Noted Biographer and Educator to Speak at Hamilton

Arnold Rampersad, who collaborated with ArthurAshe on his biography, Days of Grace: A Memoir, will speak at HamiltonCollege on Wednesday, April 10, at 8 p.m., in Dwight Lounge of the BristolCampus Center. The lecture, which is sponsored by the Wertimer Professorshipand the philosophy department, is free and open to the general public.

Rampersad, a native of Trinidad, came to the United States to attend BowlingGreen University in Ohio, where he received a bachelor's degree in English in1967 and a year later, his master's degree. In 1969, he also received amaster's degree from Harvard University and obtained a Ph.D. in 1973, laterreturning to the Department of Afro-American Studies as a visiting professor.

Currently Woodrow Wilson Professor of English and director of American studiesat Princeton University, Rampersad has also taught at the University ofVirginia, as well as the universities of Stanford, Rutgers and Columbia . Hehas held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, theRockefeller Foundation, the Center for Advanced Studies in the BehavioralSciences and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1991, he was named a MacArthurFellow.

As a scholar, literary critic and practicing biographer, Rampersad exploresblack culture and experience. He has narrated the lives of several importantblack Americans, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes. The Life ofLangston Hughes has won numerous awards and was a runner-up for thePulitzer Prize for biography in 1989.

Listed in Who's Who in America, Rampersad is currently working on abiography of baseball great, Jackie Robinson.