Writer, Scholar Stephanie Burt Talks Poetry and Belonging at Stetson Law
Speaking to the Stetson Law students, faculty, and staff gathered in the Great Hall as well as students and faculty joining remotely from Stetson University’s main campus in DeLand, scholar Dr. Stephanie Burt explored the relationship between one’s work and oneself.
A poet, literary critic, and professor of English at Harvard, Burt gave a talk titled “Professional Identity and Belonging.” It was presented as part of Stetson Law’s LGBTQ+ History Month events.
Throughout the conversation, Burt read excerpts of her poetry and related them to critical life events, including “Hermit Crab,” a poem inspired by her struggles with her identity before she ultimately came out as a trans woman in 2017.
Connecting poetry & law
For Law Professor Kristen Adams, who hosted Burt on stage, it was After Callimachus, Burt’s 2020 collection of translations and adaptations of works by the Greek poet Callimachus, that had an interesting appeal for legal scholars.
“It engages my lawyer brain in a different way,” Adams, who teaches courses that relate poetry and law, said.
Burt said she could see why someone with a background in law and legal theory might find the text interesting.
“The poems really are often acts of persuasion, and often they’re acts of recitation,” Burt said.
Callimachus had a way of challenging incorrect or outdated ways of thinking, she added, and voiced his challenges “in a way that is sympathetic and funny rather than boastful and from on high.”
Community & belonging
As he introduced Burt, 3L Kyle Ridgeway said he was grateful that he and his classmates could be part of a conversation with a celebrated scholar whose work explores important issues like identity and social change.
“Dialogues such as the ones we are having this evening are important for us to be a community that welcomes others to express themselves in their professional and personal identity and feel as though they belong,” Ridgeway, a member of Lambda Legal Society’s Stetson Law Chapter as well as the college’s Social Justice Advocacy Concentration program, said.
A “quiet” space
A well-known literary critic and poet, Burt has published three poetry collections and two critical books on poetry, including, most recently, the poetry collection We Are Mermaids. The New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, the Boston Review, and many other publications have featured her work.
Law Professor Anne Mullins commended the audience for taking time away from study and work to be part of the “quiet space” where, outside of rigorous schedules and nonstop chatter, they can explore critical, fundamental questions through conversations about art.
“The importantis winning,” Mullins said at the beginning of the event,” Mullins said. “When we give ourselves the opportunity to engage in poetry, and literature, and art, and music… we open ourselves up to the invitation to that quiet space. And we can pause, and think, and reflect on the most important questions, which are: ‘who are we?’ and ‘who do we want to become?’”
The event was held in collaboration with Stetson Law’s Social Justice Concentration, Lambda Legal Society, the Gulfport LGBT Resource Center, and Stetson University’s Office of Diversity, Collaboration, and Inclusion, and Tombolo Books.
Post date: Oct. 14, 2022
Media contact: Kate Bradshaw
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