Mon. 7/16/12 Marjorie Garber's "Loaded Words"

Marjorie Garber's "Loaded Words"
What does a Shakespeare scholar have to say about Mad Libs, MAD Magazine, and Mad Men? A lot. And that's just the tip of the linguistic iceberg.

In her new collection of essays, Marjorie Garber looks at loaded words — words that are loaded because they have multiple meanings and words that are loaded because they are devoid of meaning and can be manipulated. We use loaded words every day to cloak our true intentions. Writers use loaded words to create literary nuance. Garber argues that all words are loaded, and that's what makes language matter.

Garber will be reading at 7pm tonight at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge.

Guests:
  Marjorie Garber, Professor of English and Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University and author of "Loaded Words"
  Alicia Anstead, editor of Inside Arts magazine and the Harvard Arts Beat Blog