The Center for Afroamerican and African Studies (CAAS) will commemorate the second anniversary of the death of Professor Lemuel Johnson with a two-day symposium named after one of his books, “Highlife for Lemuel.”

The symposium will run 8:45 a.m.-noon and 1:30-3:45 p.m. March 12 in the Michigan Union’s Kuenzel Room. Activities will continue 4:30-6 p.m. in the CAAS library in Haven Hall. On March 13, the symposium will return to the Kuenzel Room from 8:45 a.m.-noon and 1:30-5:30 p.m.

The symposium will honor Johnson’s accomplishments and interests as a poet, scholar and teacher. It will include discussions of matters that interested him and remain important to the fields in which he worked, organizers say. Sessions will include diasporic studies, music, sexuality, and the responsibility of academics and academic institutions in the United States to African academics and African universities.

Events will include the dedication of a plaque honoring Johnson in the CAAS library. The symposium will conclude with a poetry reading, including a selection of Johnson’s works, by a number of his fellow poets.

A symposium schedule is posted on the CAAS Web site, http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/caas.

For more information, contact Elizabeth James, ecnirp@umich.edu or (734) 764-5517.