Hemenway to Discuss Hurston, Harlem Renaissance at Washington College

Chestertown, MD, February 16, 2001 — Robert Hemenway, chancellor of the University of Kansas, will speak Monday, February 26, 2001 on "The Small Literary Magazines of Zora Neale Hurston and the Harlem Renaissance." The talk will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of Washington College's Miller Library. Sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, the talk is free and open to the public.

Hemenway is nationally recognized for his biography of African-American novelist, anthropologist and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston, Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography. With an introduction by novelist Alice Walker, the biography won a number of awards and was listed by The New York Times among its "Best Books of 1978." In 1991, a reprinting was included as a Quality Paperback Book Club selection.

Born in Sioux City, Iowa, and raised in Iowa and Nebraska, Hemenway received his bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and his doctorate in English from Kent State University in Ohio at age 24. He has served as chancellor of the University of Kansas since 1995.