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It is free and open to the campus and community.
Bateman's lecture, "I Hear America Tweeting: Whitman on Social Media," will examine the presence and influence of Walt Whitman's work within contemporary social media platforms.
An assistant professor at the University of Iowa, he earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas at Austin, an MFA in poetry, an MA in library and information science from the University of Iowa, and a BA in English from Washington University in St. Louis.
His research focuses on American cultural heritage, encompassing digital humanities, social media, archives, and 19th Century U.S. print culture. His current projects include a grant from the Institute of Museum & Library Services to investigate community memory in rural areas, and a book project, Lyric Publics: The Uses of Poetry in American Social-Media Campaigns.
Bateman's recent publications include "Whitman's Web: The Political Poet 2.0" in The Oxford Handbook of Walt Whitman (Oxford University Press, 2024), and forthcoming articles in Expressive Networks: Poetry & Platform Cultures and Nineteenth-Century Data Collective. He also serves on the advisory board of the Walt Whitman Archive.
Recent presentations include participation in panels at the American Literature Association, the Association for Library and Information Science Education, the Association for Small and Rural Libraries, and the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing.
The Victor J. Emmett Jr. Memorial Award and Lecture is sponsored by the Emmett family, the English Department, and The Midwest Quarterly, to commemorate the late Victor J. Emmett Jr., a professor of English at Pittsburg State University.
