Laila Amine, an author and associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be the featured speaker Sept. 19 at Wartburg College’s annual Michaelson, Briner & Kildahl Literary Symposium.

“Blaxit to Europe: James Baldwin’s Journey of Contradictions and Colorlines” will begin at 6:30 p.m. in McCaskey Lyceum in the Saemann Student Center. Amine will discuss her not-yet-published second book, “Native Sons: African Americans’ Search for Home in the Era of Decolonization.”

“Native Sons” challenges the conventional narrative of success for African American writers in post-World War II Europe by examining the recurring motifs of return and alienation in their fiction and life writing from the 1940s to the 1970s.

“I am thrilled at the opportunity to engage with the Wartburg community about my ongoing research about James Baldwin, one of the most celebrated 20th-century American authors, who was not only continually confronted by his inescapable Americanness in post-1945 Europe but also by his African inheritance.”

Amine earned a Master of Arts in African American and African diaspora studies and a doctorate in comparative literature and American studies from Indiana University.

“We are excited to welcome Dr. Amine to Wartburg. Her groundbreaking new research about the exit of black intellectuals from the United States following World War II sheds new light on the understanding of canonical American authors, like James Baldwin, in the European, American and Pan-African context,” said Zak Montgomery, Wartburg’s Harry and Polly Slife Professor in Humanities.

The Michaelson, Briner & Kildahl Literary Symposium is presented by the Slife Professorship in Humanities with generous support from Steve and Jane Noah and other donors to the MBK Endowment. The event is co-sponsored by the Saemann Chair in World Communities and the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies.

The symposium was created through a leadership gift commitment from the Noahs and Dale and Judy Goeke in support of an annual event that would bring an author, poet or other literary figure to campus to engage students, faculty, staff and the broader community in activities to stimulate critical thought. It celebrates the legacy of former Wartburg English professors Sam Michaelson (1966-92), K.D. Briner (1966-76) and Phillip Kildahl (1961-77 and 1980-82).