ATHENS, Ga. – The University of Georgia Department of English Speakers Series presents Robert G. O’Meally in a lecture on Tuesday, March 30, at 4 p.m. in Park Hall room 265. O’Meally, the leading interpreter of the dynamics of jazz in American culture, is the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University. His talk “Mask and Man: The Complex Humor of Louis Armstrong” will feature rare film clips of Armstrong, including an appearance in a Betty Boop cartoon.
O’Meally has written extensively on Ralph Ellison, including The Craft of Ralph Ellison and Living with Music: Ralph Ellison’s Jazz Writings. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature (1997, 2003) and editor of several other collections, including Tales of the Congaree and The Jazz Cadence of American Culture (1998). O’Meally’s interests are interdisciplinary and he is productive in several media. His biography Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday (1991) became a documentary for public television. His five-CD set The Jazz Singers (1999) received a Grammy nomination.
“Dr. O’Meally’s research on African American literature, culture and musical performance has introduced innovative methods of inquiry and contributed enormously to the current appeal of both blues and jazz music to popular audiences,” said Barbara McCaskill, associate professor of English at UGA. “His work on two scholarly benchmarks, The Jazz Cadence of American Culture and The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, reminds us that the expressive traditions of black people lie at the very center of what defines the American experience.”
All are invited to this free, public lecture sponsored by the English department, the Sterling-Goodman Funds and the Lanier Funds at UGA.
