Chair of National Endowment for the
Humanities to speak at URI

KINGSTON, R.I.-- October 5, 1998 -- William H. Ferris, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, will discuss "Public Humanities in the New Millennium" with a panel of Rhode Island scholars Oct. 14 at the University of Rhode Island. The discussion will be held from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in Room 101 of the Multicultural Center on URI's Kingston Campus. It is free and open to the public.

Ferris was appointed last year to head the endowment, which supports libraries and museums as well as scholarly research. He was the founding director of the Center for Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, which has supported a variety of public humanities events, from meetings on the works of William Faulkner to an International Conference on Elvis Presley.

The moderator for the panel discussion will be Galen A. Johnson. He is professor of philosophy at URI and director of the university's Honors Program, as well as chairman of the board of the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities.

In addition to Ferris, panelists will be:

· Cheryl A. Foster, associate professor of philosophy at URI and a leader in the study of coastal aesthetics;

· Marie Jenkins Schwartz, assistant professor of history at URI and recipient of an NEH fellowship for work on her book, "Born in Bondage: Slave Childhood in Antebellum America";

· Norman Fiering, director of the John Carter Brown Center for the Humanities at Brown University; and

· Florence Friedman, curator of the "Gifts of the Nile" exhibit at Rhode Island School of Design.

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For More Information: Jan Sawyer, 874-2116