Spring Semester with Mark Schenker: Books About Books (Zoom)

Please join us for Mark Schenker’s six-part Spring 2026 literary series in which we’ll look at “Books About Books” covering readings from 1953 to 2021.

Our books, whose authors are three Americans, two Italians, and one Irish writer, include a sci-fi dystopian novel, a graphic memoir, a medieval murder mystery set in an Italian monastery, and a postmodernist novel that challenges our expectations of what it means to read a book.

And Mark emphasizes that by “books” he envisions his series to include literature in all its dimensions: not just the works we find in the Wilton Library, but written works as manuscripts, artifacts…and even the act of reading itself.

The schedule is as follows:

• 3/4 – Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
• 3/18 – Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (2006)
• 4/8 – History of the Rain by Niall Williams (2014)
• 4/29 – The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (1980)
• 5/20 – If on a Winter’s Night, a Traveler by Italo Calvino (1981)
• 6/10 – Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (2021)

No charge for the program. These lectures are made possible with the support of the Literary Series in Memory of Amy Quigley. Advance registration required. Register online or call 203-762-6334. You will automatically be registered for all six sessions.

Mark J. Schenker, having served in various decanal roles in Yale College since 1990, retired last year. A former lecturer in the English Department, he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University with a concentration in 19th-century and early 20th-century English Literature. He had taught previously at Columbia, New York University, and Trinity College (Hartford, CT). Outside of academia, Mark has for over 35 years lectured on literature and film, and has led book discussion series in more than 100 venues in Connecticut, including public libraries, museums, and cultural centers. He also conducts monthly sessions for a number of private reading groups in the state. In 2001, he received the Wilbur Cross Award for Outstanding Humanities Scholar, presented by the Connecticut Humanities Council.