Writer and scholar Travis Scholl’s “Reading Lyric: Essay and Archive” has been published in Fourth Genre 19:2 (Fall 2017), 165-170. The essay arose from Scholl’s talk as part of the panel “The Lyric Invitation: Readers as Collaborators” at the AWP Conference in Washington DC, February 2017.

The essay explores the nonfiction subgenre of the lyric essay by delving into lyric theory. It includes a rumination on marginalia written by James Weldon Johnson in a notepad in the James Weldon Johnson Papers (JWJ MSS 49,Box 65, Folder 268 – see below).

Travis Scholl is currenlty completing his dissertation in the PhD program in English and Creative Writing at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He is the managing editor of theological publications at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Travis spent two weeks in October 2016 working with the James Weldon Johnson Papers with funding from the Hocks Fellowship at the University of Missouri.

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The Beinecke Library encourages scholars, students, and the public to engage the past in the present for the future. In the service of new scholarship, the library offers generous fellowships for visiting scholars and for graduate students to support research in a wide range of fields. Learn more about fellowship opportunities.