DUKE UNIVERSITY NEWS
Duke University Office of News & Communications
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, April 6, 2009
CONTACT: Andrea Fereshteh
(919) 681-8055
andrea.fereshteh@duke.edu
DUKE INSTITUTE HONORS SCHOLARSHIP AND ACADEMIC TRADITION OF JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN
DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University’s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI) is hosting several upcoming events paying tribute to the scholarship and academic tradition of John Hope Franklin, who died last month. Most events are free and open to the public.
“At the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, we intend to commemorate Dr. Franklin in the way he would have wanted the most, by advancing his declared mission to feature cutting-edge interdisciplinary and international scholarship through our academic programming,” said Srinivas Aravamudan, professor of English and director of the FHI.
On Wednesday, April 8, Jelani Favors, assistant professor of history at Morgan State University, will give a talk, “Let Me Live in the Heights of My Time: Black Colleges and the Legacy of Idealism and Activism in Education,” at noon in Room 240 at the John Hope Franklin Center. Favors, one of three faculty members from a historically black college and university (HBCU) in residence at the FHI this year, will discuss his recent research on the role of student activists at HBCUs and their contributions to the greater civil rights movement. William Chafe, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History at Duke, will introduce Favors at the event.
From April 13 to 22, Justice Yvonne Mokgoro of the Constitutional Court of South Africa will be at Duke as part of the FHI’s Distinguished Scholars in Residence program. The first black woman to serve on the court, Justice Mokgoro will participate in a series of engagements during her residency, including public lectures on campus, meetings with Duke students and a workshop with Durham community service lawyers and activists. She will also participate in an interview with Duke faculty members Catherine Admay, Diane Nelson and Ebrahim Moosa for the Living History program at the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy. For details, visit: tinyurl.com/c5msjr.
On May 1, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the FHI’s three 2008-2009 HBCU Faculty Fellows will participate in a symposium and workshop to discuss ways in which John Hope Franklin’s vision can interconnect scholarly communities focused on the arts and the humanities and foster institutional collaborations. In addition to Favors, the HBCU Faculty Fellows include Dana Williams, associate professor of English at Howard University, and Fatimah Tuggar, who most recently taught art at Winston-Salem State University. Tuggar’s artwork will also be on exhibit at the Franklin Center beginning April 16.
For a complete schedule of events and more information, visit: fhi.duke.edu.