UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — “Memory of War: The Seventeenth Century and the U.S. Civil War” will be the theme of the three lectures being delivered Nov. 3-5 by Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Fred C. Frey Professor and head of the Department of History at Louisiana State University, in conjunction with the the 2022 Steven and Janice Brose Distinguished Lecture Series.

Sheehan-Dean’s teaching and research focuses on 19th-century U.S. history, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and Southern History. A distinguished lecturer with the Organization of American Historians, he is the author of the award-winning “The Calculus of Violence: How Americans Fought the Civil War;” “Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia;” and most recently, “Reckoning with Rebellion: War and Sovereignty in the Nineteenth Century.”

All three of Sheehan-Dean’s lectures will examine how Americans remembered and analogized the English Civil Wars (or the Wars of the Three Nations) in the 17th century with the U.S. Civil War two centuries later. Northerners and Southerners both made use of history, albeit in contrasting ways and sometimes to argue among themselves. From the war’s origins to its final moments, Americans drew on history to debate the legitimacy of rebellion, how to fight a civil conflict, and what the meant. 

Titles and schedules for all three lectures, which are free and open to the public, are as follows:

• “Why the Civil War Happened” – Thursday, Nov. 3, at 5 p.m.; Foster Auditorium (102 Paterno Library)
• “Managing Civil War” – Friday, Nov. 4, at 5 p.m.; Mann Assembly Room (103 Paterno Library)
• “What Civil Wars Mean” – Saturday, Nov. 5, at 4 p.m.; Foster Auditorium (102 Paterno Library)

This Brose Distinguished Lecture Series is offered by the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center through the generosity of an endowment created by Steven and Janice Brose. The series is co-sponsored by the University Libraries. For more information, contact the Richards Center at 814-863-0151 or visit its website.