HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and
the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African
American Research at Harvard University.
Professor Gates is Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford African American Studies
Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of
African American Studies and Africana Studies. He is co-editor with K.
Anthony Appiah of the encyclopedia Encarta Africana published on CD-ROM by
Microsoft (1999), and in book form by Basic Civitas Books under the title
Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience
(1999). Oxford University Press published an expanded five-volume edition
of the encyclopedia in 2005. He is most recently the author of Finding
Oprah’s Roots, Finding Your Own (Crown, 2007), a meditation on genetics,
genealogy, and race. His other recent books are America Behind the Color
Line: Dialogues with African Americans (Warner Books, 2004), African
American Lives, co-edited with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Oxford, 2004),
and The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, edited with Hollis Robbins (W. W.
Norton, 2006).
In 2006, Professor Gates wrote and produced the PBS documentary also
called “African American Lives,” the first documentary series to employ
genealogy and science to provide an understanding of African American
history. In 2007, a follow-up one-hour documentary, “Oprah’s Roots: An
African American Lives Special,” aired on PBS, further examining the
genealogical and genetic heritage of Oprah Winfrey, who had been featured
in the original documentary. Professor Gates also wrote and produced the
documentaries “Wonders of the African World” (2000) and “America Beyond
the Color Line” (2004) for the BBC and PBS, and authored the companion
volumes to both series. Professor Gates is currently at work on a
four-hour sequel to “African American Lives,” which is scheduled to air in
February 2008.
Professor Gates is the author of several works of literary criticism,
including Figures in Black: Words, Signs and the “Racial” Self (Oxford
University Press, 1987); and The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of
Afro-American Literary Criticism (Oxford, 1988), winner of the American
Book Award in 1989. He authenticated and facilitated the publication, in
1983, of Our Nig, or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859), by
Harriet Wilson, the first novel published by an African American woman.
Two decades later, in 2002, Professor Gates authenticated and published
The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts, dating from the early 1850s
and now considered one of the first novels written by an African American
woman. He is the co-author, with Cornel West, of The Future of the Race
(Knopf, 1996), and the author of a memoir, Colored People (Knopf, 1994),
that traces his childhood experiences in a small West Virginia town in the
1950s and 1960s. Among his other books are The Trials of Phillis Wheatley:
America's First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers
(Basic Civitas Books, 2003); Thirteen Ways of Looking at A Black Man
(Random House, 1997); and Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (Oxford
1992). He is completing a book on race and writing in the eighteenth
century, entitled “Black Letters and the Enlightenment.”
Professor Gates has edited several influential anthologies, including The
Norton Anthology of African American Literature (W. W. Norton, 1996); and
the Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women Writers (Oxford,
1991). He is the editor of numerous essay collections, including Reading
Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology (Meridian, 1990); "Race,"
Writing, and Difference (University of Chicago, 1986); and, with K.
Anthony Appiah, volumes on the authors Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston,
Richard Wright, and Langston Hughes. In addition, Professor Gates is
publisher of Transition magazine, an international review of African,
Caribbean, and African American politics. An influential cultural critic,
Professor Gates’s publications include a 1994 cover story for Time
magazine, numerous articles for the New Yorker, and in September 2004, a
biweekly guest column in The New York Times.
Professor Gates earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare
College at the University of Cambridge, and his B.A. summa cum laude in
History from Yale University, where he was a Scholar of the House, in
1973. He became a member of Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year at Yale.
Before joining the faculty of Harvard in 1991, he taught at Yale, Cornell,
and Duke. His honors and grants include a MacArthur Foundation “genius
grant” (1981), the George Polk Award for Social Commentary (1993), Time
magazine’s “25 Most Influential Americans” list (1997), a National
Humanities Medal (1998), election to the American Academy of Arts and
Letters (1999), the Jefferson Lecture (2002), a Visiting Fellowship at the
School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton
(2003-2004), the Jay B. Hubbell Award for Lifetime Achievement in American
Literary Studies from the Modern Language Association (2006), ), the Rave
Award from Wired Magazine (2007), the Let’s Do It Better Award from of the
Columbia University School of Journalism for “African American Lives”
(2007), and the Cultures of Peace Award from the City of the Cultures of
Peace (2007). He has received nearly 50 honorary degrees, from
institutions including the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College,
Harvard University, New York University, University of
Massachusetts-Boston, Williams College, Emory University, Howard
University, University of Toronto, and the University of Benin. In 2006,
he was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution, after he traced
his lineage back to John Redman, a Free Negro who fought in the
Revolutionary War.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and
the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African
American Research at Harvard University.
Professor Gates is Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford African American Studies
Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of
African American Studies and Africana Studies. He is co-editor with K.
Anthony Appiah of the encyclopedia Encarta Africana published on CD-ROM by
Microsoft (1999), and in book form by Basic Civitas Books under the title
Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience
(1999). Oxford University Press published an expanded five-volume edition
of the encyclopedia in 2005. He is most recently the author of Finding
Oprah’s Roots, Finding Your Own (Crown, 2007), a meditation on genetics,
genealogy, and race. His other recent books are America Behind the Color
Line: Dialogues with African Americans (Warner Books, 2004), African
American Lives, co-edited with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Oxford, 2004),
and The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, edited with Hollis Robbins (W. W.
Norton, 2006).
In 2006, Professor Gates wrote and produced the PBS documentary also
called “African American Lives,” the first documentary series to employ
genealogy and science to provide an understanding of African American
history. In 2007, a follow-up one-hour documentary, “Oprah’s Roots: An
African American Lives Special,” aired on PBS, further examining the
genealogical and genetic heritage of Oprah Winfrey, who had been featured
in the original documentary. Professor Gates also wrote and produced the
documentaries “Wonders of the African World” (2000) and “America Beyond
the Color Line” (2004) for the BBC and PBS, and authored the companion
volumes to both series. Professor Gates is currently at work on a
four-hour sequel to “African American Lives,” which is scheduled to air in
February 2008.
Professor Gates is the author of several works of literary criticism,
including Figures in Black: Words, Signs and the “Racial” Self (Oxford
University Press, 1987); and The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of
Afro-American Literary Criticism (Oxford, 1988), winner of the American
Book Award in 1989. He authenticated and facilitated the publication, in
1983, of Our Nig, or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859), by
Harriet Wilson, the first novel published by an African American woman.
Two decades later, in 2002, Professor Gates authenticated and published
The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts, dating from the early 1850s
and now considered one of the first novels written by an African American
woman. He is the co-author, with Cornel West, of The Future of the Race
(Knopf, 1996), and the author of a memoir, Colored People (Knopf, 1994),
that traces his childhood experiences in a small West Virginia town in the
1950s and 1960s. Among his other books are The Trials of Phillis Wheatley:
America's First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers
(Basic Civitas Books, 2003); Thirteen Ways of Looking at A Black Man
(Random House, 1997); and Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (Oxford
1992). He is completing a book on race and writing in the eighteenth
century, entitled “Black Letters and the Enlightenment.”
Professor Gates has edited several influential anthologies, including The
Norton Anthology of African American Literature (W. W. Norton, 1996); and
the Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women Writers (Oxford,
1991). He is the editor of numerous essay collections, including Reading
Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology (Meridian, 1990); "Race,"
Writing, and Difference (University of Chicago, 1986); and, with K.
Anthony Appiah, volumes on the authors Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston,
Richard Wright, and Langston Hughes. In addition, Professor Gates is
publisher of Transition magazine, an international review of African,
Caribbean, and African American politics. An influential cultural critic,
Professor Gates’s publications include a 1994 cover story for Time
magazine, numerous articles for the New Yorker, and in September 2004, a
biweekly guest column in The New York Times.
Professor Gates earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare
College at the University of Cambridge, and his B.A. summa cum laude in
History from Yale University, where he was a Scholar of the House, in
1973. He became a member of Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year at Yale.
Before joining the faculty of Harvard in 1991, he taught at Yale, Cornell,
and Duke. His honors and grants include a MacArthur Foundation “genius
grant” (1981), the George Polk Award for Social Commentary (1993), Time
magazine’s “25 Most Influential Americans” list (1997), a National
Humanities Medal (1998), election to the American Academy of Arts and
Letters (1999), the Jefferson Lecture (2002), a Visiting Fellowship at the
School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton
(2003-2004), the Jay B. Hubbell Award for Lifetime Achievement in American
Literary Studies from the Modern Language Association (2006), ), the Rave
Award from Wired Magazine (2007), the Let’s Do It Better Award from of the
Columbia University School of Journalism for “African American Lives”
(2007), and the Cultures of Peace Award from the City of the Cultures of
Peace (2007). He has received nearly 50 honorary degrees, from
institutions including the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College,
Harvard University, New York University, University of
Massachusetts-Boston, Williams College, Emory University, Howard
University, University of Toronto, and the University of Benin. In 2006,
he was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution, after he traced
his lineage back to John Redman, a Free Negro who fought in the
Revolutionary War.