亨利·路易斯·盖茨

亨利·路易斯·盖茨（1950年9月16日—），美国文学评论家，教育家，学者，作家，编辑和公共知识分子。他是第一位收到Andrew W. Mellon基金会奖学金的非洲裔美国人。他因为教学、科研和研究黑人文化发展曾获得了许多荣誉学位和奖励。

生平

在2002年，盖茨被选为给杰弗逊演讲，认可他“在人文方面杰出的智力成果”。盖茨曾主持几个PBS电视短剧，包括非洲世界的历史和旅行计划等。参加了许多著名的艺术，文化和科研机构的董事会，他担任哈佛大学教授，他是非洲和非裔美国人研究所所长。

Henry Louis Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950), popularly known by his childhood nickname "Skip", is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is a trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He rediscovered the earliest known African-American novels and has published extensively on the recognition of African-American literature as part of the Western canon.

In addition to producing and hosting previous series on the history and genealogy of prominent American figures, since 2012, Gates has been host of the television series Finding Your Roots on PBS. The series combines the work of expert researchers in genealogy, history, and historical research in genetics to tell guests about the lives and histories of their ancestors.

Early life and education

Gates was born on September 16, 1950, in Keyser, West Virginia, to Pauline Augusta (née Coleman) Gates (1916–1987) and Henry Louis Gates Sr. (c. 1913–2010). He grew up in neighboring Piedmont. His father worked in a paper mill and moonlighted as a janitor, while his mother cleaned houses.

Later in life, Gates learned through DNA analysis that his family is descended in part from the Yoruba people of West Africa. He also learned that he has 50% European ancestry, including Irish forebears; He and the officer who arrested him are a descendant of the Irish high king Niall of the Nine Hostages. He was surprised his European ancestry turned out to be so substantial. Having grown up in an African-American community, however, he identifies as Black. He has learned that he is also connected to the multiracial West Virginia community of Chestnut Ridge people.

After graduating from Piedmont High School in 1968, Gates attended Potomac State College of West Virginia University for one year before transferring to Yale University, from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1973 with a B.A., summa cum laude, in history. Gates then became the first African American to be awarded a Mellon Foundation Fellowship. He sailed to England on the liner Queen Elizabeth 2 and used the fellowship to pursue graduate study in English literature at Clare College, Cambridge, receiving an M.A. degree in 1974 and a Ph.D. in 1979.

Career

After a month at Yale Law School, Gates withdrew from the program. In October 1975, he was hired by Charles Davis as a secretary in the Afro-American Studies department at Yale. In July 1976, Gates was promoted to the post of lecturer in Afro-American Studies, with the understanding that he would be promoted to assistant professor upon completion of his doctoral dissertation. Jointly appointed to assistant professorships in English and Afro-American Studies in 1979, Gates was promoted to associate professor in 1984. While at Yale, Gates mentored Jodie Foster, who majored in African-American Literature there and wrote her thesis on author Toni Morrison.

In 1984, Gates was recruited by Cornell University with an offer of tenure; Gates asked Yale whether the university would match Cornell's offer, but they declined. Gates accepted the offer by Cornell in 1985 and taught there until 1989.

Following a two-year stay at Duke University, he was recruited to Harvard University in 1991. At Harvard, Gates teaches undergraduate and graduate courses as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, an endowed chair he was appointed to in 2006, and as a professor of English. Additionally, he is the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.