Civil War Symposium to take place at UNC
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Novelist E.L. Doctorow to speak at UNC
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Co-sponsored by the Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense, the Center for the Study of the American South, and the Department of History
Scholars from as far away as England and as close as Chapel Hill will present a free public symposium on the U.S. Civil War on Saturday, March 29, 2008. The program will begin at 8:15 a.m. and will take place at 111 Carroll Hall on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.
The program consists of five presentations ranging from the British view of Robert E. Lee to recent Hollywood renditions of the Civil War to secession and the slaves’ revenge. A detailed list of the presenters and their topics appears below.
The Civil War Symposium is presented in honor of Alan Stephenson, donor of the Stephenson Chair in Civil War History. UNC-Chapel Hill co-sponsors of the event are the curriculum in peace, war, and defense, the Center for the Study of the American South, and the history department.
A free public lecture titled “Notes on the History of Fiction” by novelist E.L. Doctorow will take place prior to the Civil War Symposium at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 27, in the auditorium of Hanes Art Center on South Columbia Street near Franklin Street. A book sale and signing will precede the talk at 5:30 p.m. in the center lobby.
Doctorow’s novel “The March” (Random House, 2005) is set during Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s Civil War march through Georgia and the Carolinas, in 1864-1865. The book won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for fiction (Doctorow’s second) and the PEN/Faulkner Award (his second). It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and a nominee for the National Book Award.
“The March to the Sea and Beyond,” by UNC historian Joseph Glatthaar, Ph.D., gave Doctorow the idea for the novel. Glatthaar, acknowledged in the book, is the Stephenson Distinguished Professor in American Civil War Studies and chair of the curriculum in peace, war and defense.
“E.L. Doctorow’s editor at Random House contacted me and said that he (Doctorow) had asked if I would read his manuscript, said Glatthaar (pronounced “GLAT-har). “I read it, and it was just magnificent. I couldn’t put it down. He had done so much research. I sent my comment, and he and I have had steady correspondence ever since. He’s been exceedingly generous in talking about my book.”
Doctorow won the National Book Award for “World’s Fair” (1985). He won his first Pen/Faulkner Award for “Billy Bathgate” (1989), which was made into a film in 1991. “Ragtime” (Modern Library, 1975) won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and was made into a film in 1981 and a musical in 1998.
Doctorow will be a Frey Foundation Distinguished Visiting Professor in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences. While at Carolina, he will speak to Glatthaar’s U.S. history class. UNC units sponsoring Doctorow’s talk are the college; the curriculum in peace, war and defense; the Institute for the Arts and Humanities; the history department and the Center for the Study of the American South.
The Frey Foundation Professorship was established in 1989 to bring to campus distinguished leaders from government, public policy and the arts. David Gardner Frey chairs the foundation established by his parents, Edward J. and Frances Frey of Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1974. He earned bachelor’s and law degrees at Carolina in 1964 and 1967.
Limited parking for the Frey lecture is available on campus in the Swain, Morehead and Ramshead lots; commercial parking is available on Rosemary Street.
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