|
Conference
at Barnard Examines Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston
Novelist and Poet Alice Walker to Deliver Keynote Address
|
Zora
Neale Hurston
|
Zora Neale
Hurston, novelist, anthropologist and a leading figure of
the Harlem Renaissance, will be the focus of a major conference
at Barnard College, her alma mater, on Thursday and Friday,
Oct. 2 and 3. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and poet Alice
Walker, whose 1975 essay "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston"
revived public interest in Hurston's writings, will be the
keynote speaker at 5:00 P.M. Friday, Oct. 3. The conference
will bring together Hurston's recent biographers and leading
scholars of her work.
The conference, "Jumpin' at the Sun: Reassessing the
Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston," is open to the
public, without charge, as is the keynote speech by Walker.
For more information and to register in advance for the conference,
please call the Barnard Center for Research on Women, (212)
854-2067 or visit www.barnard.edu/bcrw.
|
Alice
Walker
|
Walker,
famous for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Color
Purple, which became a popular film starring Oprah Winfrey,
is one of America's most admired and respected writers. Her
novels, including Possessing the Secret of Joy and
The Temple of My Familiar, poetry and essays explore
themes of gender, sexuality and race in the African-American
community. Her talk at Barnard is titled: "Finding a
World I Thought Was Lost: Zora Neale Hurston and the People
She Looked at Very Hard, and Loved Very Much." She will
speak in the LeFrak Gymnasium in Barnard Hall, located at
3009 Broadway at West 117th Street. Walker is the Virginia
Gildersleeve Professor at Barnard this fall.
Hurston, a member of the Barnard Class of 1928, wrote stories,
novels, anthropological folklore and an autobiography. Her
best known novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
traces a black woman's quest for identity through three marriages
and a journey back to her roots.
The conference will kick-off Thursday, Oct. 2, at 8 p.m. with
an evening of dramatic readings from Hurston's most influential
works presented by the Black Organization of Soul Sisters.
The group will be joined by Yale University Professor David
Krasner, author of A Beautiful Pageant: African American
Theatre, Performance and Drama in the Harlem Renaissance,
1910-1927.
On Friday, the conference opens at 10 a.m. and will feature
two panel discussions with leading biographers and writers
of Hurston, including Valerie Boyd (Wrapped in Rainbows:
The Life of Zora Neale Hurston), Cheryl Wall (Women
of the Harlem Renaissance) Ann DuCille (Skin Trade),
and Carla Kaplan (Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters).
Boyd and Kaplan will discuss the life of Hurston, moderated
by Robert Hemenway, author of Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary
Biography. Wall and DuCille will examine the legacy of
Hurston's work.
The program is part of the Books Etc. readings series this
fall by noted Barnard faculty, alumnae and visiting writers.
The series was organized as a salute to Columbia University,
Barnard's neighbor and affiliate across Broadway, in celebration
of the University's 250th anniversary. Other writers in the
series include Jhumpa Lahiri (Oct. 16), Anna Quindlen (Nov.
5) and Ursula Hegi (Nov. 18). For more information, please
visit www.barnard.edu/writers
|
