Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum Jennifer Banks will read from her fascinating and thought-provoking book Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth.  She will be joined in conversation by IWP Director Christopher Merrill. This special event has been co-sponsored by the University of Iowa Department of History, the International Writing Program, Digital Studio, and the Office of the Vice President for Research, and a grant from AHI.
“Banks’s insights are nothing short of revelatory. Using Arendt’s concept of natality, she charts a counter-philosophy to our traditionally death-bound thinking, reminding us of the prominence of creation stories and past traditions that link birth to creativity, change, and renewal.” ― Anna Katharina Schaffner
“To describe the revelation of Jennifer Banks’s Natality, I find myself reaching for words like original, fertile, generative―words to describe not only the book but the way it acts upon you, and upon the world. Natality is a work of astonishing brilliance, beauty, hope, and generosity. I know I’ll be buying it for everyone.” ― Devorah Baum
Jennifer Banks has been published in The Washington Post, Lithub, Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, Current, Comment, Big Think, The Boston Review,  and The Best American Poetry.  A graduate of Cornell University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is Senior Executive Editor at Yale University Press.  She lives in Massachusetts.