Five years ago, the DePaul Humanities Center hosted “24 Hour George Saunders,” a marathon, public reading of every story in every book that best-selling author and MacArthur “genius grant” winner George Saunders has ever published, which culminated in a new lecture by Saunders in the final hour entitled, “Why the Humanities? Why Art?”

Celebrity readers included Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Academy Award nominee Jesse Eisenberg, and George Saunders in the penultimate hour. Other DePaul faculty and students—as well as Chicago artists, authors, scholars, and celebrities—read stories from each of the books.

Join us, by clicking the link below, as we relive the marathon! A truly wonderful celebration of the humanities and the community. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcH21O-8NwQ&list=PL8Cs7hCLmumZUaCo-0HCb2ehXanJeeU5E

George Saunders is a New York Times bestselling author who is known for his collections of short stories. His works include Congratulations, By the Way, Tenth of December, and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. Born in Amarillo, Texas, Saunders grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago. He earned a degree in exploration geophysics from the Colorado School of Mines. After spending time as a geophysicist on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, Saunders returned to the United States to pursue a writing career. In 1992, his short story “Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz” became the first of many of his works that would be published in The New Yorker. In 2001, Saunders was selected by Entertainment Weekly as one of the 100 most creative people in entertainment, and by The New Yorker in 2002 as one of the best writers 40 and under. In 2006, he was awarded both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship. In 2009, he received an Arts and Letters Award in literature (formerly Academy Award) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Saunders earned a master’s degree from Syracuse University, where he has been teaching in the Master of Fine Arts program since 1996.