The Society for the Humanities will present "After the Humanities," a lecture by Harvard University professor Marjorie Garber, Nov. 16 at 4:30 p.m. in the A.D. White House's Guerlac Room. The lecture is free and open to the public, with a reception to follow.

The lecture is the latest in the society's annual "Future of the Humanities" series, intended to reflect on the current status and evolving nature of the humanities and to chart future directions in scholarship and pedagogy.

Garber is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English and Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard and a leading international voice in Shakespeare studies, cultural studies, and the arts and humanities. Her lecture will address themes central to her two most recent books, "The Use and Abuse of Literature" (2011), which reflects on the value of literature in the digital age, and "Patronizing the Arts" (2008), which argues for the importance of the university's role in supporting the arts.

Garber's "Shakespeare After All" (2004) was awarded the 2005 Christian Gauss Book Award from Phi Beta Kappa. Her other books include "Profiling Shakespeare" (2008), "Academic Instincts" (2002), "Dog Love" (1996), "Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety" (1993) and "Shakespeare's Ghost Writers" (1987, republished in 2010).

She serves as a trustee and board member of the American Council of Learned Societies, The English Institute and the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes, among other organizations.

"Professor Garber is recognized as one of America's greatest authorities on the humanities," said society director Timothy Murray. "The society is honored by her agreement to deliver our annual lecture. As the former director of Harvard's Humanities Center and Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, she is distinctly positioned to lead us in a discussion on directions of the humanities."