Faculty Lectures and Talks
Showcasing Stony Brook Faculty
Provost's Lecture Series
Featuring SUNY Distinguished faculty
This series features SUNY Distinguished faculty. Two SUNY Distinguished faculty give presentations through the series every semester.
Past Provost's Lectures
Provost's Spotlight Talks
Highlight outstanding Stony Brook faculty and eminent visitors for their contributions to their field
Fall 2025 Spotlight Talk: Why Poetry?
Rowan Ricardo Phillips
Presidential Professor and Distinguished Professor of English
Rowan Ricardo Phillips is the author of seven acclaimed books of poetry, prose, and translation. His forthcoming nonfiction book, "I Just Want Them to Remember Me: Black Baseball in America," will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Twice long-listed for the National Book Award, he has received the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, the Nicolas Guillen Outstanding Book Award, and an Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
He is the Presidential Professor and Distinguished Professor of English at Stony Brook, the poetry editor of The New Republic, and editor of the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets.
Spotlight Talks Nomination Process
Members of the campus community are invited to nominate speakers for Spotlight Talks. Nominations are evaluated by a committee.
Submit your Spotlight Talk Idea
Past Spotlight Talks