Conner Prairie Lyceum - Adult Lecture Series
Historical topics in a contemporary context
Free for members; $10/ non-members*
Purchase a series ticket for all five lectures for only $30
New this season is a lecture and dialogue series that follows the historical Lyceum format popular in the early 19th century. All lectures are on Sundays and begin at 4 pm, Lilly Theater (Welcome Center, Second floor).
This adult lecture series brings nationally-acclaimed historians, authors and scientists to discuss historical topics in a contemporary context. Break into small groups and participate in stimulating dialogue.
*Tom Crouch lecture is free for both members and non-members.
Sunday, April 26
David Thelen, Ph.D., professor of history, Indiana University
The Presence of the Past: How Americans Understand and Use the Past
David Thelen is a distinguished professor of history at Indiana University. A prodigious author, Thelen has published more than 50 articles and chapters, edited texts and produced countless scholarly papers and lectures in Spanish and English. He has written six critically acclaimed books on subjects ranging from turn-of-the-20th century Progressivism, to the gap between media and citizens in the United States, to an exploration of the ways history engages—and fails to engage—people in everyday life.
Among his many awards and recognitions, Thelen has twice received the Award of Merit from the American Association of State and Local History, is the recipient of the 1999 Historic Preservation Award from Mary Washington University and was a Guggenheim Fellow (1973-74) and Fulbright-Hays Senior Research Fellow to the United Kingdom (1973-74).
Sunday, May 17 (Civil War Weekend)
Richard F. (Fritz) Klein, one of the nation's foremost Lincoln actors
An Evening with President Lincoln
Richard F. (Fritz) Klein makes Lincoln and his period of history come alive. Raised in southern California, he graduated from Concordia College in Ft. Wayne, Ind., in 1970 and began acting as a hobby in 1975. The first time he was asked to portray Abraham Lincoln was in 1976 at a municipal celebration of the U.S. bicentennial. He began acting fulltime in 1980. Since then, the role has taken him to some 35 states for film and television, on stage and as a motivational speaker.
He now resides in Springfield, Ill., with his wife and family, where he performs for some of the city's 500,000 annual visitors. From there he also travels to points across the nation on tours and by special invitation.
Sunday, June 7 (Indiana Festival Weekend)
Free for members and non-members
Tom D. Crouch, Ph.D., Senior Curator, Smithsonian Institute
Early Aviation in America
Tom Crouch is senior curator of the Division of Aeronautics at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Air and Space Museum. A noted scholar on the history of balloon flight in America, Crouch’s lecture will be held in conjunction with Conner Prairie’s newest exhibit, 1859 Balloon Voyage, which tells the story of the U.S. Postal Service’s first airmail delivery from Lafayette, Ind., in 1859. Crouch is author or editor of a number of books and many articles for both popular magazines and scholarly journals. Most of his work focuses on aspects of the history of flight technology. Two of Crouch's leading books are “The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright” (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989) and “Eagle Aloft: Two Centuries of the Balloon in America” (Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983).
This program has been made possible through a matching grant from the Indiana Humanities Council in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Sunday, Sept. 13
Michael Zimmerman, Ph.D., professor of biology, Butler University
Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species
Michael Zimmerman is a professor of biology at Butler University in Indianapolis. Zimmerman holds an A.B. degree in geography from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in ecology from Washington University. Prior to coming to Butler, he taught at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Zimmerman has worked mostly on plant-animal interactions, in particular when associated with pollination, and has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has an interest in science literacy and the creation-evolution controversy, and he organized the Clergy Letter Project and Evolution Sunday. Zimmerman is the author of “Science, Nonscience, and Nonsense: Approaching Environmental Literacy” (Johns Hopkins University Press).
Zimmerman will speak about the historical context for Darwin's theories on American society, particularly in terms of Social Darwinism.
Sun Nov. 8
Marcus Rediker, Ph.D., author, chair and professor of history, University of Pittsburgh
The Slave Ship
Marcus Rediker, professor and chair in the department of history at the University of Pittsburgh, is the author of “The Slave Ship: A Human History.” This thought-provoking book tells the story of the trade in human flesh from an unexplored perspective—the decks of the slave ships. Thanks to this unique vantage point, the author comes to a thought-provoking conclusion: the violence of the trade was no accident, but was central to the rise of global capitalism.
Rediker’s lecture will help provide another informed and provocative context to Follow the North Star, Conner Prairie’s renowned program about the Underground Railroad and what it meant to be a fugitive slave from the South.
Rediker's lecture is a 2009 Spirit & Place Festival event.
