William R. "Bill" Ferris, one of the best-known scholars of the American South, will present the featured lecture at this year's Delta Blues Symposium on Friday afternoon, March 28, at 4:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Arkansas State University Museum, room 157. 

A native of Yazoo City, Miss., Ferris will consider "Memory and Sense of Place in the Delta." The former director of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ferris is now the Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also serves as senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South.

Co-editor of the monumental Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, published in 1989, Ferris is author of more than 100 publications in folklore, American literature, fiction, and photography. In 1995, President Bill Clinton awarded Ferris the Charles Frankel Prize in recognition of his contributions to the public's understanding of the humanities. He also has received two major recognitions from the French government, a "Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters" in 1985 and an "Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters" in 1994. Rhodes College bestowed on Ferris an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts in 1997.

A graduate of Davidson College in North Carolina, Ferris received his Ph.D. in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania. His scholarly books and documentary films have presented a mosaic of the peoples and cultures of the South, especially the Mississippi Delta and its musical traditions. 

He has served as a consultant for Hollywood films such as The Color Purple, Crossroads, and Heart of Dixie. Ferris has made over 225 presentations to audiences in 14 countries and was named one of the top 10 teachers in the nation by Rolling Stone magazine in 1991. 

Ferris' lecture at the Symposium is sponsored in part by the ASU Heritage Studies Ph.D. Program and the Office of the President. It is free and open to the public. For more information on Delta Blues Symposium events, call 870-972-3043 or see the Symposium website at www.clt.astate.edu/blues.
 

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