The Chappell Lecture Series: Great Lives begins its 11th season in January 2014 with a lecture on one of America’s most vilified figures, assassin John Wilkes Booth. Washington, D.C., attorney and writer David O. Stewart, author of the recent historical novel The Lincoln Deception, is the speaker.
The remaining 17 lectures cover a wide range of figures, from Spartacus and Augustus to Bob Dylan and Jim Henson. Among the speakers are two Pulitzer Prize-winning biographers, David Garrow (Martin Luther King Jr.) and Debby Applegate (Henry Ward Beecher).
The final program features Reeve Lindbergh, daughter of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who will discuss her famous parents, based on her family memoir, Under a Wing.
Jan. 16 John Wilkes Booth by attorney David O. Stewart: The Lincoln Deception
Jan. 28 Jim Henson by Brian Jay Jones: Jim Henson: The Biography
Feb. 4 Martin Luther King Jr. by David Garrow of University of Pittsburgh Law School: Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Feb. 6 Bob Dylan by Sean Wilentz of Princeton University: Bob Dylan in America
Feb. 11 The Hatfields and McCoys by Dean King: The Feud: The Hatfields & McCoys: The True Story
Feb. 20 Jim Thorpe by Kate Buford: Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe
Feb. 25 Mata Hari by Pat Shipman: Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari
Feb. 27 Augustus by Karl Galinsky of University of Texas, Austin: Augustus: Introduction to the Life of an Emperor
March 11 Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate: The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
March 13 Women of the Manhattan Project by Denise Kiernan: The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win WWII
March 18 Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler: Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
March 27 Titans of the Gilded Age: Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan by historian and biographer H.W. Brands of University of Texas, Austin
April 1 Henry VIII by British historian Jeremy Black of University of Exeter
April 8 Shakespeare by Lois Potter: The Life of William Shakespeare: A Critical Biography
April 10 Spartacus by Barry Strauss of Cornell University: The Spartacus War
April 15 Machiavelli by Miles Unger: Machiavelli: A Biography
April 17 Simon Bolivar by Marie Arana: Bolivar: American Liberator
April 22 Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh by Reeve Lindbergh, daughter of Charles and Anne Lindbergh: Under a Wing: A Memoir
All lectures are open to the public free of charge and begin at 7:30 p.m. in Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall. For further information, call 540/654-1065 or visit umw.edu/greatlives.