January 19, 2011
Inaugural poem author to speak at UW Jan. 27
Elizabeth Alexander
America has always been a nation of immigrants. Our voices have always sung in varied registers. And now our president – a Kenyan and African-American raised in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and Asia — represents the many layers and complexity of American culture. It is time, poet Elizabeth Alexander says, for Americans to begin a more nuanced civic conversation about race and culture.
Alexander, who wrote and delivered President Obamas inaugural poem, Praise Song for the Day, will address these ideas when she speaks at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 27, in 130 Kane. Alexander has published several books of poems, including The Venus Hottentot, Body of Life, Antebellum Dream Book and American Sublime, which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and was one of the American Library Associations “Notable Books of the Year.”
Most recently, her first young adult collection (co-authored with Marilyn Nelson), Miss Crandalls School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color won the 2008 Connecticut Book Award. Her two collections of essays are The Black Interior and Power and Possibility, and her play, Diva Studies, was produced at the Yale School of Drama. Alexander teaches at Yale University where she is a professor and chairs the African American Studies Department.
Alexanders lecture is the second in a three-part public lecture series focusing on the concept of diversity. Hosted by the Graduate School and the Graduate Opportunities & Minority Achievement Program (GO-MAP), with generous sponsorship by the Mary Ann and John D. Mangels Endowment, this public lecture series feature world-class speakers who will share their reflections on diversity in the United States.
The lecture is free and open to the public, but registration is required to guarantee a seat.
The third Mangels lecturer is astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who will address the Adventures of an Astrophysicist at 6:30 p.m., May 12 in 130 Kane. His lecture is presented in partnership with the Jessie and John Danz Endowed Lecture Series. Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, is looking forward to what the Obama space plan and the search for life can do to promote a thriving future of space exploration and transportation.
The Mary Ann and John D. Mangels Endowed Lecture Series was established in 1990 to honor the retirement of John D. Mangels, former chairman and CEO at Security Pacific Bank of Washington (now Bank of America). Administered by GO-MAP, the Mangels Lectureship, in cooperation with academic departments and programs, brings to the UW campus minority scholars or individuals whose work focuses on issues of diversity, from a variety of fields for the benefit of minority students, the campus community, and the general public.
