2007 Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series Examines Historical Memory

(NEWARK) -- What role does historical memory play in African societies? How does it shape identity in the African Diaspora? What can scholars, students and citizens in our vast and diverse region learn from the new scholarship on what is remembered in the black experience and what is forgotten within the Black Atlantic?

These and other questions about historical memory will be explored Feb. 17, 2007, during Time Longer Than Rope: Historical Memory and the Black Atlantic, the 27th Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series. The free public program will be held in the Paul Robeson Campus Center, Rutgers-Newark, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The campus center is at 350 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

The one-day program will acknowledge the centrality of memory in understanding the complexity of African American life after the Civil War, the role of memory in societies on the African continent and those in the Americas, the influence of memory on the construction of the black past, commemoration, identity, and the use of memory in contemporary scholarship on the Black Atlantic.

David Blight, professor of American History and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolitionism at Yale University, will present the keynote Marion Thompson Wright Lecture. Professor Blight is the nations foremost historian on memory and its intersection with African American historical narratives.

Afternoon speakers include professor Cheryl Finley, History of Art and Archaeology, Cornell University; professor Sandra E. Greene, who chairs the Department of History at Cornell; and Jeffrey Kerr-Ritchie, professor of History, Howard University. The afternoon presentations will be followed by a reception in the Paul Robeson Gallery.

Since 1981, the Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series has drawn thousands of people to the Rutgers-Newark campus in observance of Black History Month. Named in honor of Dr. Marion Thompson Wright, a pioneer in African American historiography and the study of race relations in New Jersey, the conference has focused on themes deemed particularly relevant for understanding the African experience throughout the Diaspora.

MTW is a community ritual in public scholarship and has attracted some of the nations foremost

scholars and humanists who are experts in the field of African and African American history and culture. One of the oldest and most prestigious events of its kinds, the MTW lecture series offers a forum for scholars and non-academicians to share their thoughts and exchange ideas, and sustains wide public interest in history, the humanities and life-long learning.

Its the perfect forum for scholars and the public at large to come together to dignify what has become one of our communitys most important rituals, said Clement Alexander Price, co-founder of the lecture series and director of the Institute for Ethnicity, Culture and The Modern Experience (IECME), an MTW series sponsor.

The series takes in-depth, thought-provoking looks at issues with a deep impact on the past, present and future of New Jersey and its African-American population in particular and Americans in general, said Giles R. Wright of the New Jersey Historical Commission and co-founder of the series.

The program was named for East Orange native Dr. Marion Thompson Wright, a pioneer in African American historiography and race relations in New Jersey, who served for many years on the faculty of Howard University. An honors graduate of Newarks Barringer High School and Columbia Universitys Teachers College Class of 1938, she was the first professionally trained woman historian in the United States.

The program is sponsored by the Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience; the Federated Department of History, Rutgers-Newark and the New Jersey Institute of Technology; and the New Jersey Historical Commission/Department of State.

Robeson Campus Center is wheelchair-accessible, as is the Rutgers-Newark campus. Rutgers-Newark can be reached by New Jersey Transit buses and trains, the PATH train and Amtrak from New York City, and by Newark City Subway. Metered parking is available on University Avenue and at Rutgers-Newark's public parking garage, at 200 University Ave.

Printable campus maps and driving directions are available online at: maps