Georgetown University has announced a $4 million gift from alumnus J. Patrick Lannan ('60) and the Lannan Foundation to endow the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice.

Created in 1989 in the university's Department of English as a poetry series, the center has since added a fellows program and an events series that aims to advance cultural freedom through the arts, including an annual spring symposium. The gift will establish the center as an interdisciplinary program focused on the intersection between literary practice and economic and social justice, human rights, literacy, cultural freedom, environmental activism, and political dissidence.

Over the last twenty-five years, the center's programming has encouraged dialogue on topics ranging from the environment and economic instability to world literary culture and government surveillance and has included collaborations with Georgetown's School of Foreign Service; the departments of Government, History, German, Spanish, and Arabic Studies; Program on Justice and Peace; and the university's Lecture Fund. "The Lannan Center has exceeded our expectations in recent years and, speaking with Georgetown president John J. DeGioia, I realized that it could serve a more important role by reaching across disciplines," said Lannan. "This most recent gift will establish the center as an integral part of the university community and the D.C. literary landscape."

"Our entire community is so grateful to Mr. Lannan for his friendship, his long-term vision, and his enduring commitment to strengthening our university," said Georgetown provost Robert Groves. "With this most recent gift, the center will be strengthened as a university-wide resource for contemporary literary arts and the world republic of letters."