Two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward (Salvage the Bones, Let Us Descend) will deliver the 2025 David P. Gardner Graduate Lecture in the Humanities and Fine Arts, followed by a book signing.
Brought to you by Tanner Humanities. This event is free, but tickets are required.
Jesmyn Ward, celebrated as “the heir apparent to Toni Morrison” (LitHub) and one of the most acclaimed novelists of her generation, will deliver the 2025 David P. Gardner Graduate Lecture in the Humanities and Fine Arts.
Book signing to follow, with sales by The King’s English Bookshop.
Ward is the author of Salvage the Bones (2011) and Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017), both winners of the National Book Award, as well as editor of the influential anthology, The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race (2016). Her work explores the rural South, race, environmental justice, and historical memory.
Her most recent novel, Let Us Descend (2023), an Oprah Book Club pick, was named one of the year’s best books by The Washington Post, Time, The New Yorker, and others. The title, drawn from Dante’s Inferno, reflects the novel’s engagement with history and spirit. NPR described it as “the literary equivalent of an open wound from which poetry pours.”
Ward is professor of English and Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Tulane University.
The David P. Gardner Graduate Lecture in the Humanities and Fine Arts is administered by the Tanner Humanities Center in collaboration with the College of Humanities and the College of Fine Arts. The Gardner Lecture was founded in the University of Utah Graduate School in honor of former President David Pierpont Gardner. The Gardner Lecture features distinguished scholars and artists from the humanities and the fine arts in alternating years. The lectureship is funded by the Tanner Lectures on Human Values.
The Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah supports academic research, public engagement, and educational programming in the humanities. Views expressed in events and programming do not represent the official views of the Center or University.
EVENT TYPE: | Performances & Presentations | Books & Reading |
NOTE: The Main Library's Rooftop Terrace is closed for renovations.
Salt Lake City's Main Library, designed by internationally-acclaimed architect Moshe Safdie in conjunction with VCBO Architecture, opened in February 2003 and remains one of the most architecturally unique structures in Utah. This striking 240,000 square-foot structure houses more than 500,000 books and other materials, yet serves as more than just a repository of books and computers. It reflects and engages the city's imagination and aspirations. The structure embraces a public plaza, with shops and services at ground level, reading galleries above, and a 300-seat auditorium.
A multi-level reading area along the Glass Lens at the southern facade of the building looks out onto the plaza with stunning views of the city and Wasatch Mountains beyond. Spiraling fireplaces on four floors resemble a column of flame from the vantage of 200 East and 400 South. The Urban Room between the Library and the Crescent Wall is a space for all seasons, generously endowed with daylight and open to magnificent views.
