Ken Burns, one of the most influential documentary filmmakers of
all time, will speak at Grand Valley State University as the third and
final 50th Anniversary Distinguished Academic Lecturer.
Using the insights gleaned from his work, Burns will turn his
keen eye to the future with his lecture “The Next 50 Years in the
United States,” Thursday, April 21, 7 p.m. at the L.V. Eberhard
Center, 301 W. Fulton, on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus. It will be
followed by a Q&A session and a reception. All events are free and
open to the public.
A WGVU Newsmakers television program with Ken Burns, hosted by Patrick Center, will air on WGVU 35.1 Grand Rapids and WGVK 52.1 Kalamazoo on three occasions: April 22 at 9:30 p.m.; April 24 at 4 a.m.; and April 27 at 6 p.m. The program or excerpts will also air on WGVU 88.5 FM and WGVS 95.3 FM on Midday Friday April 22.
Burns, who was born in 1953 in Brooklyn, N.Y., graduated from
Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor in 1971, and received a bachelor’s
degree from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. in 1975. He is the
recipient of more than 20 honorary degrees and is co-founder of
Florentine Films. He has unofficially visited Grand Valley previously
while his father, Robert Kyle Burns, taught anthropology and
photography from 1973 until his retirement in 1993.
Burns has devoted more than 30 years of his life to examining
America’s past. His documentary films and series have ranged from
profiles of suffragettes Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
the adventurous Lewis and Clark, and the innovative architect Frank
Lloyd Wright, to historic insights about the Civil War. Some of his
other films focused on diverse icons of America, from the Statue of
Liberty and the National Parks, to baseball and jazz.
The
Baltimore Sun once praised Burns as "not only the
greatest documentarian of the day, but also the most influential
filmmaker period ... because Burns not only turned millions of persons
onto history, but showed us a new way of looking at our collective
past and ourselves."
A GVSU 50th Anniversary Event. For more information, call x12179 or visit www.gvsu.edu/anniversary.
