Fictionalized Women, Yiddish Whales, and Looted Art: A Conversation with Brett Ashley Kaplan and Katharine B. DuBois

In this lunchtime conversation, Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professor, Brett Ashley Kaplan and Professor of History, Katharine Dubois, discuss the production of historical fiction in both of their fictional works. Professor Kaplan is the author of Rare Stuff a literary novel set in the mid-1990s, which tells the story of Sidney Zimmerman, a slightly lost photographer working on an infinite series of portraits. After the sudden death of Sid's father Aaron, Sid and her boyfriend André trace a series of wacky clues Aaron irritatingly left to lead them to the solution of the mysterious disappearance of Sid's mother, a whale enthusiast named Dorothy, eighteen years earlier. Aaron also bequeathed them a manuscript sporting his wild ideas that his wife had been adopted by Yiddish speaking whales who try to save the planet.

Katharine Dubois (who publishes historical romance novels as Katharine Ashe), is a USA Today bestselling novelist of more than twenty historical romance, including three awarded places on Amazon's Best Books of the Year lists. She is a Lecturing Fellow in the departments of History & Religious Studies, and is a Duke alumna (Trinity '89). Her courses explore representations in popular culture of medieval religion, gender and sexuality, as well as the history of the popular romance novel and the romance fiction industry. She is the co-founder and host of the UNSUITABLE Speakers Series about women, history and popular fiction, and has hosted several authors and artists on campus.

This event is generous cosponsored by the Publishing Humanities Initiative at the Franklin Humanities Institute, and the Provost's Office.

Lunch will be offered, please RSVP to serena.elliott@duke.edu.