UCSB Film Studies Professor Anna Everett to Give Prestigious Harold J. Plous Lecture April 30

Anna Everett, an associate professor of film studies at UC Santa Barbara, will give UCSB's annual Harold J. Plous lecture, "The Revolution Will Be Digitized: Afrocentricity and the Digital Public Sphere," Tuesday, April 30 in the McCune Conference room of the Humanities and Social Sciences Building.

Everett is the winner of the 2001 Harold J. Plous Memorial Award, given annually to an assistant professor or instructor who has demonstrated outstanding performance by creative action or contribution to the intellectual life of the college community.

The award offers its winners a chance to share their work with with the UCSB and Santa Barbara communities.

The lecture begins at 4 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

A reception follows.

Everett's talk will challenge concepts of the digital divide that paint people of African descent as technophobes resistant to technological advances. According to Everett, many such people are in fact eager to put technology to use in their lives, but are hampered by societal barriers to high-tech employment and monetary roadblocks to owning computers and connecting to the Internet.

The material for her talk comes from her book in progress, "Digital Diasporas: A Race for Cyberspace."

Everett, who was recently promoted to associate professor, is the 44th winner of the award.

She earned a Ph.D. in Critical Studies from the School of Cinema-TV at USC and joined the UCSB faculty in 1997.