Critic and editor Arthur Krystal will give the Flora Plonsky Levy Lecture.
The lecture, titled “Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling – An Improbable Friendship,” will be held at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 13, in the Oliver Hall Auditorium on campus.
Krystal will discuss the friendship of Barzun and Trilling, two major literary and cultural figures during the mid-20th century. The pair taught together for 40 years at Columbia University. The lecture will explore their relationship and the self-doubt Trilling experienced.
Krystal received a master’s degree in English and comparative literature from Columbia University. While enrolled there, he studied with Barzun, the noted historian and educator, with whom he became friends. Krystal edited Barzun’s “The Culture We Deserve,” a collection of 12 essays that examine aspects of literary and art criticism, sociology, and the abandonment of clear writing and speech.
He also edited “A Company of Readers,” which contains 45 essays written by Barzun, W. H. Auden and Trilling for The Readers’ Subscription Book Club, which the three founded in 1951.
Krystal has written for the Times Literary Supplement, American Scholar, Harper’s Magazine, New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, and Chronicle of Higher Education. He wrote a profile of Barzun for the New Yorker in 2007, to commemorate Barzun’s 100th birthday. Barzun died in 2012 at age 104.
Krystal’s books include four collections of essays. The most recent, “This Thing We Call Literature,” was published this year.
The annual Flora Levy Lecture Series is hosted by the UL Lafayette English Department through a UL Lafayette Foundation endowment. The free lecture is open to the public.
For more information, contact levyendowment@louisiana.edu or visit