Before Margaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” began speaking at Syracuse University on Thursday evening, women’s and gender studies professor Vivian May gave an introduction speech. May got halfway through listing all of Atwood’s awards before the acclaimed author teasingly gestured in the background for May to “get on with it.”

Atwood, who has written more than 40 works of literature, spoke with Dana Spiotta, a novelist and professor of English at SU, in front of more than 100 people at Hendricks Chapel in the second 2018 University Lectures series event of the semester. The two discussed the current political climate in the U.S., Atwood’s literary legacy and activism, and how Atwood’s lifelong interest in science still impacts her writing.

Her biologist father inspired a lifelong passion for science that has shaped much of her work, Atwood said. She used to write by the light of a kerosene lamp as a child growing up in the Canadian woods and later wrote for a literary magazine in college, activities that were just the beginning of a more than 50-year writing career.

Now, Atwood said she tends to write whenever she gets the chance because she can rarely write without interruption. Her advice for clearing writer’s block is to sleep, go for a long walk or do something physically repetitive.

The 78-year-old author is also outspoken about social and environmental issues. She talked about co-founding the English chapter of PEN Canada, an organization advocating for jailed and oppressed writers, in the 1980s.

“I’m doing what I always did. Nothing’s changed except I got older and more well-known,” Atwood said.

Totalitarian regimes and the anxiety surrounding the current U.S. political climate were recurring topics during the lecture. “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which was adapted into a Hulu series that premiered in 2017, was partly an attempt to answer the question of what a totalitarian regime in the United States would be like, Atwood said. One student asked the author if she thought the U.S. was approaching a point where it may tip into totalitarianism.

Atwood said she didn’t think so because of the size and diversity of the country as well as its long civil rights traditions. She doesn’t think the country will “roll over” easily for a completely totalitarian government, she said.

The fact that an event like this lecture could occur is a sign that political conditions are not as bad as they could be, Atwood added. But the author also stressed the importance of reproductive rights and her view of gender as a bell curve and spectrum.

“The more gender equality there is in a society, the less abuse there is,” Atwood said. “Because abuse has a lot to do with respect, and a lack of respect has a lot to do with inequality.”

Atwood said her brand of feminism focuses on changing laws and policies and making the world fair for men and women.

At one point during the lecture, Atwood briefly addressed the audience and asked, “By the way, why don’t you vote this time?

“The world will not be saved unless it’s a general participation,” she said.

Published on October 26, 2018 at 1:23 am

Contact Mary: mdcatalf@syr.edu | @mrycatalfamo