Celebrated author Henry Louis Gates Jr. will present 2004 Milton Freshman Lecture at Syracuse University

Celebrated author Henry Louis Gates Jr. will present2004 Milton Freshman Lecture at Syracuse UniversitySeptember 29, 2004Edward Byrnesedbyrnes@syr.edu

Editor’s note: The lecture is only open to freshmen in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences and members of the media. If you are a member of the media and are planning to attend, please contact Edward Byrnes at the number above so that proper arrangements can be made.

Esteemed author and historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. will present this year’s College of Arts and Sciences Milton Freshman Lecture, “W.E.B. DuBois and the African Encyclopedia,” Oct. 5 at 7:30 p.m. in the Schine Student Center’s Goldstein Auditorium. The 2004 Laura Hanhausen Milton Freshman Lecture is open to the entire entering class of Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences and is part of the College’s Freshman Forum program.

Gates is one of America’s leading cultural critics and has authored many works, including “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man,” “Colored People: A Memoir,” “Loose Canons” and “Figures in Black.” He is also the co-editor of the remarkable “Encarta Africana,” a two-million word, pan-African encyclopedia, and editor of the “Norton Anthology of African Literature” and of “The Bondwoman’s Narrative” by Hannah Crafts. He also created and hosted PBS’s America Behind the Color Line, and The Wonders of the African World,” and wrote both companion volumes. He currently chairs the African and African American Studies Program at Harvard University, where he is also W.E.B. DuBois Professor of the Humanities and director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute.

Gates earned his bachelor’s degree in history, summa cum laude, from Yale University and his master’s and doctoral degrees in English language and literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. A recipient of many awards and honors, including a MacArthur Prize, he was awarded the National Humanities Award by President William Clinton in 1998 and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999.