ECU News Services

A scholar in African-American literature and folklore, whose primary research focuses on the complexities of the Southern African-American identity and experience, will deliver the Sallie Southall Cotton Lecture at East Carolina University in February.

Trudier Harris, professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will present “Little Old Ladies and the Last Word: An Exploration of Sassiness and Risqué Behavior in African-American Folklore” at 7 p.m. on Feb. 17 in Wright Auditorium.

Harris is a recipient of the UNC system board of governors’ award for excellence in teaching, the William C. Friday Award for Excellence in Teaching and the John Hurt Fisher Award of the South Atlantic Association of Departments of English for outstanding contributions in English scholarship. Her primary research focuses on the complexities of the Southern African-American identity and experience.

During her 36 years of full-time teaching, Harris also served on the faculties of the College of William and Mary and Emory University, in addition to lecturing throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and South Africa.

She is the author of many books, including her most recent, “The Scary Mason-Dixon Line: African American Writers and the South,” published in May.

Harris lso is the author of “From Mammies to Militants: Domestics in Black American Literature” (1982); “Exorcising Blackness: Historical and Literary Lynching and Burning Rituals” (1984); “Black Women in the Fiction of James Baldwin” (1985, for which she won the 1987 College Language Association Creative Scholarship Award); “Fiction and Folklore: The Novels of Toni Morrison” (1991); “The Power of the Porch: The Storyteller’s Craft in Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan” (1996); and “Saints, Sinners, Saviors: Strong Black Women in African American Literature” (2001). In 2003, she published her memoirs, “Summer Snow: Reflections from a Black Daughter of the South.”

The Sallie Southall Cotten Lecture is presented through the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series. The series brings prominent scholars representing a variety of disciplines to speak at the university.

Free tickets are available to ECU students, faculty and staff and are $10 for the general public. Tickets are available through the ECU Central Ticket Office at 328-4788 or (800) ECU-ARTS. Individuals requesting accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act should call 737-1016 (voice/TTY) at least 48 hours prior to the event.

For more information, contact John Tucker, director of the Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series, at tuckerjo@ecu.edu or visit www.ecu.edu/voyages.

Joyner co-hosts county anniversary event

J.Y. Joyner Library at ECU and the board of directors of the Pitt County Historical Society are co-hosting a public reception to mark the 250th anniversary of Pitt County.

The celebration is scheduled for Tuesday at Joyner Library and will mark the opening of three exhibits documenting the history of Pitt County. “The Seeds of Change: The Daily Reflector Image Collection” exhibit features 40 images from the all-new digital collection of launched earlier this year. The online collection contains more than 7,500 images digitized from the photographic negatives of The Daily Reflector, which documents changes across eastern North Carolina between 1949 and 1967. Seeds of Change will be on display at Joyner through March 29.

The Special Collections department will display an exhibit of manuscripts, photographs, maps, printed materials and other items from its extensive collection to celebrate the anniversary.

“Pitt County’s 250th Anniversary Exhibit: From the Vaults of Special Collections” will be available on the fourth floor of the library through July 31.

“Pitt County’s 250th Anniversary: Special Resources from North Carolina Collections” exhibit in the Verona Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection highlights printed resources available in the collection for the study of Pitt County history. Materials include broadsides, maps, newspapers, memoirs, histories and works of fiction. The exhibit runs through April 30 and is located on the third floor of the library.

Local historian Roger Kammerer will speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday on the second floor of the library. The Pitt County Historical Society will provide light refreshments. The event is free and open to the public.

ECU parking is available in the Joyner Library/Mendenhall Center lots, behind the FedEx Kinko’s lot, with overflow parking in the lot at the corner of Charles Boulevard and 10th Street, across from McDonald’s. For more information, contact Dawn Wainwright at 328-4090.

Ballard to deliver first State of the University

Chancellor Steve Ballard will deliver his first State of the University address t 11 a.m. Wednesday at Hendrix Theatre in Mendenhall Student Center.

Ballard, who joined ECU in the spring of 2004, plans to offer a summation of the university, discussing strengths, achievements, challenges and opportunities.

All members of the university community are welcome to attend, as are residents of Greenville. A reception will follow Ballard’s remarks in the Cynthia Lounge in Mendenhall.

Laupus Library hosting national exhibit

Laupus Library is hosting a national traveling exhibit through March 6 featuring Charlotte Perkins Gilman, women’s rights advocate and famed author of “The Yellow Wall-Paper.”

“The Literature of Prescription: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’ “ opened on Jan. 24 on the library’s fourth floor in the Evelyn Fike Laupus Gallery.

The six-banner exhibit provides a glimpse into the late 19th century, when women were challenging traditional ideas about gender that excluded them from political and intellectual life. At the time, medical and scientific experts drew on notions of female weakness to justify inequality between the sexes.

Gilman, who was discouraged from pursuing a career to preserve her health, rejected these ideas in a terrifying short story titled “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” The famous tale served as an indictment of the medical profession and the social conventions restricting women’s professional and creative opportunities.

Gilman wrote numerous treatises critiquing the limited role of women in society, including her most famous book, “Women and Economics,” in which she advocated financial independence and meaningful work for women.

The exhibit was developed and produced by the National Library of Medicine. For more information, visit http://www.ecu.edu/cs-dhs/laupuslibrary/events/LitPresc.cfm or http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/literatureofprescription/b1Literature.html.

Visitors can view the exhibit during normal operating hours posted at www.ecu.edu/cs-dhs/laupuslibrary/hours.cfm or call 744-2219. Metered parking is available in front of the library. For more information, call Kelly Rogers at 744-2232 or e-mail rogerske@ecu.edu

Department of Physical Therapy reaccredited

The Department of Physical Therapy in the College of Allied Health Sciences recently was reaccredited for the maximum period of 10 years by the Commission on Accreditation of Physical Therapy Education.

The reaccreditation followed a site visit in June and review in October.

Students earning a doctoral of physical therapy at ECU complete a three-year, 106-semester-hour program that includes 32 weeks of clinical education.

ECU physical therapy faculty also operates an outpatient clinic at 2325 Stantonsburg Road in the ECU Neurosurgery and Spine Center on the corner of Arlington Boulevard and Stantonsburg Road.

Upcoming events:

Friday: Sixth annual Jean Mills Health Symposium: Race, Stress and Health, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Hilton Greenville. Contact: Eastern AHEC at 744-2587.

Saturday: Great Decisions Program: Global Financial Crisis, 10 a.m. to noon, Rivers West Building auditorium, Randall Parker, ECU Department of Economics. Contact: Sylvie Debevec Henning at 328-5520.

See www.ecu.edu/cs-ecu/calendar.cfmfor times, places and more information on upcoming activities at ECU.