Yale Bulletin and Calendar

February 28, 2003|Volume 31, Number 20

Noted historian Garry Wills
will deliver the Tanner Lectures

Garry Wills, who has been hailed as one of America's foremost historians, will deliver the 2003 Tanner Lectures on Human Values on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 4 and 5.

The theme of this year's lectures is "Henry Adams: The Historian as Novelist?"

Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918) was the great-grandson of President John Adams, the grandson of President John Quincy Adams and the son of Charles Francis Adams, the minister to England during the Civil War. Henry Adams worked as a personal secretary to his father, as a political journalist in Washington, D.C. and as a Harvard history professor. A prodigious writer, he is most widely known for his nine-volume history of the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, and for his autobiography, "The Education of Henry Adams." The latter was named by The Modern Library as the best non-fiction book of the 20th century.

Each of Wills' Tanner Lectures will focus on a different book by the author: on Tuesday, "Democracy, An American Novel" and on Wednesday, "Esther." Wills places these books among Adams' greatest works, describing them as "very searching probes into the political and religious culture of America."

Both talks will be held at 4 p.m. in the Whitney Humanities Center (WHC), 53 Wall St. The public is invited. A reception will follow the Tuesday lecture in Rm. 108, WHC.

Wills is a distinguished public scholar specializing in cultural and religious history. He has written on topics extending from Aeschylus' "Oresteia" to books on Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan. Among his numerous publications are the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Lincoln at Gettysburg" and the New York Times best-seller "Papal Sin," which has provoked both praise and heated debate. The latter, which held that there was a fundamental dishonesty at the heart of church hierarchy, was described as a "devastating no-holds-barred indictment" by the New York Times Book Review. Wills' more recent books are "Why I am a Catholic," the author's statement of faith, and the guide "Venice: Lion City: The Religion of Empire."

Wills received his Ph.D. in classics from Yale in 1961. He has taught at various academic institutions and is now an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University. He has received many accolades, including the Presidential Medal of the Endowment for the Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Wilbur Cross Medal from the Yale Graduate School. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values were established by the American scholar, industrialist and philanthropist Obert Clart Tanner, who hoped that these lectures would contribute to the intellectual and moral life of mankind.

Henry Adams Colloquium

In anticipation of the Tanner Lectures, a distinguished group of scholars and writers will assemble for a Henry Adams Colloquium on Monday, March 3.

There will be two panels, at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., in Rm. 208, WHC. Both are free and open to the public.

Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead will chair the first panel discussion, which will focus on the autobiography "The Education of Henry Adams." The participants will be Christopher Benfey of Mount Holyoke College; Roger Kimball of The New Criterion; and Yale professors Wai Chee Dimock and Peter Gay.

The second panel, which will address more broadly the question of the humanities of Adams, will be chaired by Professor Ruth Yeazell of Yale. It will feature literary, historical and diplomatic readings of Adams. This panel includes Yale professors Jennifer Baker and David Bromwich; Charles Hill, visiting fellow at Yale; and Ralph Lerner of the University of Chicago.

According to the organizers, "The reasons given for the perennially high rating of Adams' 'Education' virtually always center on its theme of a privileged scion of the generation of the American Founders finding himself at odds with, and unable to contribute notably to, the new, industrialized world power that the United States was becoming in the decades just before and after the turn of the 20th century.

"More deeply than this," they continue, "Adams' work fundamentally engages with what is perhaps the greatest theme of the sweep of history from medieval through modern times: the advance of democracy, and America's role in its success or failure. All across Adams' histories, essays, novels, art and architecture criticism and cultural speculations can be found some of the most significant issues affecting democracy and liberty in America today."

For more information, call (203) 432-0673 or e-mail manana.sikic@yale.edu.

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