From the Eugene Register-Guard:

Pulitzer Prize winner on campus Tuesday

Louis Menand, the author of "The Metaphysical Club," a Pulitzer Prize-winning book that explores American pragmatism, will speak at 8 p.m. Tuesday, in 182 Lillis Hall, 955 E. 13th Ave. Admission is free. Menand is the 2004-05 Kritikos Professor in the Humanities.

A professor of English and American literature and language at Harvard University, Menand also is a staff writer for the New Yorker and a contributing editor for the New York Review of Books. "The Metaphysical Club" won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 2002.

In his Kritikos lecture, Menand will trace the history of American universities, with a special focus on humanities departments. He will examine current pressures and "threats" affecting the liberal arts and the humanities, and will speculate on their future.

Menand also will speak in Portland on Thursday, this time on "The Story of the Soup Cans." He will discuss why Andy Warhol's 1962 exhibit of paintings of Campbell's soup cans was an important event in the intellectual history of the Cold War. The Portland lecture is at 8 p.m. in the Mayfair Ballroom of the Benson Hotel, 309 S.W. Broadway.

The Kritikos professorship was created through a private gift, matched by state and National Endowment for the Humanities funds, to bring speakers to Oregon who share "a commitment to intellectual honesty and freedom" and "a recognition of the worth of open and honest civic discussion and critical analysis of differing viewpoints and values."

For more information, call the Oregon Humanities Center, 346-3934.