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Shepherd University Foundation and West Virginia Humanities Council to present Appalachian Heritage Award to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ISSUED: 31 August 2007 Editor's Note: Click on the thumbnail below for a printable image.
Shepherdstown, WV--The Shepherd University Foundation and the West Virginia Humanities Council will present African-American scholar and writer Henry Louis Gates, Jr., with the 2007 Appalachian Writer's Award and he will serve as Shepherd University's Writer-in-Residence. Gates will receive his award and deliver the Scarborough Society lecture "Speaking of Race and Appalachia," on Wednesday, October 3 at 8 p.m. at the Frank Center Theater. Dr. Gates, a West Virginia native, is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard. He is coeditor of Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience (1999) and responsible for launching Africana.com. Gates' Wonders of the African World was an acclaimed BBC/PBS television series in 1999. He has been host and scriptwriter for Frontline's "The Two Nations of Black America," (1998) and the PBS production American Beyond the Color Line (2004). Gates' awards include a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant (1981), the George Polk Award for Social Commentary (1993), the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award (1995), and he was named one of Time Magazine's 25 Most Influential Americans in 1997. Dr. Gates was a winner of a National Humanities Medal (1998), elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1999), and is a recipient of Carnegie, Phelps, Whitney Griswold, and National Endowment for the Humanities grants and fellowships. Gates received the Yale Afro-American Teaching Prize (1983), as well as recognition for his teaching and scholarship from the Zora Neale Hurston Society (1986), and the Whitney Humanities Center (1983-85). Gates was the first African-American awarded an Andrew Mellon Foundation fellowship, the first to receive a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, and over the years has received more than 31 honorary degrees. Dr. Gates' influential books include Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the "Racial" Self (1987), The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (American Book Award Winner 1989), Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (1992), Colored People: A Memoir (1994), Truth or Consequences: Putting Limits on Limits (1994), The Future of the Race (1996), and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man (1997). Dr. Gates' anthology editions include The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature (1996) and the Oxford-Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women Writers (1991). Gates grew up in Piedmont, a mill town situated in the Potomac Highlands of Mineral County. To support his family, Gates' father worked two jobs, one at the local paper mill and another as custodian at the phone company. His mother worked both outside as well as inside the home. The story of Gates' coming of age in the mountains of Appalachia and the close-knit African-American community of Piedmont is detailed in his award-winning memoir Colored People. The book serves as a chronicle for the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 60s and the transition from an officially segregated to an integrated America. The book also pays tribute to his parents whom Gates credits with instilling in him a striving for excellence and wish to serve both his country and his people. For more information visit http://wvcenterforthebook.lib.wv.us. For more information about residency events visit www.shepherd.edu/ahwirweb/ or contact Dr. Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt, Department of English and Modern Languages, at 304/876-5207 or 304/876--5220, or sshurbut@shepherd.edu. To purchase tickets to the Appalachian Heritage Festival Concert, contact Rachael Meads at 304/876-5113 or rmeads@shepherd.edu. This year's Appalachian Heritage Project is supported by funding from the Shepherd University Foundation, the West Virginia Humanities Council, and the West Virginia Center for the Book. -30-HORST |
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