The Freedom Project at Marquette University
The 2012-13 Academic Year will feature the Freedom Project, which will commemorate the ongoing Sesquicentennial of the Civil War (2011-2015) by exploring the meanings of emancipation, in particular, and of freedom, in general, in the United States and throughout the world during the Civil War era and the century-and-a-half since. Although the Project commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, its purpose is to recognize that “freedom” is not, in fact, an absolute value, neither as it is defined nor as it is practiced. It is a social and political construction that has meant—and still means—different things to different people at different times. To that end, the History Department has joined with the Law School, the Department of Performing Arts, the English Department, the Haggerty Museum of Art, the Raynor Library, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and other units on campus to schedule a wide variety of lectures, symposia, exhibits, performances, and other events that explore some aspect of freedom. These will include the annual Klement and Casper Lectures.
This year’s Klement Lecture will take place on September 27 (7:30 PM) and will be delivered by Steven Hahn, the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania. He will speak on “The Dimensions of Freedom: Slave Emancipation, Indian Peoples, and the Projects of the New American State.”
The spring 2013 Casper Lecture will take place on April 22 (7:30 PM) and will be delivered by Rebecca J. Scott, Charles Gibson Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. The title of her talk is “’She had always enjoyed her freedom’: Re-enslavement and the Law in the Era of the Haitian Revolution.”
The Freedom Project website will go live later this summer. You'll be able to find the link on the main page of the History department website - just look for the logo.
