‘Doonesbury’ cartoonist Garry Trudeau to be first guest of SU’s 2004 Syracuse Symposium

‘Doonesbury’ cartoonist Garry Trudeau to befirst guest of SU’s 2004 Syracuse SymposiumSeptember 13, 2004Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

Note to editor: A high-resolution digital image of Trudeau is available from SU News Services, 443-3784.

“Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau will kick off the 2004 Syracuse Symposium, hosted by Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, with an appearance on the SU campus on Sept. 21.

Trudeau will speak at 7:30 p.m. in Hendricks Chapel. The event, co-sponsored by Pulse and The Soling Program, is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Irving Garage.

In conjunction with Trudeau’s visit, an exhibition of “Doonesbury” cartoons will be on display in the Schine Student Center’s Panasci Lounge from Sept. 12-26. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-10 p.m. daily.

Trudeau launched “Doonesbury” in 1970, and it now appears in nearly 1,400 daily and Sunday newspapers in the U.S. and abroad. His work has been collected in nearly 60 hardcover, trade paperback and mass-market editions, which have cumulatively sold over 7 million copies worldwide. In 1975, Trudeau became the first comic strip artist ever to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. He was also a Pulitzer finalist in 1989.

Trudeau wrote and co-directed the animated film, “A Doonesbury Special” for NBC-TV in 1977. The film was nominated for an Academy Award and received the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Collaborating with composer Elizabeth Swados in 1983, Trudeau wrote the book and lyrics for the Broadway musical, “Doonesbury,” for which he was nominated for two Drama Desk Awards. In 1988, Trudeau wrote and co-produced HBO’s “Tanner ’88,” a satiric look at that year’s presidential election campaign. The show won several awards in the U.S. and abroad, including the gold medal for Best Television Series at the Cannes Television Festival, and Best Imported Program from the British Broadcasting Press Guild. “Tanner ’88” also earned an Emmy as well as four ACE award nominations.

Trudeau has received honorary degrees from Yale, Colgate, Williams, Duke and 18 other universities. He has been inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has contributed articles to publications such as Harper’s, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, The New Yorker, New York, and The Washington Post. For five years he was an occasional columnist for The New York Times op-ed page, and is currently a contributing essayist for Time magazine.

Syracuse Symposium is an intellectual festival, hosted by The College of Arts and Sciences, which celebrates interdisciplinary thinking, imagining and creating. The theme for the Fall 2004 Symposium is humor. Other keynote speakers and performers scheduled for this semester include documentary filmmaker Michael Moore (Sept. 22); The Capitol Steps political satire group (Oct. 12); writer and satirist P.J. O’Rourke (Oct. 19); Muslim stand-up comic Shazia Mirza (Oct. 25); New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff (Oct. 28); University of Chicago philosophy professor Ted Cohen (TBA); and actress and performer Anna Deavere Smith (Nov. 18).

More information on the Syracuse Symposium speakers, performances and exhibits can be found on the Web at http://symposium.syr.edu.