2022 Writer-in-Residence
Brooke Hauser, Journalist, Editor and Biographer
Brooke Hauser was in residence in the UMass Amherst History Department during the week of March 28. A longtime journalist, Hauser formerly edited the Daily Hampshire Gazette newspaper in Northampton, Massachusetts and currently is an Assistant Arts Editor at the Boston Globe. She has reported and written for the New York Times, Allure, Marie Claire, The New Yorker online, and the Boston Globe Magazine, among other publications. For several years, she covered the film industry as a writer and editor at Premiere. She is also the author of two nonfiction books: Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman and The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens. Originally from Miami, FL, she is a New Englander-in-training.
2022 Writer-In-Residence Public Lecture
What’s the Meaning of Work?
Thursday, March 31, 6pm | In Person and by Zoom | Free and Open to All
For many people, the pandemic delivered a wakeup call about work. Your job doesn’t have to define you; if you’re lucky, you define your job. If you’re really lucky, your job is part of a career that feels more like a calling. This talk looked at the ever-evolving landscape of work — and the changing mindsets of workers — through a personal lens as well as examples from history, literature, pop culture, and the news. Particular attention was paid to working women, from the original “girl bosses” of the Baby-Sitters Club to the single women who looked to Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown for career advice to the droves of women who left the workforce during COVID-19 and the often-invisible labor of mothers. How can women better support each other and other underrepresented groups in and out of the workplace? What role can men play? And how can we be more thoughtful in talking about caregivers and emotional labor?
Location and Access Information
Flavin Family Auditorium is located in Room 137 of the Isenberg School of Management on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst (121 Presidents Drive, Amherst). Isenberg is located on Haigis Mall and is a short distance from the Robsham Visitors Center (300 Massachusetts Ave, $1.50/hour) and lot 34 (located on Massachusetts Ave directly west of the Visitors Center) which is free and open to the public after 5pm. There are several bus stops nearby. More information: bus schedule, campus map with Flavin and nearby parking indicated. Flavin Auditorium is wheelchair accessible. To request additional accommodations, email communications@history.umass.edu. More information: accessible parking, campus accessibility map.
Writer In Residence Program
The History Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is dedicated to the idea that an understanding of the past is essential to living in a vibrant democracy. As a measure of that commitment, the Department of History's Writer-in-Residence program facilitates sustained conversation with widely-read authors whose historical work engages broad public audiences.
Each year, with major funding from Five Colleges, Inc., we bring a writer of national prominence to campus for a week-long residency in order to give focused attention in our graduate training to writing for a range of audiences and in a variety of venues well beyond the monograph or scholarly article. Our guest visits courses and seminars, meets with students and faculty over coffee, lunches and dinners, and gives a public lecture on campus or in Amherst. The residency is embedded within our signature seminars, Writing History and History Communication. In this way, graduate students from UMass Amherst expand their ability to write for a wider array of readers, sharing the insights of our discipline both within the academy and well beyond.
