Author, screenwriter Sherman Alexie to present lecture Oct. 29 at Lied Center

LAWRENCE -- Poet, author and screenwriter Sherman Alexie will present "Killing Indians: Myths, Lies and Exaggerations," part of the Hall Center for the Humanities Lecture Series, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29, at the Lied Center at the University of Kansas. The event is free and open to the public.

Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, focuses most of his work on the experiences of modern Native Americans, on and off the reservation. Through his writing, Alexie seeks to realistically portray people who normally are represented as stereotypes, if at all. Because of this, he tends to avoid stock Indian characters such as mystical shamans, brave warriors and victims of poverty. Instead, Alexie's Indians are three-dimensional humans who inhabit a realistic world and interact with 21st-century culture. Alexie will explore the realities and stereotypes of Native American life in his lecture and will discuss those ideas further in two colloquia at KU and a third at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence.

Alexie's books include "Reservation Blues" and "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven." "Smoke Signals," the 1998 movie he wrote and produced, won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and Filmmaker's Trophy.

Founded in 1947, the Humanities Lecture Series is the oldest continuing series at KU. More than 150 eminent scholars from around the world have participated in the program, including author Vladimir Nabokov, painter Thomas Hart Benton and author Aldous Huxley. Shortly after the program's inception, a lecture by one outstanding KU faculty member each year was added to the schedule.

Upcoming speakers in the 2003-04 series include biologist E.O. Wilson and art historian Linda Stone-Ferrier. For more information, please contact the Hall Center at hallcenter@ku.edu or call (785) 864-7822.