Dialog, UA Faculty and Staff News

Dialog Online, UA Faculty & Staff News
November 5, 2001

YALE BIOGRAPHER TO OPEN UA’S BANKHEAD HISTORY LECTURE SERIES

A Yale University history professor is the first of four leading biographers scheduled to appear as part of UA’s Bankhead History Lecture Series. Dr. Jonathan Spence, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and an expert in recent Chinese history, including the Tiananmen Square massacre, will give a talk titled “The Art of Biography and Chinese History” on Thursday, Nov. 8, at 7:30 p.m. in the Ferguson Theater. Admission is free and the public is invited.

Future biographers scheduled to visit include Blanche Wiesen Cook, the best-selling author of biographies on Eleanor Roosevelt; Dan Carter, an author who collaborated in the production of “Settin’ the Woods on Fire: George Wallace and the Politics of the ’60s,” a TV documentary on Wallace; and John Morrill, a University of Cambridge professor and author, who is focusing on the religious psychology of Oliver Cromwell.

In 1982, the Bankhead family established the Bankhead Endowment Fund to further the interests of historical research and scholarly activity within the history department in UA’s College of Arts and Sciences. In recent years, the family expanded the original commission to bring visiting lecturers to campus and to further promote the teaching and study of history. For more information, contact Dr. David Beito at 348-1870 or dbeito@history.as.ua.edu.