March 16, 2007
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417


AMHERST, Mass.—Laure Katsaros, assistant professor of French at Amherst College, will give the annual Max and Etta Lazerowitz Lecture at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 19, in the Alumni House at Amherst College. Katsaros will speak about “Men of Leisure, Women of Pleasure: Bachelors and Prostitutes in 19th-Century France.” The talk is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow.

Katsaros has recently completed a book manuscript titled “New York-Paris: Whitman, Baudelaire, and the Hybrid City,” and she is currently working on a new book manuscript on prostitutes and bachelors in 19th-century France. In this new book, she draws from popular culture as well as from literary works, ranging from Balzac to Zola, to analyze the pairing of bachelors and prostitutes in 19th-century bourgeois culture.

Katsaros has been teaching at Amherst since 2002. She has also taught French at Boston College, English at Université Paris Nord XIII and American Studies at Université Aix Marseille I. She is a graduate of École Normale Supérieure in Paris (rue d’Ulm). She holds a Ph.D. degree in comparative literature from Yale University and a doctorate in American studies from Université Paris VII.

The Lazerowitz Lectureship is awarded each year to support and encourage members of the Amherst College faculty in their scholarly work. The Dean of the Faculty, in conjunction with the lecture committee, selects the recipient, a member of the faculty below the rank of a full professor, who presents a lecture on his or her research.

The Max and Etta Lazerowitz Lectureship was established in 1985 to honor the parents of the late Morris Lazerowitz, emeritus professor of philosophy at Smith College.

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