The 7 p.m. lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Belk Auditorium of the Moore School of Business. This year's lecture is "W.E.B. Du Bois and the Encyclopedia Africana."

Gates is the author of several works of literary criticism, including Figures in Black: Words, Signs and the 'Racial Self' and The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism, winner of the 1989 American Book Award. He also is co-editor of the Encarta Africana, published on CD-ROM by Microsoft and in book form that same year by Basic Cavitas Books under the title Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience. His memoir, Colored People: A Memoir, details his childhood experiences in a small West Virginia town in the 1950s and '60s.

USC's African American Studies Program established the Robert Smalls Lecture series in 1997 to share the latest research and scholarship in African-American studies with the community. It is named for Robert Smalls, a South Carolina slave, Civil War hero, and congressman who had a significant impact on South Carolina with his contributions to political, education, and economic reform.

The lecture is co-sponsored by USC's Office of the President, African-American Professors Program, Institute of Families in Society, Institute of Southern Studies, the Women's Studies Program, Office of the I. DeQuincy Newman Endowed Chair, Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, Association of African-American Students, College of Liberal Arts, and Office of the Benjamin E. Mays Professor.

For more information, call 7-7248.

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