Maya Angelou to speak at Whitman College

Poet and novelist Maya Angelou,considered one of the great voices of contemporary literature, will speak at Whitman April 20. She is part of an impressive list of lecturers to visit the campus during the 2001-2002 academic year.

Angelou has written 11 best-selling books including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and the current Even The Stars Look Lonesome. In 1981, she was appointed to a lifetime position as the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. In January 1993, she became only the second poet in U.S. history to have the honor of reciting original work at the inauguration of a U.S. president.

tudents were treated to presentations by a number of distinguished visitors during the fall semester.

Former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky presented this year’s Walt Whitman Lecture. Pinsky, poet laureate from 1997 to 2000, teaches in the graduate writing program at Boston University. His books include critical works and the noted 1994 verse translation of The Inferno of Dante in addition to six books of poetry.

Also during the fall, ASWC sponsored a visit by Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who spoke on “Democracy, Justice, and the American Duopoly,” and noted civil rights attorney Morris Dees presented the annual William O. Douglas Lecture. Cofounder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Dees has taken on and defeated, primarily through lawsuits, the most racist organizations in the country including the Ku Klux Klan, The White Aryan Resistance, and the Aryan Nation.

Christopher Hitchens, columnist in The Nation, visited campus as this year’s Henry M. Jackson lecturer. Hitchens is the author of the recent The Trial of Henry Kissinger, in which he develops a case against Kissinger for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Other programs included the 2001 Skotheim Lecture presented by Ruth Schwartz Cowan, professor of history at State University of New York at Stony Brook. Her lecture was titled, “Can A Eugenic Policy Be Morally Right and Politically Correct?”