Research Triangle Park, N.C.  Geoffrey Harpham, director and president of the National Humanities Center, has been invited to speak at the Sorbonne's annual La Cité de la Réussite on the cultural influence of the internet on creativity.

La Cité de la Réussite, to be held at the Sorbonne and the French Senate October 19-22, 2006, is Europe's major student forum. Established in 1989, and held annually ever since, La Cité de la Réussite brings together leading figures from academia, industry, government, the media, social sciences, the arts, and the sciences in a series of debates on societal issues. Each yearly conference has an audience of over 20,000, making La Cité Europe's preeminent university event. The theme of this year's forum is "Responsibility."

The objective of the forum is to establish an understanding of the stakes involved in current issues and to provide a space for dialogue between young people and the major international figures involved in those issues. Since its inception, over 1,000 international leaders have participated, including heads of state and leaders in all fields of endeavor.

Past participants in La Cité de la Réussite have included President Jacques Chirac of France; former Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel; President of the European Union Romano Prodi; UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadruddin Aga Khan; UN Secretaries General Javier Perez de Cuellar and Boutros Boutros-Ghali; Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Doctors Without Borders; musicians Yehudi Menuhin and Mstislav Rostropovich; film directors Costa-Gavras, Luc Besson, and Milos Forman; writer Umberto Eco; international financier and philanthropist George Soros; Giovanni Agnelli, CEO of Fiat; Pierre Cardin, fashion designer and entrepreneur; industrialist Sir James Goldsmith; Jean-Marie Messier, CEO of Vivendi-Universal; Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google; Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace laureate; Georges Charpak, Nobel laureate in physics; philosophers Bernard-Henri Levy and Grégory Bénichou; and many others.

Geoffrey Harpham has been president and director of the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina since January 2003. Before assuming this position, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Brandeis University, and Tulane University, where he was the Pierce Butler Professor of English. A specialist in modern British literature and literary theory, he is the author of eight books, the most recent of which is The Character of Criticism (Routledge, 2006). As director of the National Humanities Center, Dr. Harpham has been responsible for launching a three-year initiative beginning in fall 2006 that brings together humanists and scientists to consider the question of the human today.

For more information on the National Humanities Center, please call Don Solomon at (919) 549-0661 or e-mail him at dsolomon@nhc.rtp.nc.us.