The Friends of the Needham Public Library present:

A Fresh Voice from the Harlem Renaissance: Dorothy Peterson

Wellesley College professor Octavio Gonzalez will celebrate the Harlem Renaissance of 100 years ago through the lens of educator/translator Dorothy R. Peterson, an important figure whose legacy has been overshadowed by other luminaries. Peterson was a close friend of novelist Nella Larsen, as well as poet Langston Hughes, with whom Peterson collaborated on many translations from the Spanish to the English. Peterson also introduced Hughes to major Puerto Rican poets of the era, including Nicolás Guillén, with whom Hughes developed a close relationship as fellow poets. Professor Gonzalez will present other aspects of Peterson’s life, including her lifelong work as a teacher and educator as well as her final years as an expatriate in Spain. In the final decades of her career, Peterson devoted herself to archiving the manuscripts and ephemera of the Harlem Renaissance, ensuring the continuity of that period into the present, by curating and helping to promote the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of African-American Arts and Letters at Yale University. This Collection is where Peterson’s own papers are found.

Professor González is the Barbara Morris Caspersen Associate Professor of Humanities and an Associate Professor of English & Creative Writing at Wellesley College. He is the President of the Modernist Studies Association and on the editorial board of the Queer Feminist Maternities Book Series.

This Program is sponsored by the Friends of the Needham Public Library. Registration is required, as we have a current capacity limit of 108.

***IF YOU DO NOT RECEIVE A CONFIRMATION E-MAIL AFTER REGISTERING, PLEASE CALL THE REFERENCE DEPARTMENT (781-455-7559 X2) TO CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS***