Frieze Lecture Series

The Frieze Lectures, a free public lecture series created to celebrate the oldest library in Illinois founded under its Local Library Act of 1872, continues for its 28th year, from October 23 to November 13.

This year’s Frieze Lectures will consider subjects related to death, dying and mortality through four distinct lenses: anthropology, art, poetry, and psychology. All presentations begin at 2:00 p.m. at the downtown location of the Rock Island Public Library, 401 19th Street. All are open to the public, free of charge.

The 2025 series

October 23: Death and the Psychologist, presented by Dr. Jayne Rose, professor emerita of psychology.
October 30: Death and the Artist, presented by Dr. Margaret Morse, professor of art and art history.
November 6: Death and the Poet, presented by Rebecca Wee, professor of English and Quad Cities poet laureate emerita.
November 13: Death and the Anthropologist, presented by Dr. Adam Kaul, professor of anthropology.

The Frieze Lecture Series was created by the late Ruth Evelyn Katz, a library board member and 1938 graduate of Augustana College, to celebrate the library's 125th anniversary in 1998. The name comes from the architectural feature around the top of the historic downtown library building. The authors carved into the sandstone are Homer, Longfellow, Emerson, Virgil, Hugo, Shakespeare, Goethe, Burns, Hawthorne, Tegner, and Bancroft. Though not well known today, the names of Tegner, a Swedish poet, and Bancroft, a naval historian, would have been familiar to 1903 residents.