November 16, 2022 2022 Tannenbaum Lecture Hecuba’s Howl: Poetry as Feminist Lament This talk includes a reading from my newly published poetry collection, Year of the Dog, a Latina chronicle of the Vietnam War era, and a discussion of the tradition and function of feminist elegy during times of disaster and atrocity. The talk interweaves my perspective as the daughter of a Mexican immigrant Vietnam veteran with other stories of historical and mythic women responding to Vietnam and other forms of warfare—as warriors, widows, antiwar activists, and witnesses of violence. Drawing from the mythic figure of Hecuba, who committed herself so fully to her grief in response to the horrors of war that she was transformed into a howling dog, I explore how female figures have brought about transformations in the private and public realms as a result of their acts of lamentation. DEBORAH PAREDEZ is a poet, performance scholar, and an Associate Professor of Professional Practice in the School of the Arts’ Writing Program and in the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. Her writing and teaching explores the workings of memory, poetry of witness, and Black and Latinx performance. She is the author […]