Petrou Lectures

The Bebe Koch Petrou Speaker Series was established in 1990 through the generous gift of an endowment from the John and Bebe Petrou Foundation.

This series, the most prestigious in our department, honors Bebe Koch Petrou, the late wife of John Petrou and a Maryland graduate. Their son, David, an alumnus of our department, was instrumental, with his father, in setting up the original lecture series. In 2010 the Petrou family kindly allowed the English department to expand Petrou events to include writers-in-residence, readings, multiple lectures, and conferences. Petrou events are intended to be the “hallmark of distinguished academic excellence.”

The department’s signature series varies depending upon goals identified by the chair and others, but consistently brings top-rated scholars and authors to contribute vitality and currency to departmental conversations and inquiries.

• March 27–28, 2024: Displacements Symposium
• May 5, 2023: Public Humanities Symposium
• 2021–2022: Antiracism: Communities + Collaborations
• 2020–2021: Antiracism: Research • Teaching • Public Engagement
• April 25, 2019: Nikhil Pal Singh, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History; Faculty Directory NYU Prison Education Program. New York University. "The Subject of Black Radicalism" (Keynote Address for Genealogies + Futures of Black Aesthetics Conference)
• October 23, 2018: Viet Thanh Nguyen, Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California, "Refugees, Immigrants, Americans: Changing Our Stories" (ARHU Dean's Lecture Series, First Year Book, Im/Migration Initiative)
• September 14, 2017: Lisa Lowe, Distinguished Professor of English, Tufts University, “Archives, Materiality, History.” 
• March 10, 2017: Caryl Phillips, Professor of English, Yale University, “A Sense of Home”(Keynote for “Forming Black Britain Conference”). 
• October 22, 2015: Sianne Ngai, Professor of English, Stanford University, “Theory of the Gimmick.” 
• October 30, 2014: Bill Brown, Karla Scherer Distinguished Service Professor in American Culture, University of Chicago, “The Unhuman Condition (Hannah Arendt/Bruno Latour).” 
• March 27, 2014: Jonathan Sterne, James McGill Chair in Culture and Technology, McGill University, “Are People Analog?” (Keynote for “SoundPlus Conference”). 
• October 26, 2012: W.J.T. Mitchell, Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor in English and Art History, University of Chicago, “Seeing Madness.” 

Bebe Koch Petrou Biography

By David M. Petrou

The Bebe Koch Petrou Lecture Series was established at the University of Maryland in 1990, not only as a means of memorializing Bebe Petrou, but also to establish a program under the aegis of the English Department for bringing scholarly lectures to the University. Inviting authors and educators of established pedagogical credentials to bring new and innovative perspectives to the Department, students would have the opportunity to be actively and enthusiastically engaged in the learning process, through both questioning and lively discussion with these thought leaders.

Bebe Koch Petrou was born in New York and grew up there and in Los Angeles, California. During World War II, she enlisted in the WAVES, and it was during the war years that she met her future husband, John Petrou, who was an enlisted man in the U.S. Navy.

 The Petrous settled in Montgomery County, Maryland with their two children, Rebecca and David.  Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Bebe Petrou became involved in local politics and served as both Chair of the Montgomery County Landlord-Tenant Commission and the County’s Human Relations Commission. Guided by her strong convictions of equality and justice, in these roles Petrou was responsible for helping to bring integration to the County’s rental apartments and in getting the first African-American man hired by the Montgomery County Police.

 Unable to complete her college education during the war years, Petrou enrolled in the University of Maryland’s “Open University” program, which she relished and graduated from with great pride.  Further strengthening the bond between the University of Maryland and the Petrou family is the fact that both her daughter and son are fellow Maryland graduates, with David graduating with a degree in English.  Her grandson, Adam, also earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland’s English Department, marking three generations of ardent Terrapins.

 At the time of her death from cancer in 1984, Bebe Petrou was the proud grandmother of two grandchildren, Adam and Jennifer Lloyd, also of Montgomery County.