English Department’s Annual Pat Eliet Lecture Series Welcomes L.A. Editor and Author RJ Smith

The Department of English at California State University, Dominguez Hills will welcome Los Angeles writer RJ Smith as its guest speaker for the 2009 Pat Eliet Memorial Lecture on Monday, April 27. The talk will take place at 7 p.m. in the Loker Student Union and is open to the public.

Smith is the author of “The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African American Renaissance,” published in 2006. The book takes a look the legacies of music, literature and civil rights coming out of South Central Los Angeles’ black community in the 1940s. A former senior editor at Los Angelesmagazine where he wrote about media, Smith got his start as a music critic for such magazines as The Village Voice, GQ, Details, Spin, and Vibe magazines. He is currently working on a biography of James Brown.

The Pat Eliet Memorial Lecture honors former professor of English Pat Eliet, who died in 1990. During her 17 years on campus, Eliet’s teaching and research focused on multicultural and cross cultural issues. Authors who are invited as guest lecturer touch on those same themes in their books.

The event is sponsored by the CSUDH English department, the University Honors Program and the College of Arts and Humanities.

For more information, contact the Department of English at (310) 243-3322.

- Amy Bentley-Smith