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Cheryl Wall, distinguished professor of English at Rutgers University, will deliver the keynote address for Lafayette’s celebration of Black History Month 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 8 in Kirby Hall of Civil Rights room 104.
Wall’s address, “From the Souls of Black Folk: An Ethic for the Twenty-First Century,” will use W.E.B. Du Bois’ text as a springboard for discussion on the moral values and intellectual principles required for a collective survival in the 21st century. She will emphasize the central roles of a liberal arts education, commitment to democratic citizenship, and cultivation of the arts.
Wall’s visit is part of Lafayette’s Presidential Speaker Series on Diversity and is also sponsored by the Office of Intercultural Development.
The series was initiated in 2000 to encourage intellectual discourse on diversity. Historian Douglas Brinkley, who authored a biography of Rosa Parks, was the inaugural speaker in the program. Other past lecturers have included Angela Davis, an activist and professor at University of California-Santa Cruz; David Levering Lewis, a Pulitzer Prize winner and recipient of the MacArthur Foundation’s Genius Grant; Oscar Arias Sanchez, former president of Costa Rica and 1987 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; Trevor Rhone, a Jamaican playwright and screenwriter; and Cristina Garcia, a Cuban-American author.
Wall is author of Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition and Women of the Harlem Renaissance. She has edited five more books, one of which is scheduled for publication in 2008, and authored articles, essays, and reviews for numerous academic journals.
Currently, she is collaborating with a colleague through a grant from the Ford Foundation on “Re-Affirming Action: Designs for Diversity in Higher Education.” They are identifying programs to encourage faculty participation in affirmative action initiatives.
Wall has been awarded the Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching, Rutgers Faculty of Arts and Sciences Award for Undergraduate Teaching, Presidential Award for Distinguished Public Service, and numerous fellowships.
Her teaching areas include African American literature, American literature, and feminist criticism. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University and a B.A. in English from Howard University.