The 2000-2001 Whichard Distinguished Professor is Dr. David S. Cecelski, an independent historian with a special interest in oral history. Dr. Cecelski was educated at Duke University and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The Carteret County native has been a Research Associate in the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; a Teaching Fellow with the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina; and a Research Fellow with the Institute for Southern Studies, also in Durham. Cecelski's publications include books on the maritime South and on African-American history and dozens of articles in scholarly and popular periodicals. His widely-read "Listening to History" oral history series appears regularly in the Raleigh News and Observer. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the 1999 Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights, the 1998 Walter Hines Page Award for Literature, and a 1988-89 Rural Policy Fellowship from the Aspen Institute for Policy Studies. Cecelski's The Waterman's Song:Slavery and Freedom in the Maritime South is forthcoming (spring 2001).
