March
28, 2003 Double
Pulitzer Prize Winner Celebrates DuBois Book Centennial
|
Historian
David Levering Lewis |
Historian
David Levering Lewis, the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for
each of his two volumes on the life of scholar and author W. E.
B. DuBois, will give a talk titled "W. E. B. DuBois: The
Aristocrat at the Barricades," Thursday, April 3, at
7 pm in the Art Building's Gamble Auditorium. The talk,
part of the College's Mary Lyon Lecture Series, celebrates
the centennial of DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk, considered
a seminal work in the history of African American letters. Published
in 1903, the collection of fourteen meditations captures the historical,
sociological, biographical, political, and spiritual accomplishments
and challenges facing African Americans who sought to rebuild
and extend black institutional life after enslavement and Reconstruction.
Lewis is Martin Luther King Jr. Professor in the history department
at Rutgers University. His biographies of DuBois, W. E. B.
DuBois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 (Henry Holt
and Co., 1994) and W. E. B. DuBois: The Fight for Equality
in the American Century, 1919–1963 (Henry Holt and
Co., 2001), have received much critical acclaim.
"The poetry and passion of his descriptions of the effects
of racial oppression, the fierce commitment to racial equality
of his political and cultural criticism, the profound spirituality
grounding his reflections on loss and hope in black family life
are important parts of his legacy to all citizens of the United
States," said Lucas B. Wilson, associate professor and chair
of the African American and African studies program at MHC. Lewis
has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Woodrow
Wilson International Center, the Center for Advanced Study in
the Behavioral Sciences, the National Humanities Center, and the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Educated at Fisk
and Columbia Universities and the London School of Economics and
Political Science, Lewis is the author of several acclaimed books,
including King: A Biography,
When Harlem Was in Vogue, and The Race to Fashoda,
in addition to his works on DuBois. He and his wife live in Manhattan.
The lecture is sponsored by the African American and African
studies program, with additional support from the history department,
the College's inclusiveness fund, and the Purington Fund
of the Office of the Dean of the College.
The
counter is
1,550
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