The first annual American Studies Conference will take place Nov. 10 and 11 starting at 8:30 a.m. in Le Bijou Theater. The conference, which is on African-American literature this year, will take place at various on-campus locations.

“Students should attend to understand how immensely complex the notion of American culture is,” Allen Alexander, director of adviser training and assessment and associate professor of languages and literature, said.

The Friday half of the conference will start at 8:30 a.m. and end at 4 p.m.

Daryl Holmes, associate professor of languages and literature, will speak about the origination of the Fletcher Lecture series.

The English Society will perform “A Reading: African-American Poets Who Have Touched Our Hearts.”

Scott Fremin, a Nicholls alumnus, will speak about different ways to introduce students to the issues of race and assimilation in African and African-American literature.

Following the Friday conference Stanley Coleman, assistant professor of speech and director of the Nicholls Players, will do a performance of Paul Robeson, the story of a man born to a former slave who went on to hold a stance against oppression and inequality.

The Saturday conferences will start at 9 a.m. and end at noon. Locations are the same as Friday.

Gina Macdonald, associate professor of language and literature, will be speaking about how students deal with the way personal assumptions about race affect their reading of literary works.

Coleman will speak about the Dashiki Project Theatre and how the theatre company avoided political posturing while subtly making choices that would impact the New Orleans society.

A showing of “Lost Boys of the Sudan,” an Emmy-nominated feature-length documentary that follows two Sudanese refugees on a journey from Africa to America, will play all weekend in Le Bijou Theater every 90 minutes during the conference.

The conference is in combination with the Fletcher Lecture Series, which will take place today at 5 p.m. in Talbot Hall and will include registration for the conference, lecture by the keynote speaker and reception.

A replacement for original keynote speaker, Henry Louis Gates Jr., a noted African-American studies professor at Harvard University, was not chosen at press time.

For more information contact Macdonald at (985) 448-4436 or go to www.nicholls.edu/fletcher_lecture.