As part of the VOICES Reading Series at St. Mary's College of Maryland, Professor of English Jeffrey Hammond will read from his book Little BIG World at 8:15 p.m., Thursday, November 18, 2010, in Daugherty-Palmer Commons.

Little BIG World looks at how toys can serve as cultural artifacts, revealing a society's values.  "The American Fifties was a time of ideological rigidity. If toys from the Fifties teach us anything, it's how obsessed the era was with conformity and control," said Hammond.

Hammond has taught English and American literature, classical and biblical literature, and nonfiction writing at St. Mary's since 1990. His creative nonfiction has won two Pushcart Prizes, Shenandoah¹s Carter Prize for Essay, and the Missouri Review Editors Prize.

St. Mary's College of Maryland, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best public liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. More than 2,000 students attend the college, nestled on the St. Mary's River in Southern Maryland.