Eubanks to speak at annual Gordon Parks celebration
W. Ralph Eubanks, director of publishing at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., will be one of the guest speakers for the 8th annual Gordon Parks Celebration Oct. 7-8 in Fort Scott.
Eubanks will speak at 9 a.m. Friday, Oct. 7, in the theater of the Danny and Willa Ellis Family Fine Arts Center on the Fort Scott Community College campus, 2108 S. Horton. His presentation, "Fields of Vision: The Photographs of Gordon Parks," is free and open to the public.
"Fields of Vision" is part of ongoing series of books on photographers' work with the Farm Security Administration (FSA), later the Office of War Information (OWI). The book features 50 of Parks' photographs taken while he worked for FSA.
It "provides a unique view of American life during the Great Depression and World War II," according to the book jacket.
"Each book in the series represents a portfolio of little-known images by America's greatest photographers," said Eubanks. The book will be for sale and Eubanks will hold an autograph session after his presentation, a news release said.
As director of publishing, Eubanks directs the work of the Library of Congress's Publishing Office, which has the mission of sharing the library's collections and activities, as well as the knowledge of its specialists, with scholars, researchers, the legal community and general public. The Publishing Office works in collaboration with curators, reference librarians, subject specialists, and others throughout the library in producing accurate, authoritative works and currently has more than 100 titles in print.
An author, editor and publisher, Eubanks is the author of "The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South" (Harper, 2009).
"It is a story of race, of family, of place itself, and it tells us that compassion and the stirring force of individual human endeavor finally mean more than anything," novelist Richard Ford said of the work.
Eubanks's first book, "Ever Is a Long Time: A Journey into Mississippi's Dark Past," was named as one of the best nonfiction books of 2003 by Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley. Eubanks has contributed articles to The Washington Post "Outlook" and "Style" sections, the Chicago Tribune, Preservation, The American Scholar and National Public Radio. He is a recipient of a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship and has held fellowships at the New America Foundation and Washington College in Chestertown, Md.
The celebration schedule is available on the center's website www.gordonparkscenter.org. Tickets for Gordon Parks Celebration events are on sale at the Gordon Parks Museum on the FSCC campus.
For more information, contact the Center at 223-2700, ext. 5850, or visit the website.