Contact: Robbie Ward
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A British historian with insights into his country's royal family and another scholar from the island nation who specializes in the intellectual culture of the United States are visiting Mississippi State this month.
Separate public programs featuring Andrew Roberts, an honorary senior scholar at Cambridge University's Caius College, and Michael O'Brien, professor of intellectual history at Cambridge's Jesus College, are part of the Institute for the Humanities' 2007 Distinguished Lecture Series.
Tuesday [Feb. 13], Roberts will discuss "A History of English-Speaking Peoples since 1900." O'Brien will speak Feb. 22. Both presentations begin at 4 p.m. in the fourth-floor suite of the Swalm Chemical Engineering Building.
Roberts is the biographer of pre-World War II British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and Edward F.L. Wood, the 1st Earl of Halifax, who was among the last viceroys of India and, later, a foreign secretary to both Chamberlain and his successor, Winston Churchill.
In addition to writing regularly for London's Daily Telegraph daily newspaper, he is a frequent guest on British television and radio.
In this country, Roberts may be known best for appearing with anchors Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric on NBC's seven-hour coverage of Princess Diana's funeral. He also pulled a similar duty for the CNN broadcasts of Queen Mother Elizabeth's funeral.
O'Brien is founder of the Southern Intellectual History Circle. His campus appearance is in conjunction with that organization's annual gathering being held at MSU. [For more on SIHC meeting, visit http://www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=3733.]
The SIHC is a group of distinguished professors of history, English and other academic areas who, along with other literati, gather regularly to discuss the speeches and ideological writings of intellectuals, Southern apologists and others about the Civil War, civil rights movement and other pivotal historical events.
O'Brien's research interests include the American South, especially the 19th and 20th centuries, including literature, political philosophy, historical imagination, sense of self, and interactions with other cultures.
For more information about the IH speakers, contact interim director Gary Myers at 662-325-2646 or glm1@ra.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.