Wayne State’s Center for the Study of Humanities will present renowned scholars Obioma Nnaemeka speaking on “Humanizing Globalization,” Brent Edwards on “Langston Hughes and the Futures of Diaspora” and a poetry reading by special guest Christopher Southgate, author of Poetry, Globalization, and the Ambiguous Role of Science. The conference, free and open to the public, will be held in the Alumni House, at 441 Ferry Mall, from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Fri., Mar., 24, 2006.

Edwards, associate professor of English at Rutgers University, is the author of The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Harvard University Press, 2003), and co-editor of Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (Columbia University Press, 2004). He is currently completing a book on jazz and literature titled Epistrophies.

Nnaemeka is a professor of French, Women’s Studies and African/African Diaspora Studies, and former director of the Women’s Studies Program, at Indiana University, Indianapolis. She studied French, German, and African Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (Nigeria), the former Université de Dakar (Senegal), Université de Grenoble (France), and the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis). She is the author/editor of nine books, including Engendering Human Rights: Cultural and Socio-economic Realities in Africa and the African Diaspora (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), Female Circumcision and the Politics of Knowledge: African Women in Imperialist Discourses (Praeger Publishers, 2005), Sisterhood, Feminisms, and Power: From Africa to the Diaspora (Africa World Press, 1998), and The Politics of (M)Othering: Womanhood, Identity, and Resistance in African Literature (Routledge, 1997).

Southgate is an honorary lecturer on Theology at the University of Exeter (U.K.). Trained originally as a research biochemist, he has also been a mental health chaplain, poet, editor and bookseller. He lectures on the relationship between science and religious faith and the application of Christian theology to the environmental crisis. He served as principal author and co-ordinating editor of a textbook on the science-religion debate. His most recent poetry books include: A Love and its Sounding: Explorations of T.S.Eliot (University of Salzburg, 1997), a verse biography of the poet with three critical essays; Beyond the Bitter Wind: Poems 1982-2000 (Shoestring Press, 2000); and Easing the Gravity Field: Poems of Science and Love (Shoestring Press, 2006).

Nine Wayne State faculty also will address the conference. Catherine Bogosian, assistant professor of History, will speak on “Labor, Obligation and Empire: Public Works in Colonial French West Africa;” Robert Burgoyne, professor of English, will speak on “The Epic Film in World Culture: Gladiator;” Sarika Chandra, assistant professor of English, will speak on “The End(s) of Travel: Re-Assessing Americanism in the Age of Globalization;” Beth Kangas, lecturer of Anthropology, will speak on “Valuing Life and Death in a Global World: Technological Medicine in Yemen and Arab Detroit;” Richard Marback, associate professor of English, will speak on “What Place the Taalmonument in the New South Africa? South African Language Policy and the Culture of Language;” Gordon B. Neavill, associate professor of Library and Information Science, will speak on “Scholarly Communication in the Global Digital Environment;” Frederic Pearson, director of the Center for Peace & Conflict Studies; and Vidya Ramaswamy, research associate at the Center for Peace & Conflict Studies, will speak on “The Impact of Immigration Patterns in Local Community Schools,” and Michael Scrivener, professor of English, will speak on “Habermas and the Cosmopolitan Ideal.”

For more information please call the Humanities Center at (313) 577-5471 or visit the conference web site, http://www.research.wayne.edu/hum/conferences/06.html.

Wayne State’s Humanities Center strives to promote discussion among faculty, students, visiting scholars and departments within the humanities and related disciplines.

Wayne State University is a premier institution offering more than 350 academic programs through 11 schools and colleges to more than 33,000 students.