Spring ’07 Colligan events offer an array
of history, culture, politics, art and music

January 9, 2007

In keeping with its 2006-2007 theme History’s Pioneers, the Michael J. Colligan History Project is sponsoring four lectures and a concert during the Spring ’07 semester at Miami University Hamilton.

The Spring Lecture Series kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, January 30, with popular Miami University professors Allan Winkler and Dennis Sullivan presenting “American Folk Songs: Book 3” in the Harry T. Wilks Conference Center. Drs. Winkler and Sullivan will evoke the sounds and memories of the 1960s with a special live performance featuring the immortal songs of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs.

Columbia University professor Mary Marshall Clark will present a lecture entitled “September 11th and its Aftermath: History, Memory and the Politics of Suffering” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 8, in the Wilks Conference Center. Clark, an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer, will discuss Columbia University’s 9/11 Oral History Project, the single most important archive for the world-changing events of September 11, 2001.

One of America’s leading scholars on the French Enlightenment, Miami University professor Dr. Judith Zinsser will present “Introducing the Marquise Du Châtelet” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 8, in the Wilks Conference Center. An author and biographer, Zinsser will discuss the remarkable life of Emilie de Breteuil, marquise Du Châtelet (1706-1749), a mathmetician, physicist and philosopher whose translation of Sir Isaac Newton’s principles remains the French translation still used today.

Miami University’s Dr. Robert Friedenberg, Professor of Communications and an internationally-renowned scholar of the U.S. presidency, will deliver “On Presidential Debates” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 20, in the Wilks Conference Center. Friedenberg will discuss critical moments in the evolution of American political communication, including the many precedents set during the 1960 presidential election, and reveal his unique insights into the office of the world’s most powerful chief executive.

Culminating the Spring ’07 Colligan Lecture Series will be Harvard University professor Dr. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a Pulitzer-Prize winning historian and Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer. Ulrich’s presentation entitled “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History” will take place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 10, in Parrish Auditorium. She will receive the 5th annual John E. Dolibois History Prize from Miami University. A gala reception will follow.