(Posted October 7, 2002)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Michael Henderson, assistant professor of French at Juniata College will lecture on "Who's Your Sugar Daddy? Cultural Transitions in French America" as part of the Bookend Seminar lecture series at 4:30 p.m., Oct. 9 in 202 Good Hall on the Juniata campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public. The Bookend Seminar series features afternoon lectures each month by Juniata College faculty.

Henderson will talk about the historical changes experienced in the French West Indies since the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1493. He will talk specifically about how the sugar trade and slave trade changed the islands both geographically and culturally.

Henderson will outline how contemporary French Caribbean authors have proposed new theories for seeing the region as the cultural crossroads of Europe, Africa and the Americas.

Henderson earned a bachelor's degree and master's degree in French at Arizona State University and earned a doctorate at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France. While at the University of California, he was a Regents Fellow from 1984 to 1989.

He is an active member of the Modern Language Association, the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages, and the American Association of Teachers of French.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.