Published on October 31, 2019 by Sean Flynt  
Nandra Perry

Samford English alumna Nandra Perry ’92 will present a lecture on “Reading Reformed: Rituals of Reading in Early Modern England” Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019 at 7 p.m. in Brock Forum, Dwight Beeson Hall.

Perry is an associate professor of English at Texas A&M University as well as an Episcopal priest for a parish in Hearne, Texas. At Samford, she will contextualize the blossoming of literacy and literary culture in England within the religious upheavals that shaped both the Reformation and the early English book trade. Her lecture will address the questions of how the widespread availability of the Bible in print shaped popular understandings of why and how to read, the extent to which secular reading was shaped by conscious and unconscious habits or rituals of sacred reading, and how our modern habits of reading are shaped by this lost history.

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 5,791 students from 49 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.