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Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of Humanities and the chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University. The author of seven previous books, including the widely acclaimed memoir
Colored People, Professor Gates has also edited several anthologies and is coeditor with Kwame Anthony Appiah of
Encarta Africana, an encyclopedia of the African Diaspora. An influential cultural critic, he is a frequent contributor to
The New Yorker and other publications and is the recipient of many honors, including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the National Humanities Medal.
Lynn Davis has won international acclaim for her photographs of sacred sights and landscapes all over the world. She has had thirty-two one-person exhibitions and is represented in numerous private and public collections. Born in Minneapolis, she lives in New York City; Hudson, New York; and Nova Scotia.