"'I Am Not a Beast': The Remarkable Life of William Apess (Pequot), Nineteenth-Century Native American Activist"

The American Literary Realism Lecture in American Literary Studies presents:

"'I Am Not a Beast': The Remarkable Life of William Apess (Pequot), Nineteenth-Century Native American Activist"

A lecture delivered by Dr. Philip F. Gura, William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Monday, January 27th, 3-4:30, in the SUB Mirage-Thunderbird room.

The lecture is based upon Dr. Gura's forthcoming biography of William Apess, a nineteenth-century Pequot Indian activist, writer, Methodist minister, and the author of what is believed to be the first Native American autobiography, A Son of the Forest (1829). Dr. Gura will discuss Apess’ place in American literary history to consider how “color” mattered in different ways among Native, African, and Anglo Americans before the Civil War. His talk will also discuss the difficulties of writing biographies of nineteenth-century native peoples, whose lives and cultural practices could be a challenge for any biographer to “get right” so far after the fact.

The lecture is free and open to the public.