Baylor's History Department Sponsoring Three Lectures In Early March
Dr. Charles Wilson, director of the Center for Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi, will deliver the 2006 Charles Edmondson Historical Lectures at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 7, and at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 8. Both lectures will be held in room 100 of Morrison Hall on the Baylor University campus.
The theme for this year's lecture is "The Religion of the American South in a Global Perspective." Wilson's first lecture, "Southern Missions: Taking Southern Religion to the World," will explore the religious traditions of the South from the colonial period to the early 20th century. Wilson also will explore how missionaries from southern denominations brought religion to the world and the world perspectives those missionaries brought back with them. Specifically, Wilson will lecture about the important role women missionaries played during this time period.
Wilson's second lecture, "The World Comes South: Globalization and Southern Religion," will explore how the South has attracted the largest number of immigrants in the United States since the 1960s and the effect on the religious diversity of the area.
"The topics of these lectures are timely because we hear a lot about globalization these days and the role America has in the world," Wilson explained. "I'm trying to specifically look at how religion is a part of globalization and the effect it has on the South."
Baylor's history department also is sponsoring a third lecture to celebrate Women's History Month. Dr. Constance Schulz, a history professor at the University of South Carolina, will lecture on "Virgins and Vamps" at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, March 9, in the SBC Theater of the Mayborn Museum. The lecture will focus on stereograph cards and how women were portrayed in the cards during the late 19th century. The stereograph consists of two photographs mounted next to each other on a card. When seen through a stereoscope viewer, the two photographs merge as one, displaying a single three-dimensional image. Shultz will show the audience about 80 different cards and will explain how those cards either degraded or raised the roles and actions of women during that time period.
"The audience will get an in-depth look at home entertainment and popular culture in the late 19th century," Schulz explained. "I'm also going to argue that many of the same story lines and portrayals of women in the cards were adopted by the very earliest movies."
All lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, contact the department of history at (254) 710-2667.