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<p><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Richard
Wright: A Centenary Celebration<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>The <a
href="http://beineckejwj.wordpress.com/jwj-collection/">James Weldon Johnson
Memorial Collection</a> at the Beinecke Library will cosponsor a centenary
celebration of Richard Wright’s writing and life on September 23, 2008,
from 4-6 pm in the lecture hall at the<a href="http://www.yale.edu/whc/">
Whitney Humanities Center</a>, 53 Wall Street, New Haven. The event is
cosponsored by the Whitney Humanities Center, the <a
href="http://www.yale.edu/afamstudies/">African American Studies Program</a>,
New Ideas in African American Studies, <a
href="http://www.yale.edu/calhoun/home.html">Calhoun College</a>, and the <a
href="http://www.yale.edu/english/">Department of English</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>The
event will include readings and talks by distinguished guests Ishmael Reed and
Darryl Pinckney, and Yale University faculty members including Caryl Phillips,
Jonathan Holloway, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Facsimile documents from
the <a href="http://webtext.library.yale.edu/xml2html/beinecke.WRIGHT.con.html">Richard
Wright Papers</a> at the Beinecke Library will be on display at the Whitney
Humanities Center for the event.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b>Ishmael
Reed</b> is the author of nine novels, six books of poetry, four books of
essays and six plays. The collected plays will be published in 2009 by Dalkey
Archives. His latest book is “Mixing It Up, Taking On The Media
Bullies.” He was named Blues Song Writer of the year in 2008 by The West
Coast Blues Hall of Fame for his song, recorded by Jazz Diva, Cassandra
Wilson,”The Prophet of Doom.” He is the publisher of Konch, and
makes his debut as a Jazz pianist on the CD “For All We Know” The
Ishmael Reed Quintet. He is a Yale Calhoun Fellow.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Novelist
and literary critic <b>Darryl Pinckney</b> is the author of the acclaimed novel
<em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>High Cotton</span></em>
and <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Sold and Gone</span></em>,
a study of African American literary history. Pinckney has been awarded the <em><span
style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Los Angeles Times</span></em> Book
Prize for fiction and the Harold D. Vursell Award for Distinguished Prose from
the American Academy of Arts and Letters.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Award
winning writer and dramatist <b>Caryl Phillips</b> is the author of plays
including <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Strange Fruit</span></em>
(1980), <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Where There is
Darkness</span></em> (1982) and <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>The
Shelter</span></em> (1983). His novels include <em><span style='font-family:
"Calibri","sans-serif"'>The Final Passage</span></em> (1985), <em><span
style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>A State of Independence</span></em>
(1986), <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>The Nature of
Blood</span></em> (1997), <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>A
Distant Shore</span></em> (2003) and <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Dancing
in the Dark</span></em> (2005). His non-fiction works include <em><span
style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>The European Tribe</span></em>
(1987), <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>The Atlantic Sound</span></em>
(2000), and <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>A New World
Order</span></em> (2001). He is Professor of English at Yale University.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b>Elizabeth
Alexander</b> is the author of several collections of poetry, including <em><span
style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>American Sublime</span></em> (a
finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Antebellum
Dream Book</span></em>, <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Body
of Life</span></em>, and <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>The
Venus Hottentot</span></em>. A collection of essays, <em><span
style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>The Black Interior</span></em>, was
published by Graywolf in 2004. She is a professor in the African American
Studies Program and the Department of English at Yale University.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Historian
<b>Jonathan Holloway</b> is the author of <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Confronting
the Veil: Abram Harris Jr., E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche, 1919-1941</span></em>,
the editor of Ralph Bunche’s <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>A
Brief and Tentative Analysis of Negro Leadership</span></em>, and the co-editor
of the anthology, <em><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Black
Scholars on the Line: Race, Social Science, and American Thought in the 20th
Century</span></em>. He is a professor of History at Yale University and in
2005 he became the eleventh master of Calhoun College, one of Yale’s
twelve residential colleges.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The Yale-Readings Listserv is sponsored by the Yale
Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
To post announcements about poetry and fiction readings, send the full text of
the announcement, including contact information, to <a
href="http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/yale-readings">nancy.kuhl at
yale.edu.</a> Messages sent directly to the Yale-Readings list may not be
posted. <br>
<br>
For more information about Poetry at the Beinecke Library, visit: <a
href="https://beineckepoetry.wordpress.com">https://beineckepoetry.wordpress.com</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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