New novel set during WWI topic for public lecture

For the Metro Wire

“Foreign Born,” John Herrmann’s novel of the Midwestern home front during the Great War, went unpublished during his lifetime. Learn more about this book, and how a University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point faculty member worked to bring it into a wider literary world, at a free lecture.

“The Great War in the Midwest: Publishing John Herrmann’s ‘Foreign Born’,” will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13, presented by Ross Tangedal, assistant professor in the UW-Stevens Point Department of English. Held in the Pinery Room of the Portage County Public Library, 1001 Main St., Stevens Point, this is the third talk in the eight-part 2018-2019 Community Lecture Series. The public may attend free of charge.

“Beginning in 1925, Herrmann drafted a searing tale of the paranoia, nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment that plagued the American home front from 1914-1918,” Tangedal said. “This presentation will cover Herrmann’s literary style, his ‘new’ novel and what it takes to excavate, edit, design, and market the lost novel of a forgotten writer.”

Tangedal has been an assistant professor of English and publisher-in-chief of the Cornerstone Press at UW-Stevens Point since 2016. He specializes in American print and publishing culture, textual editing, book history and the profession of authorship, with emphases on Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Midwestern literature. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Montana State University and his Ph.D. from Kent State University.

For more information on the Community Lecture Series, visit www.uwsp.edu/cols/lectureseries or email [email protected].