Historian Eric Foner To Lecture At Muhlenberg
Eric Foner, the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and one of the country’s most prominent historians, will present a lecture, “The Story of American Freedom: 1776 – 2006,” on September 21 at 7 p.m. in Miller Forum, Moyer Hall.Wednesday, September 13, 2006 01:59 PM
This event is free and open to the public.
In his talk, Foner will discuss how freedom has been both a universal aspiration and a highly contested ideal throughout American history, and how definitions of freedom have changed in response to events at home and abroad. It will examine how pivotal moments such as the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, and the 1960s affected Americans' understandings of freedom. The talk will end by looking at how the meaning and practice of freedom have changed since the events of September 11, 2001.
Foner is the author of The Story of American Freedom (1998) as well as several other books on freedom in American history, and a recipient of the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching from Columbia University. During the 1990s, he served as president of both the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association.
Foner was named Scholar of the Year by the New York Council for the Humanities in 1995. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences and the British Academy, and holds an honorary doctorate from Iona College. He serves on the editorial boards of Past and Present and The Nation, and has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, London Review of Books, and many other publications. He has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. including Charlie Rose, Book Notes, and All Things Considered, and in historical documentaries on PBS and the History Channel. He was the on-camera historian for Freedom: A History of Us, on PBS in 2003. He has lectured extensively to both academic and non-academic audiences.
Foner’s appearance on campus is sponsored by the Muhlenberg College Center for Ethics and is a National Constitution Day event. This semester, the Center is hosting Freedom Matters, a series of programs that examines how freedom has been defined in different historical moments and viewed by different segments of society.
