William Murphy is honorary chairman and keynote speaker

William Murphy, Thomas Lamont Research Professor of Ancient and Modern Literature emeritus, was honorary chairman and keynote speaker at a conference, "The Prodigal Father: John Butler Yeats and His American Friends," recently in Chestertown, N.Y., where the Dublin native was buried in 1922. The Irish artist, whose contributions were overshadowed by his sons – poet William Butler Yeats and painter Jack Butler Yeats – was the subject of Murphy's 1979 biography, The Prodigal Father.