trilling Matters (Yale University Press, 2011).  His book reviews appear regularly in The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and many other publications. Kirsch was recently awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.  He is also a senior editor at The New Republic and a contributing editor of Tablet, a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas and culture.

His most recent work, about which he is going to speak at Marist, The People and the Books: 18 Classics of Jewish Literature (W.W. Norton, 2016), has been hailed by Library Journal as "an intellectual masterpiece."