NCC speaker to address 'Ghost of Emmett Till'

One of the nation's foremost scholars of American urban, cultural and social history will serve as a guest lecturer Wednesday, April 23, at Naperville's North Central College.

Elliott Gorn will speak on "The Ghost of Emmett Till" at 7 p.m. in the college's Harold and Eva White Activities Center, 325 E. Benton Ave. His presentation will focus on Till, a black teenager from Chicago whose 1955 brutal murder in Mississippi helped spur the modern civil rights movement.

For more information about this free event presented by the college's Cultural Events program, contact Ann Durkin Keating at adkeating@noctrl.edu.

Gorn, the Joseph Gagliano Professor of American Urban History at Loyola University Chicago, has written four major books on a variety of topics within urban and American culture. In addition to the books, he also has edited eight volumes and published and reprinted more than 50 articles in a variety of scholarly and media publications.

With an interdisciplinary focus on urban and American culture, he has taught courses at Loyola on the history of sports, Chicago, masculinity and gender, film, war in American culture, biography and autobiography, and the United States survey.

He previously taught at Brown University, Purdue University, Miami University of Ohio and the University of Alabama.

He has served as the Fulbright Bicentennial Chair in North American Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland (2009-2010); the Los Angeles Times Distinguished Fellow at the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (2005-2006); a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow (1997-1998); a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the Newberry Library (1993-1994); an Irish American Cultural Institute Fellow (1993); an Andrew Mellon Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center (1988-1989); and a Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Fellow (1984-1985).

The recipient of Miami University's Distinguished Educator Award and the Effective Educator Award, Gorn has been recognized as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians since 2003.

He received his Ph.D. from Yale University and his A.B. from the University of California, Berkeley.

His appearance is among many ongoing programs at North Central College to enrich and broaden the cultural and academic outlook for the college and community.

For a comprehensive schedule of musical performances, theatrical and dance productions, art exhibits and lectures, visit northcentralcollege.edu/show or call (630) 637-SHOW (7469).