During my first semester at Baker, I took a course called Introduction to Literature. Why I took this course, I have no idea. I was not an English major, nor would the class be worth a gen-ed credit with the Quest program. Despite all this, I took the class, and in it we read a book called The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. The novel was a dark, dystopian look at how America could look if religious extremists took over, and how it would affect women specifically.

Fast forward to Feb. 2. I am now an English major, have taken numerous literature courses, and was on my way to hear my first author lecture. The featured speaker was Margaret Atwood at the University of Kansas.

Atwood, now 75, gave a lecture about how different academic disciplines are entwined, and that only from combining different fields can humans progress. While this may sound like a dry subject, the title of the lecture set the tone: “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? The arts. The sciences. The humanities. The inhumanities. The non-humanities. Zombies thrown in extra.”

She stayed true to the title.

From the moment Atwood started to speak, it was clear which topic she was most passionate about: environmental preservation. Whatever topics she spoke of, regardless of how seemingly random they were, tied perfectly into this idea.

Despite being a writer of mainly fiction, she heavily referenced science in order to keep the theme of the lecture, combining fields of study. One of her favorite subjects, and what seemed to be an audience favorite, was her numerous allusions to whale genitalia. While used as a humorous shock-gag at first, Atwood managed to take a seemingly vulgar topic and morph it into a jab at America’s ignorance toward nature. She noted how at a Canadian dinner party, the American guests were unaware that whales had genitalia.

Even the zombies, which she advertised so heavily in the title, made a relevant appearance in the speech. She portrayed the current zombie-movie craze as an outlet for America’s fear of annihilation, of nature taking revenge against us. While this is not a wholly original concept, it did seem relevant. And yes, she discussed zombie genitalia, too, in relation to the movie “Warm Bodies”.

As I left the lecture, reflecting on the ideas she presented before me, I could not help but reflect on myself and how I had changed since I first read her novel. Though I do not live in fear of the dead rising or of leviathans from the deep, I like to think that Atwood and the books she writes have had an impact on my intellectual as well as personal life.