A talk about Franz Schubert and a poetry reading by David St. John will take place at UNLV in December as part of the University Forum lecture series.

"Franz Schubert's Vienna: City of Dreams and Nightmares" will be the topic when Alessandra Comini, a distinguished professor of art at Southern Methodist University, speaks on Dec. 6.

On Dec. 11, poet David St. John, a professor of English at the University of Southern California, will give a reading.

Comini's presentation about Schubert will be a slide-illustrated lecture with musical examples. It will explore the dark as well as the light side of Schubert's soul and native city, examining how the repressive political regime of his time and the Vienna Medical School's policy of therapeutic nihilism affected the work of the deceptively jolly composer.

The presentation about Schubert will take place at 1 p.m. in the Alta Ham Fine Arts building, Room 257.

St. John's poetry reading is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Dec. 11 in the auditorium of the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History.

He is the author of five books of poetry, including "Hush," "The Shore," "No Heaven," and "Terraces of Rain." St. John is both a former Guggenheim recipient and fellow of the American Academy in Rome.

Claudia Keelan, a poet and UNLV associate professor of English, describes St. John as the preeminent elegist of America -- a fact she says is clearly established by his latest book, "Study for the World's Body."

All University Forum lectures are free and open to the public.

The University Forum lecture series is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and underwritten by the UNLV Foundation. For more information on the series, call 895-3401.