The Lectures

Lawrence F. Brewster Lecture in History

Black Pirates: The Curious Early History of the Amistad Rebellion

Marcus Rediker, PhD
University of Pittsburgh
Department of History, Chair

September 10, 2009 | 7PM | Wright Auditorium

Dr. Marcus Rediker is a world-renowned scholar of maritime history. After completing his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Rediker taught at Georgetown University from 1982 to 1994, before moving to the University of Pittsburgh where he now serves as professor and chair of the department of history.

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The North Carolina Lecture

Reflections on the Last Samurai

Mark Ravina, PhD
Emory University Department of Russian and East Asian Studies, Chair

October 6, 2009 | 7PM | Wright Auditorium

Dr. Ravina is a professor of history and chair of the Department of Russian and East Asian Studies at Emory University. Dr. Ravina’s specialization is Japanese history, especially eighteenth- and nineteenth-century politics. Ravina’s first book, Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan (Stanford, 1999), was recently published in a Japanese translation as Meikun no satetsu (2004).

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The Premiere Lecture

Reflections on Feminism: A Voyage of Discovery with Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem

November 6, 2009 | 7PM | Wright Auditorium

After rising to national prominence as a feminist leader in the 1960s, Ms. Steinem emerged as an important intellectual force as well, helping to found New York magazine. Earlier, Ms. Steinem had broken new cultural and journalistic ground in 1963 with an investigative report on how the women of Playboy were treated. Ms. Steinem’s report was later made into a 1985 movie, A Bunny's Tale.

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Jarvis Lecture on Christianity and Culture

Recovery from the Long Nightmare of Amnesia

Walter Brueggemann, ThD, PhD
Columbia Theological Seminary, Professor Emeritus

January 26, 2010 | 7PM | Wright Auditorium

A graduate of Elmhurst College, Dr. Brueggemann studied at the Eden Theological Seminary, receiving his Doctorate of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary and his PhD from St. Louis University. He is professor emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary.

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Sallie Southall Cotten Lecture

Little Old Ladies and the Last Word: An Exploration of Sassiness and Risque Behavior in African American Folklore

Trudier Harris, PhD
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

February 17, 2010 | 7PM | Wright Auditorium

Dr. Harris taught at the College of William and Mary for six years before joining the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to lecturing throughout the United States, Dr. Harris has lectured in Jamaica, Canada, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, England, and Northern Ireland. Her memoir, Summer Snow: Reflections from a Black Daughter of the South, appeared from Beacon Press in 2003.

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Thomas Harriot Lecture

Native Americans of North Carolina

Theda Perdue, PhD

March 18, 2010 | Wright Auditorium | 7:00PM

Dr. Perdue is the author or co-author of seven books including Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835 (1998), which won the Southern Association of Women’s Historian’s Julia Cherry Spruill Award and the Southern Anthropological Society’s James Mooney Prize. More recently, she has published "Mixed Blood" Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South (2003) and, with co-author Michael D. Green, The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southeast (2001) and The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears (2007). She is the editor or co-editor of six books including Sifters: The Lives of Native American Women (2001).

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