800 to receive degrees at UNL's Aug. 12 commencement exercises

Lilian R. Furst, a noted scholar and teacher at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill will deliver the address and receive an honorary doctor of letters degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln during Aug. 12 commencement exercises.

Chancellor Harvey Perlman will preside at the ceremony, which begins at 9:30 a.m. at the Bob Devaney Sports Center, 1600 Court St. Approximately 800 students will receive degrees. Because of construction of the Antelope Valley Project south of the Devaney Center, those planning to attend commencement exercises are strongly urged to use the 27th Street entrance to State Fair Park to get to the Devaney Center.

UNL doctoral candidates will be honored in a hooding ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Aug. 11 in Kimball Recital Hall, 12th and R streets (extended). Doctoral candidates will receive their diplomas at the Aug. 12 commencement exercises at the Devaney Center.

Furst is Marcel Bataillon professor of comparative literature at UNC, and an expert in the American and European world of letters. She has written extensively on Romanticism through Realism, focusing on the novel and social history and psychology in 19th- and 20th-century literature. A leading specialist in the relationship between literature and medicine, her most-recent books are "Women Healers and Physicians" (1997), "Between Doctors and Patients" (1998) and "Just Talk: Narratives of Psychotherapy" (1999).

A native of Vienna, Austria, Furst received her formal education in England, earning her bachelor's degree with honors in modern languages at Manchester University and her doctorate at Girton College, Cambridge University. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982-83, and was a nominator to the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Committee and the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Prize committee. She has taught at UNC since 1986.

A drop-off area for graduates and mobility-restricted guests will be available on the south side of the Devaney Center on Aug. 12. Sign language interpreters for hearing impaired individuals will be provided on-screen by HuskerVision. Guests in wheelchairs will be seated on the northeast corner of the arena floor. Golf carts will be located at the ramps on the exterior north and south sides of the Devaney Center to assist disabled guests entering and leaving the building.

Admission is free to the hooding and commencement ceremonies, and tickets are not required.

CONTACT: Annette Wetzel, University Communications, (402) 472-8524