Author and Duke University Professor Houston A. Baker, Jr. will give a lecture at Hamilton College on Monday, Nov. 14, at 4 p.m. in the Chapel. The lecture, titled "Of Neo-Conservatism and Black Intellectuals," is free and open to the public.
Currently the Susan Fox and George D. Beischer Professor of English at Duke, Baker previously taught at Yale, the University of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania. He is the editor of American Literature, the oldest and most prestigious journal in American literary studies. Baker began his career as a scholar of British Victorian literature but made a career shift to the study of Afro-American literature and culture.
Baker has published or edited more than 20 books; his latest book is titled Remembering Race: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Betrayal of Black Intellectuals. (Harper Collins, 2004). Other recent books include Turning South Again: Rethinking Modernism, Re-Reading Booker T and Critical Memory: Public Spheres, African American Writing and Black Fathers and Sons in America. He has written more than 80 articles, essays and reviews, and is a published poet whose most recent title is Passing Over.
Baker has served in a number of administrative and institutional posts, including the 1993 president of the Modern Language Association of America. His honors include Guggenheim, John Hay Whitney and Rockefeller Fellowships, as well as 11 honorary degrees from American colleges and universities.
The Houston Baker lecture is sponsored by the President's Office.
