Vice Provost for Learning Innovation and Student Success and associate professor in the Department of English Gardner Campbell and his 403-level English class invite the university community to participate in a non-stop reading of John Milton's masterwork, Paradise Lost. 

The event takes place Saturday, March 26, beginning at 10 a.m. in the James Branch Cabell Library Reading Porch, an intimate, all-weather space on the third floor. 

This inaugural VCU Milton Paradise Lost Readathon joins a tradition of international Milton readathons that goes back more than a decade. Campbell has himself led 13 of these, first at the University of San Diego in 1992, and then for many years at the University of Mary Washington.

 

According to Campbell, "Students love the epic scale and sweep of adventure in Paradise Lost. They also love the way Milton engages the big questions---of gender, of government, of war, of ambition--that continue to be relevant to their own lives. The verse is spellbinding, especially when read aloud. Put it all together, and the result is a thrilling experience of one of the great works in the language."

 

The event is free and open to the public. The rules are few but important: Students get priority, and anyone in the room must be willing to read.