Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, Discovery Channel founder John Hendricks will visit Syracuse University as part of University Lectures 2009-10 season

Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, Discovery Channel founder John Hendricks will visit Syracuse University as part of University Lectures 2009-10 seasonJune 24, 2009Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney and Discovery Communications chair John S. Hendricks join a lineup of distinguished speakers from around the globe who will educate and inspire the Syracuse University campus and greater Syracuse community during the University Lectures 2009-10 season.

Hendricks will speak on Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 4 p.m., and Heaney will speak on Tuesday, April 13, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. Both events will take place in Hendricks Chapel and are free and open to the public. Heaney’s lecture is co-sponsored by the Syracuse University Humanities Center.

Hendricks created Discovery Channel, the core property of Discovery Communications, in 1982 as the first cable network in the United States designed to provide high-quality documentary programming, enabling people to explore their world and satisfy their curiosity.

A visionary in the media industry, Hendricks has been the driving force behind Discovery’s dramatic growth, including the expansion of Discovery Communications to current global operations in more than 170 countries and territories with more than 1.5 billion cumulative subscribers. Under Hendricks’ leadership, Discovery’s stable of networks now encompasses more than 100 networks of distinctive programming representing 29 entertainment brands, including TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel and HD Theater. Discovery’s other properties include Discovery Education and Discovery Commerce.

Hendricks has been honored with a Primetime Emmy Award and with the Governor’s Award, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences highest honor, for conceiving the TLC series “Great Books.” The Ark Trust named him a recipient of the Genesis Award for lifetime achievement for his efforts in raising awareness around the globe about animal issues. Hendricks has also been recognized as the first corporate leader to receive the National Education Association’s Friend of Education award for “innovations in education and technology and greatly expanding educational opportunity for America’s schoolchildren.”

Heaney, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, has been called the most important Irish poet since William Butler Yeats.

His writing career began at Queen’s University in Belfast, where he published work in the university magazines under the pseudonym Incertus. His award-winning works include “Death of a Naturalist” (Faber and Faber, 1966), “Station Island” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984), “Seeing Things” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991) and “The Spirit Level” (Faber and Faber, 1996).

Heaney co-founded Field Day Publishing in 1983. He taught and served as a department head at Carysfort College in Dublin and was, at various stages in his career, a visiting professor, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Writer-In-Residence at Harvard University. He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University from 1989-94.

Heaney’s most recent publications include a translation of “Beowulf” (W.W. Norton & Co., 2000), “Opened Ground” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998) and “Electric Light” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001). His latest collection of poetry, “District and Circle,” was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2006. This year, Farrar, Straus and Giroux published “Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney” by Dennis O’Driscoll.

The other speakers in the University Lectures’ 2009-10 season will be:

• Khaled Hosseini, author of best-selling novels “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and founder of the Khaled Hosseni Foundation, Monday, Oct. 5, at 7:30 p.m. Hosseini will be interviewed by best-selling author Firoozeh Dumas for this event, which is co-sponsored by the Gifford Lecture Series;

• Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, Tuesday, Nov. 3, at 7:30 p.m., sponsored in cooperation with the Syracuse Symposium in The College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Human Ecology and the College of Law;

• Ira Glass, producer and host of Chicago Public Radio’s “This American Life,” Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 7:30 p.m., sponsored in cooperation with the Syracuse Symposium in The College of Arts and Sciences, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the School of Education;

• Alex Steffen, founder and executive editor of the Worldchanging website on sustainability, Tuesday, March 2, 2010, at 4 p.m.; and

• Scott Simon, host of National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition Saturday,” writer and novelist, Tuesday, March 9, 2010, at 4 p.m.

All lectures will be held in Hendricks Chapel, with reduced-rate parking available in the Irving Garage.

University Lectures is a cross-disciplinary lecture series that brings to the University individuals of exceptional accomplishment. The series is supported by the generosity of the University’s trustees, alumni and friends. The lectures are free and open to the public.

The Office of University Lectures welcomes suggestions for future speakers. To recommend a speaker, or for additional information about the University Lectures, please contact Esther Gray in the Office of Academic Affairs at 443-2941 or eegray@syr.edu.

More information can be found at the University Lectures website, http://lectures.syr.edu.