ORONO – Larzer Ziff of the John Hopkins University English Department, the author of six books on American literacy history, will be the guest speaker at the 2001 University of Maine Phi Beta Kappa initiation. The event is scheduled for 3 p.m. Tuesday, April 23, in the Bodwell Area of the Maine Center for the Arts.

The title of Ziff’s talk will be “Mark Twain in the Lands of Color.”

Ziff earned a doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1955 and has taught at the University of California in Berkeley, Oxford University and the University of Pennsylvania. His 2000 book, “Return Passages,” is an examination of the travel writing of such authors as Twain, Henry James, and John Ledyard.

UMaine is home to one of only four Phi Beta Kappa chapters in Maine. The others are at Bowdoin, Bates and Colby. Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest academic honor society in the country.

Ziff’s talk is free and open to the public. For more information call 581-3743.