Ghassan Hage, a cutting-edge figure in Australia's influential cultural criticism and the arts movement, will deliver a University Lecture Friday, Oct. 22, at 4:40 p.m. in Kaufmann Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall at Cornell University. The lecture, titled "White Trauma and the Politics of Multiculturalism," is free and open to the public.

Hage is senior lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Sydney, Australia. His contributions to the field have helped put Australia in the forefront of works in cultural theory, as well as in the area of innovative artistic production, within a multicultural social context.

"Hage has been active, not only as author and co-editor of books and articles dealing with issues of multiculturalism and race in Australia, but as deputy director of the Australian Arabic Communities Council in Sydney and a consultant on issues relating to Middle Eastern refugees for Amnesty International and the Australian Council," said Brett de Bary, Cornell professor of Asian Studies and comparative literature. "As such, [Hage] has made a name for himself not only as a brilliant and provocative social scientist, but as a public spokesperson both skilled at, and committed to, addressing general audiences."

An Australian immigrant of Lebanese birth, Hage became a naturalized citizen of Australia, attended high school there and later received his Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of West Sydney in 1987.

Hage's writings on ethnicity, immigration, racial violence and the politics of multiculturalism have attracted a growing international readership. His most recent book, White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society (Comeford and Miller, Pluto Press, 1998), was published simultaneously in Britain and Australia. He is the author of numerous articles and is co-editor of Communal/Plural, an international refereed journal. He also serves on the editorial board of Cultural Studies (Duke University), The UTS Review (University of Technology Sydney) and The Australian Journal of Anthropology (University of Sydney).