The Burack President's Distinguished Lecture Series will bring two scholars to campus next week. Paul Michael Lützeler, director of the Max Kade Center for Contemporary German Literature, at Washington University in St. Louis, will deliver a lecture titled, "Writers on the Old World: Competitions between the American and European Dream." Susan Handy, director of the Sustainable Transportation Center at the University of California Davis, will speak on "The Role of the Built Environment in Reducing Driving and Promoting Active Travel."

Lützeler, who also holds the tile of Rosa May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities, has an international reputation in German studies and comparative literature. His publications on a wide variety of themes and genres include path-breaking books on the contributions of European writers to developing the ideal and the reality of modern Europe.

For his Burack Lecture, which will be held Monday, Sept. 26 at 4 p.m. in North Lounge, Billings, Lützeler will take a different perspective on the topic of Europe. During the last two hundred years, U.S. writers have looked at Europe with disgust or with admiration, with irony or with enthusiasm, either confirming the superiority of the American Dream or challenging it by constructing a competing European Dream as an alternative.

Handy, chair of UC Davis' Department of Environmental Science and Policy,  researches the relationships between transportation and land use. She is internationally known for her studies of the connection between neighborhood design and travel behavior, and her current work focuses on understanding of the choice to bicycle as a mode of transportation. She is a member of the Committee on Women’s Issues in Transportation of the Transportation Research Board, has served on committees of the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, and is on the editorial board of several international journals. She will speak Tuesday, Sept. 27 at 4 p.m. in the Davis Center's Jost Foundation Room.

Information on Lützeler's lecture: (802) 656-1476.
Information on Handy's lecture: (802) 656-1312.