Phi Beta Kappa Scholar to Visit UMW, Nov. 21-22
Philip J. Deloria, a 2013-2014 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, will visit the University of Mary Washington to present a public lecture on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 7:30 p.m. in Lee Hall, Room 411. Deloria’s lecture, “American Indians in the American Popular Imagination,” is presented through the Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) Visiting Scholar Program and will be featured as part of UMW’s Native American Cultural Celebration, taking place Nov. 18-22. The lecture is free and open to the public.
During his two-day visit, Deloria also will speak with students and faculty in a range of American studies and history courses and meet with PBK members.
Deloria is the Carroll Smith-Rosenberg Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan and has joint appointment in the departments of history and American culture. He is currently the associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. He is the author of two prize-winning books, “Playing Indian” and “Indians in Unexpected Places,” as well as the co-editor for several others. He also has written for numerous scholarly journals in the fields of American Indian studies, environmental history and cultural studies. Deloria has served as president of the American Studies Association, as a trustee of the Smithsonian’s National History Museum of the American Indian and is an elected member of the Society of American Historians.
Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest and most widely known academic honor society in the nation, with chapters at 283 institutions and more than half a million members. Its mission is to champion education in the liberal arts and sciences, to recognize academic excellence and to foster freedom of thought and expression. The UMW chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, Kappa of Virginia, selects its members based on rigorous scrutiny of students’ academic achievements as demonstrated through grade point averages. UMW inducted 51 new members into the society last spring.
The lecture is sponsored by Kappa of Virginia, the Department of English, Linguistics and Communication, the Department of History and American Studies, the American Studies Program, the Honors Program, and particularly the Wendy Shadwell ’63 Program Endowment in British Literature. Additional information about the PBK Visiting Scholar Program can be found at http://www.pbk.org. For more information about Deloria’s visit, please contact Professor Gary Richards at grichard@umw.edu or (540) 654-2365.