EUGENE–Diana K. Myers, the foremost expert on Bhutanese textiles outside of the small Himalayan kingdom, will deliver a free slide-illustrated lecture on Friday, Oct. 20, as the Oregon Humanities Center’s 2000-2001 Luther S. and Dorothy Cecelia Cressman Professor in the Humanities.

Her lecture, "Bhutan: The Thunder Dragon Kingdom in the Twenty-First Century," will be presented at 7:30 p.m. in Room 177 of Lawrence Hall, 1190 Franklin Blvd. A reception will follow.

Until as recently as the 1960s, handwoven textile fabrics constituted the main form of currency in landlocked Bhutan. These textiles, and the stories they tell about the political, religious, social and ethnic history of this small country little known to Westerners, will be the topic of Myers’ lecture.

Myers, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal and an expert on Himalayan culture, will discuss how the role of textiles in Bhutan is changing as the country, which remained isolated from the West until the 1970s, takes its place in the global community.

At 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 21, Myers also will give a gallery talk, "The Social Life of Cloth in Bhutan," at Eugene’s White Lotus Gallery, 767 Willamette St. Presented in conjunction with an exhibit of Bhutanese textiles and other art objects, her talk will focus on regional weaving traditions and the roles of men and women in producing textiles both for secular and religious use, with reference to the examples that will be on display at the gallery.

An endowment given by the late Northwest archaeologist Luther Cressman, a UO professor emeritus, and his wife, Cecelia, established the lectureship in 1997. Its purpose is to present and illuminate fundamental humanities issues that confront but are too often ignored by societies centrally occupied with science, technology and business.

Past Cressman Lecturers include N. Scott Momaday, Randall Robinson, Henry Drewal and Tsianina Lomawaima.

For more information about this year’s Cressman lecture, including disability accommodations, browse http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~humanctr or call (541) 346-3934.

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