Esther Freier Lecture

Head and shoulders of Asian-appearing person with long dark hair in side ponytail, smiling and wearing red lipstick, white collared shirt and green jumper; street in background
Photo: Mike Styer
We look forward to seeing you at our next free event at the University of Minnesota campus, as the author series that began in 2001 continues to explore literature and the humanities.
 

Spring 2025 Freier Lecture

An Evening with R. F. Kuang

April 10, Coffman Union Great Hall

Join the Department of English at 7:30 pm on Thursday, April 10, 2025, as the Esther Freier Lecture Series presents Kuang (above), bestselling author of the Poppy Wars trilogy and Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution, which won the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel. Her most recent novel, Yellowface (William Morrow, 2023), grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation. A Marshall Scholar, Kuang has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale. A novel, Katabasis, is due next summer.

This in-person event is free and open to the public with prior registration, which will be opened in February. Live captioning and ASL provided. For further questions about accessibility services and the venue, please email [email protected] or call 612-626-1528. Presented by the Department of English.

More author readings are offered through our creative writing program's Edelstein-Keller Visiting Writer Series.

About Esther Freier

The Esther Freier literature series hosts two free lectures each year featuring various prize-winning authors, from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to David Mitchell, Maggie Nelson to Joy Harjo.

The literary legacy that Esther Freier envisioned began in 2001, when celebrated novelist and essayist Jamaica Kincaid inaugurated the Esther Freier Endowed Lecture in Literature series. A clinical laboratory chemist and professor, Freier had a deep and profound love for literature and the humanities. She wanted to leave a legacy that would benefit the public and inspire emerging authors. In her will, Freier created an endowment that would bring prize-winning national and international authors to campus for free, public lectures and informal visits with students.

Esther Freier was born in Hibbing, Minnesota, in 1925. She moved to Minneapolis while still a child and spent her entire academic (BS ‘46, MS ‘56) and professional career of 45 years at the University of Minnesota. She co-authored the first paper dealing with quality control in clinical chemistry, winning several awards. When she retired in 1991, she held the only endowed professorship in medical technology in the nation. That year, Freier served as the first woman president of the Academy of Clinical and Laboratory Physicians and Scientists and was re-elected the following year.

Esther Freier was a teacher, friend, and mentor to many. The Department of English is deeply grateful for her generosity to us, the University, and the community.

Previous Freier Lecturers

  • October 9, 2024: Hernan Diaz
  • April 24, 2024: Ross Gay & Aimee Nezhukumatathil
  • October 26, 2023: Jesmyn Ward
  • April 18, 2023: N. K. Jemisin
  • October 19, 2022: Joy Harjo & Layli Long Soldier
  • April 13, 2022: Jennifer Egan
  • March 24, 2021: Helen Oyeyemi
  • October 7, 2020: Alison Bechdel
  • October 23, 2019: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • October 4, 2018: Frank Bidart & Maggie Nelson
  • April 4, 2018: Young People's Lit Panel with M. T. Anderson, Kate DiCamillo, David Barclay Moore, and Nicola Yoon
  • October 25, 2017: Edwidge Danticat
  • April 13, 2017: Andrew Solomon
  • October, 2016: Claudia Rankine & Marilynne Robinson
  • April, 2016: Abraham Verghese
  • October, 2015: Jeanette Winterson
  • February, 2015: Lynn Nottage
  • October, 2014: James McBride
  • April, 2014: David Mitchell
  • October, 2013: Katherine Boo
  • April, 2013: Colum McCann
  • October, 2012: Zadie Smith
  • April, 2012: Denis Johnson
  • October, 2011: Philip Gourevitch
  • April, 2011: Natasha Trethewey
  • October, 2010: James Salter
  • April, 2010: Richard Powers
  • September, 2009: Maxine Hong Kingston
  • March, 2009: Louise Glück
  • October, 2008: Junot Díaz
  • March, 2006: Suzan-Lori Parks
  • November, 2007: Paul Muldoon
  • April, 2007: E. L. Doctorow
  • November, 2006: Bharati Mukherjee
  • April, 2006: T. C. Boyle
  • October, 2005: Philip Levine
  • April, 2005: Anna Deavere Smith
  • November, 2004: Rita Dove
  • April, 2004: A. S. Byatt
  • October, 2003: Arnold Rampersad
  • February, 2003: Michael Chabon
  • November, 2002: Edmund White
  • March, 2002: Barry Lopez
  • March, 2001: W. S. Merwin
  • February, 2001: Jamaica Kincaid