Carolyn Dinshaw, expert on medieval literature, will speak this afternoon about the links between Geoffrey Chaucer's poetry and issues of sexuality.

The lecture will begin at 4 p.m. in the Mt. Nittany Room of the Nittany Lion Inn.

Her talk begins the English department's "Millennium Approached: Queer Literary Studies in the 21st Century" lecture and discussion series. The series coincides with the 10th anniversary of the Commission on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equity and will bring five more speakers to campus this year.

"I'm very happy that we're going to inaugurate the series," said Vincent Lankewish, assistant professor of English, who is coordinating Millennium Approached.

Lankewish said he decided to create the series after working on an essay about the same topic for publication.

Dinshaw is a professor of English at New York University, as well as the director of that university's Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality. Her lecture is titled "Pale Faces" and will give a view of older literature in a new light.

"It's really a great opportunity for students and faculty and staff to revisit traditional authors from English literature and think of them in new ways," Lankewish said. "To ask questions about Emily Dickinson or Shakespeare or Chaucer that we might not have asked 20 or 30 years ago."

Deborah Clarke, director of the American studies program, said she looks forward to Dinshaw's lecture and the rest of the series.

"I think it's a great series that he's (Lankewish) put together," she said. "I'm really looking forward to it."

The series was set to begin on the afternoon of Sept. 11 with Michael Warner from Rutgers University speaking on the topic of "Queer Norms," but the talk was cancelled and will be rescheduled for Spring Semester.

Lankewish said he hopes that by having the lecture series "we can resume the important scholarly work that we have to do, even as we're still contending with the after effects of the Sept. 11 tragedy."

He said gender and sexuality issues are gaining importance in more fields than just literature, saying that they affect the study of history, art and even the sciences when taken into consideration.

"The long term goal . . . is to recognize that this is a growing field that's going to continue to be a presence in universities across the country," Lankewish said.