Randall Kenan, author of “Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century” and associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the featured speaker at the Nicholls Fletcher Lecture Series at 6 p.m. today in Talbot Theater. Allen Alexander, director of retention and advisor training and assessment and associate professor of languages and literature, said the lecture provides an opportunity to hear from an acclaimed writer and scholar.

The lecture starts with a reception in the Talbot Hall lobby at 5 p.m. The bookstore will have a table set up to purchase Kenan’s books, and there will also be a book signing, according to Alexander.

Kenan’s lecture on “The Fire This Time: James Baldwin and Race and Culture in America” will be followed by a question and answer series.

“He is a very open individual. He’s going to engage the audience in some kind of dialogue,” Alexander said.

Kenan graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1985 with a bachelor’s in English. In 1989, Kenan began teaching writing at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University.

Kenan has served as a visiting writer or writer-in-residence at a number of universities, including Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, the University of Mississippi and the University of Memphis.

Kenan’s first novel, “A Visitation of Spirits,” was published in 1989. His second book, “Let the Dead Bury Their Dead,” was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for fiction. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was among The New York Times Notable Books of 1992.

“His books have a tremendous amount of depth. His stories are complex and yet full of humor and incite,” Alexander said.

The Fletcher Lecture Series began in 1984 and is sponsored annually by the Nicholls Department of Languages and Literature. The Fletcher Lecture, usually held in the spring semester, is now combined with the new American Studies Conference and is called the Fletcher Lecture Series Conference, which starts today with the keynote address from Kenan. It continues Friday and Saturday with other lectures and performances on African American literature.

For more information on the Fletcher Lecture Series Conference, go to www.nicholls.edu/fletcher_lecture.