Noted Author Michael Bérubé To Speak At UB April 7

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Noted author Michael Bérubé, whose "Life as We Know It: A Father, A Family and an Exceptional Child" was selected one of the best books of 1996 by The New York Times and the National Public Radio program "Fresh Air," will speak April 7 at UB.

His lecture, "Disability and the Difference it Makes," will be held at 8 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Screening Room on the North Campus.

Free and open to the public, the lecture promises to be of special interest to the parents of exceptional children, clients, patients and those involved with agencies and organizations that serve those with disabilities.

Bérubé notes that disability, as a category of identity, has yet to be adequately confronted by national institutions devoted to the arts and humanities.

But, he says, our approach to both mental and physical disability has influenced profoundly a variety of issues, including immigration and theories of criminality.

He will discuss the complex relationship between disability, national identity and the impact of disability studies on the cultural politics of memory and national self-representation in the United States.

Director of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Bérubé is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Other books he's written are "The Employment of English: Theory, Jobs and the Future of Literary Studies;" "Higher Education Under Fire: Politics, Economics and the Crisis of the Humanities" and "Public Access: Literary Theory and American Cultural Politics."

Bérubé received his master's and doctoral degrees in English from the University of Virginia and a bachelor's degree from Columbia University.

He will be the final speaker of the season in the new lecture series, "The University and the World," presented by the UB College of Arts and Sciences.

Supported by Dean Kerry S. Grant, the series brings to UB prominent scholars from different fields to address common problems and issues of broad intellectual and public concern.