Lecture-Concert Series presents "Debating Race" with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson

Oct. 9, 2007 -- Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, one of the nation's most renowned public intellectuals, will be the featured speaker in the fifth event of Arkansas State University's 2007-2008 Lecture-Concert Series. Dyson will present a lecture, "Debating Race" on Friday, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m. in Riceland Hall, Fowler Center, 201 Olympic Drive. Dr. Dyson's appearance is co-sponsored by ASU's Office of Diversity Initiatives.
       
Named by Essence magazine as one of the country's 40 most inspiring African-Americans, Dyson was named by Ebony magazine as one of the country's 100 most influential black Americans. The Philadelphia Weekly contends that Dyson "is reshaping what it means to be a public intellectual by becoming the most visible black academic of his time." He is the author of fourteen books, a social analyst, and an ordained Baptist minister with a Ph.D. in religion from Princeton. He is also a former radio talk show host, and he is a nationally recognized academic expert on the hip-hop music genre.
       
On July 3, 2007, Dyson left the University of Pennsylvania after four years as Avalon Professor of the Humanities to serve as a university professor at Georgetown University, the nation's oldest Roman Catholic Jesuit University. There, Dyson will teach theology, English, and African-American studies. Dyson also previously taught at DePaul, Chicago Theological Seminary, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Columbia, and Brown.
       
Dyson's books include "Why I Love Black Women," "Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?" "Mercy, Mercy Me: The Art, Loves, and Demons of Marvin Gaye," "Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster," and  "Debating Race," his most recent book. He has appeared on the Today Show, Nightline, the O'Reilley Factor, the Travis Smiley Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, Rap City, Def Poetry Jam, and the Colbert Report.
       
In his author's message for the book "Come Hell or High Water," Dyson says, "Over the last fifteen years, I have had the extraordinary privilege to be an academic and a public intellectual-an engaged and politically active scholar devoted to changing the world as best I can with the gifts at hand... But my privilege also summons me to think sharply and substantively about a wide range of intellectual issues, and to address the social and moral crises of the culture. I have never, not for even a second, believed that one couldn't at the same time be smart and good, informed and involved, thoughtful and active. They are for me flip sides of the same vocational coin... In my mind, writing is thinking, struggling, fighting, imagining, loving, hoping, preaching, crying, wishing, and inspiring, all at once... What guides all of my thought and action is the belief that human beings who think creatively and act boldly can shape history and relieve suffering for the good of the neighborhood and the planet."
       
For more details, contact Dr. Gil Fowler, associate dean for the Honors College, at (870) 972-2308 or via e-mail at gfowler@astate.edu, or visit http://honors.astate.edu. After Oct. 28, contact Dr. Lillie Fears, fellow, Office of Diversity Initiatives, at (870) 972-3210, for details.
       
The Lecture-Concert Series presents diverse programs to enrich the cultural life of the campus, community, and region.

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