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March
13, 2002
Pulitzer
Prize-Winning Wills Delivers Rosenthal Lectures
CHICAGO
--- Garry Wills, Northwestern University’s Pulitzer prize-winning
history professor, will deliver the 2002 Julius Rosenthal Foundation
Lecture Series on "Jefferson and the Slave Power" April
9 -11 at Northwestern University School of Law, 357 E. Chicago Ave.
The
lectures, at 4 p.m. each day, are free and open to the public.
Wills
will focus on President Thomas Jefferson and how the skewed "three-fifths"
representation of blacks lurked behind most major events of his
presidency. The lectures are titled "Louisiana and the Slave
Power" (April 9), "Aaron Burr and the Slave Power"
(April 10) and "Jefferson’s Embargo and the Slave Power"
(April 11).
Known
for the depth of his thought and the gracefulness of his writing,
Wills is the author of more than 20 widely read books on American
culture and politics. "Lincoln at Gettysburg" won the
Pulitzer Prize for Literature, for its close textual analysis of
the Gettysburg Address, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
One
of the nation’s most prominent public intellectuals, he is
a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He
also is a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines and moves
with ease between American politics, ancient history and medieval
philosophy, synthesizing information across disciplines and finding
the new angle in spellbinding language.
"Professor
Wills is certain to continue the Rosenthal lectures’ strong
tradition with his bold and energetic approach to history,"
said David E. Van Zandt, professor of law and dean of Northwestern
University School of Law.
The
Julius Rosenthal Foundation Lecture Series has assumed a preeminent
position among distinguished legal lecture programs, and the publication
of the lectures has contributed to legal literature and scholarship
for more than 60 years.
Wills’
most recent book, "Venice: Lion City," was cited by the
Los Angeles Times as one of the best books of 2001. "He seems
to have left not a book unread, not a church unvisited, not a painting,
sculpture or mosaic unconsidered…it is scarcely an exaggeration
to say that I have learned something new about the city on every
page," said the reviewer, John Julius Norwich.
Wills’
"St. Augustine" also was chosen as one of the Los Angeles
Times best books, for 1999. "This biography of Augustine is
compounded in equal measure of fact and exegesis, all of it offered
up in elegant prose," said the reviewer.
Other
books of Wills include "Nixon Agonistes" (1970), "Inventing
America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence" (1978),
"Explaining America: The Federalist" (1980), "The
Kennedy Imprisonment" (1982), "Reagan’s America"
(1987), "Under God: Religion and American Politics" (1990),
"Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare’s Macbeth" (1994)
and "John Wayne’s America: The Politics of Celebrity"
(1997).
Besides
winning a Pulitzer, he also has received the National Humanities
Medal in honor of his lifetime achievements in the humanities (1998);
the National Book Critics Award (twice); the Organization of American
Historians Merle Curti Award; and the Yale Graduate School’s
Wilber Cross Medal.
Wills,
who received master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Yale
University, taught classics and humanities at Johns Hopkins University.
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