Andrew Delbanco

Phi Beta Kappa Scholar Andrew Delbanco To Visit IWU

November 12, 2004

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— Andrew Delbanco, named "America’s Best Social Critic" by Time magazine in 2001, will be the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar at Illinois Wesleyan University on November 17 and 18.

Delbanco will present a free public lecture on Wednesday, Nov. 17, at 7 p.m. in Room C101 of the Center for Natural Sciences (201 Beecher St., Bloomington). His lecture is titled "Melville, Our Contemporary" in which he will examine the moral and religious questions for today’s society that are raised in the work of 19th century writer Herman Melville. In particular, Delbanco has drawn connections between Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick, and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He is currently completing a study of Melville’s life and work.

A member of the Columbia University faculty since 1985, Delbanco has been the Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities since 1995. Delbanco's work encompasses American history, literature and religion. His books include Required Reading: Why Our American Classics Matter Now (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997), The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995), The Real American Dream (Harvard, 1999) and The Puritan Ordeal (Harvard, 1989), which won a Lionel Trilling Award.

He writes frequently on literary and cultural issues for The New York Review of Books and the New Republic and other journals, on topics ranging from American literary and religious history to contemporary issues in higher education. He has edited Writing New England, The Portable Abraham Lincoln, The Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and The Puritans in America.

A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Delbanco has served as vice president of PEN American Center and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the ACLS, the NEH, and the National Humanities Center.

The Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program makes available every year distinguished scholars who visit over 100 colleges and universities, spending two days at each one, meeting informally with students and faculty members, taking part in classroom discussions, and giving a public lecture. Participation is limited to the 270 campuses that shelter chapters of Phi Beta Kappa. Illinois Wesleyan’s chapter, the Lambda Chapter of Illinois, was chartered in 2001.