UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Humanities Institute will again host an annual lecture and alumni award celebration designed to showcase and interrogate the work of the humanities.

This year’s celebration, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 1, in the Hintz Family Alumni Center at University Park. The event also will be livestreamed; advance registration is required for those who wish to attend virtually.

Qiana Whitted, professor of English and African American studies at the University of South Carolina, will deliver this year’s lecture, titled “Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in the Golden Age of American Comics.” During her presentation, Whitted will take a closer look at debates over race and Blackness in American comics produced during the first half of the 20th century — a period during which the comic book industry’s golden age converged with the Jim Crow era. She also will examine the impact of race and difference in accusations about the harm that comic books caused younger consumers, as well as the more aspirational claims about the way that this popular medium could be used as a tool for social justice during the 1940s and 1950s.

Whitted’s research focuses on 20th-century African American literature, cultural studies, and American comic books. She is the co-chair of the International Comic Arts Forum and editor-in-chief of Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society. Her book, “EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Society Protest,” won the 2020 Eisner Award for Best Academic Scholarly Work. She also is the author of “A God of Justice? The Problem of Evil in 20th Century Black Literature” (2009), and co-editor of “Comics and the U.S. South” with Brannon Costello (2012).

The Humanities Institute will present its annual alumni award to John Lucas, president and CEO of the International Student Exchange Program — the world’s largest student exchange network, encompassing more than 350 postsecondary institutions in nearly 60 countries. Lucas’ previous leadership roles include tenures as provost and executive vice president at the School for International Training; associate vice president of academic programs at IES Abroad; and center director in Barcelona and Alicante for the Council on International Educational Exchange. He also has held adjunct faculty roles at Georgetown University and the Universidad de Alicante.

Lucas received his master’s and doctoral degrees in Spanish linguistics from Penn State, where he also was an Edwin Erle Sparks Fellow in the Humanities, and his master’s degree in management from the School for International Training. He is the current chair of The Forum on Education Abroad’s board of directors.

For additional information about the Humanities Institute or its annual celebration, contact the institute’s director, John Christman, at 814-865-0495 or jpc11@psu.edu.