Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., the noted Afro-American studies professor at Harvard University, will be the featured speaker Thursday, Nov. 9 at the Nicholls State University Fletcher Lecture Series.

Gates is one of the most well-known academics in the United States. He has chaired Harvard’s Department of African and African American Studies since 1991, expanding the department and its faculty, and is the W.E.B. Du Bois professor of the humanities and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. He has held professional appointments at Yale, Cornell and Duke universities. In 1997, Gates was voted one of Time magazine’s “25 Most Influential Americans.”

Gates has published numerous works in periodicals such as Time, The New Yorker and Transitions magazines and authored several books, including “Wonders of the African World” and Encarta Africana, a two million-word, pan-African encyclopedia he spent 25 years researching, funding and publishing.

This year, the Fletcher Lecture Series has been expanded into a two-day American studies conference opening at 5 p.m. on Nov. 9 with registration and a reception in the lobby of Talbot Hall. Gates’ keynote address on “W.E.B. Du Bois, Encyclopedia Africana and Bridging the Digital Divide” will follow at 6 p.m. in Talbot Theater. The rest of the conference sessions will take place Friday, Nov. 10, at various campus locations.

Gates’ lecture is free and open to the public. Other conference events require registration. For more information about the conference, contact Dr. Gina Macdonald in the Nicholls Department of Languages and Literature at virginia.macdonald@nicholls.edu or at (985) 448-4436.

The Fletcher Lecture Series is an annual event sponsored by the Nicholls Department of Languages and Literature. Since the lecture series was created more than 20 years ago, the series has featured famous American poets, novelists, short story writers and scholars.