Pearl S. Buck Conference Scheduled

In a press release dated March 24^th, the West Virginia Humanities Council announced that the Pulitzer Prize Board recently awarded $35,000 to the Council for a first-time international conference to celebrate the work and legacy of Pearl S. Buck and to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prizes, the first of which were awarded in 1916. Born in Hillsboro, Pearl S. Buck was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, and her book The Good Earth won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize

Thanks to this grant support the Pearl S. Buck Living Gateway Conference will take place September 11 through 13, 2016, at the Erickson Alumni Center at West Virginia University in Morgantown. The Living Gateway title refers to Buck’s Pocahontas County birthplace and her hope for it to serve as a “living gateway to new thoughts and dreams and ways of life.” The conference is a partnership of the West Virginia Humanities Council, West Virginia University, the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation, and West Virginia Wesleyan College.

Interested parties are encouraged to submit proposals to present at the conference by the May 1, 2016, deadline. Proposals should be submitted via the conference website at pearlsbuckconference.wvu.edu/ where submission guidelines are available. Questions about the conference or submissions can be directed to universityevents@mail.wvu.edu.

The Pulitzer Prizes Centennial Campfires Initiative is a joint venture of the Pulitzer Prize Board and the Federation of State Humanities Councils. The initiative seeks to illuminate the impact of journalism and the humanities on American life today, to imagine their future and to inspire new generations to consider the values represented by the body of Pulitzer Prize-winning work. More than $1.5 million was awarded by the Pulitzer Prize Board to forty-six state humanities councils as part of its “Centennial Campfires Initiative” with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Pulitzer Prizes Board, and Columbia University.

For more information contact the West Virginia Humanities Council at (304)346-8500, visit wvhumanities.org, or email payne@wvhumanities.org.