October 22 'Adventures in Ideas' Seminar Examines Civil War
SALISBURY, MD---Salisbury University’s 2011-12 Adventures in Ideas humanities seminar series begins Saturday, October 22, in Teacher Education and Technology Center Room 179 with “Johnny Reb, Billy Yank and Us: The Civil War in Retrospect.”
SU faculty emeritus Donald Whaley, professor of history Dr. Clara Small and historian Larry Whiteaker look back on the Civil War from current perspectives on its 150th anniversary. Their presentation is from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
Topics include the ongoing controversy about the causes of the war, the question of whether the Civil War was the United States’ first “modern” war and the growing understanding of the role African-Americans played in the conflict.
Whaley, whose family foundation established the Adventures in Ideas series, won the Distinguished Faculty, Outstanding Faculty and Alumni Appreciation awards during his career at SU. For more than 30 years he taught classes on the history of the South. His essays about Southern history and culture have appeared in Literature/Film Quarterly, Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Magill’s Literary Annual, International Social Science Review and Pacific Northwest Quarterly.
Small teaches classes on civil rights, and African-American, U.S., world and oral history at SU. She has published several books, including her latest, Men of Color, To Arms! Manumitted Slaves and Free Blacks from the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland Who Served in the Civil War, with the Rev. David Briddell. She has received honors including the University System of Maryland Regents’ Award for Public Service, the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore’s Frank H. Morris Humanitarian Award and the Harriet Tubman Lifetime Achievement Award. She is a member of the Maryland Governor’s Task Force on Slavery.
Whiteaker, professor emeritus of history at Tennessee Technological University, taught courses on the Civil War, religion and American culture for 35 years. His latest book is Sister States, Enemy States: The Civil War in Kentucky and Tennessee.
Other upcoming topics in the Adventures in Ideas series include “Film, Media and Society Today” with Drs. James Burton, David Johnson and Elsie Walker on Saturday, February 4, and “Apocalypse Now: 2012 and Disaster in History and Culture” with Drs. Louise Detwiler and Michael Lewis on Saturday, March 3.
Sponsored by the Charles R. and Martha N. Fulton School of Liberal Arts and the Whaley Family Foundation, cost of the seminars are $30 each or $75 for all three. Admission includes coffee, snacks and lunch.
To register call Donna Carey at 410-543-6450 or e-mail dmcarey@salisbury.edu. For more information visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu.