Distinguished Speakers

Award-winning photographer Mitch Epstein gave an illuminating, multi-media presentation based on his latest project, American Power, at Litrenta Lecture Hall on March 3, 2010. In his talk, Epstein examined how energy is produced and used in the American landscape, raising questions about the nature and exercise of power, both energy-based and political.

On Sunday, April 25th, Christopher White, author of the newly published and critically-acclaimed book, Skipjack: The Story of America's Last Sailing Oystermen (St. Martin's Press), appeared at the Decker Theatre on the campus of Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. Joining White were four legendary skipjack captains from the Eastern Shore, including 89-year old Captain Arthur Daniels, Jr. and his son Captain Stan Daniels, both of Deal Island, plus Captain Wade Murphy, Jr. and Captain Stanley Larrimore of Tilghman Island.

Author and journalist Michael Meyer presents a talk on his latest book, The Year That Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall, at Washington College’s Hynson Lounge, Hodson Commons on Monday, March 29. Meyer provides a riveting eyewitness account of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe that rewrites our conventional understanding of how the Cold War came to an end and holds important lessons for America’s current geopolitical challenges.

Historian Richard Beeman, author of one of the most comprehensive biographies of Patrick Henry ever produced, explores the life and legacy of this Revolutionary patriot and noted statesman at Washington College’s Hynson Lounge, Hodson Commons, on Tuesday, April 6.

Since 1955, when John Marshall Harlan was nominated to the Supreme Court just after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, questions about race have played a central part in Supreme Court confirmation hearings. This was never truer than in the contentious confirmation hearings of the first Latina Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor. Sherrilyn Ifill, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law, explores this history and examines whether race matters in judicial decision-making.

Poet Maxine Susman presented a reading of her “Wartime Address” at Washington College’s Rose O’Neill Literary House on Tuesday, September 29.  “Wartime Address” is a poem sequence based on the memoir of Jean Wetzel. It tells of her flight from Paris during World War II. Dr. Susman is Professor of English at Caldwell College where she teaches poetry, literature and writing across the curriculum.

A contributing editor to the Washington Post's Book World section since 1985 and a National Book Critics Circle Award-winner for excellence in reviewing, Dennis Drabelle brings to life the drama surrounding the storied Nevada silver vein called the Comstock Lode. After its discovery in the 1850s, Comstock became a mecca of profitable business and technical innovation -- but also of untrammeled greed, outright theft and stock-market fraud.

Washington College’s 2009-10 Patrick Henry Writing Fellow, the historian and author Marla Miller, discusses the fascinating real life of Betsy Ross. Miller is in residence at Washington College throughout the academic year, using the fellowship to complete her forthcoming work, a groundbreaking biography of the Revolutionary flag-maker, seamstress and government contractor.

Award-winning historian Henry Wiencek, presently residing in Chestertown as Washington College's first-ever Patrick Henry Fellow, unveiled some of the startling discoveries he has made researching his upcoming book about Thomas Jefferson and slavery in "Sex, Lies & Microfilm: What Historians Don't Tell You About Thomas Jefferson," a lecture at Washington College's Casey Academic Center Forum on Tuesday, April 21.

New York City looms large in the American imagination – as a magnet for hopes, fears and, intriguingly, apocalyptic fantasies. Max Page, Associate Professor of Architecture and History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, explored how the Big Apple inspires Armageddon-like visions when he presented “The City's End: Two Centuries of Fantasies, Fears and Premonitions of New York's Destruction” at Washington College's Litrenta Lecture Hall on Thursday, April 16.

In the long struggle for African-American equality, Maryland often played a pivotal role, as C. Fraser Smith chronicles in an acclaimed new book. The author explored these issues when he presented "Here Lies Jim Crow: Civil Rights in Maryland" at Washington College's Litrenta Lecture Hall on Monday, March 23.

Did any architects, particularly early in our nation's history, consciously set out to create "American" architecture? Have any done so since? And is there anything particularly "American" about what has been built in this country? Duemling addresses these questions. Duemling is a former career diplomat and museum director, now retired, devoting his time and energies to a variety of philanthropic projects. Duemling spent his youth in Ft. Wayne, IN, and San Diego, CA. He attended Yale University, earning a B.A. degree with honors in 1950, and an M.A. in 1953. In 1950, he was awarded a Henry Fellowship to study at Cambridge University, England, and from 1953 to 1957, Duemling served as an air intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy, with the Pacific fleet and in Japan, attaining the rank of lieutenant (senior grade).

Branch's talk focuses on reinterpreting the legacy of Martin Luther King in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and how the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement can be carried on amidst concerns for national security and public safety. Branch is the award-winning writer of a multi-volume history of the Civil Rights Movement and the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63" and "Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-5." These exhaustive treatments of the early history, personalities and politics of the Civil Rights Movement—representing 13 years of writing and research—have established Branch as a national authority, and he frequently advised President Clinton on racial matters and civil rights issues during his terms.

On November 13, 2001 the former National Security Adviser, Samuel R. Berger, spoke forcefully of America’s leadership in a changed world before a packed crowd of students.

As leader of the African-American struggle for civil rights and economic justice in Cambridge, Maryland, in the early 1960s, Gloria Richardson helped define the course of the 20th-century Civil Rights movement. She was also the first woman to serve as the leader of a major local movement. The so-called "Cambridge Movement," which lasted between roughly 1962 and 1964, is remembered today as the beginning of an important new chapter in the history of Civil Rights. As one recent historian wrote, "Richardson became the clarion caller who beckoned the state and nation to do what was right... She held true to her faith in a moral cause, her belief in how to achieve results, and her compassion for the alienated."

As leader of the African-American struggle for civil rights and economic justice in Cambridge, Maryland, in the early 1960s, Gloria Richardson helped define the course of the 20th-century Civil Rights movement. She was also the first woman to serve as the leader of a major local movement. The so-called "Cambridge Movement," which lasted between roughly 1962 and 1964, is remembered today as the beginning of an important new chapter in the history of Civil Rights. As one recent historian wrote, "Richardson became the clarion caller who beckoned the state and nation to do what was right... She held true to her faith in a moral cause, her belief in how to achieve results, and her compassion for the alienated."

Civil rights lawyer and scholar Sherrilyn Ifill, author of the acclaimed book On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century (Beacon Books, 2007), explores the history of lynching on the Eastern Shore with a lecture/booksigning at the Bethel AME Church on Tuesday, October 16, 2007.

Civil rights lawyer and scholar Sherrilyn Ifill, author of the acclaimed book On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century (Beacon Books, 2007), explores the history of lynching on the Eastern Shore with a lecture/booksigning at the Bethel AME Church on Tuesday, October 16, 2007.

Civil rights lawyer and scholar Sherrilyn Ifill, author of the acclaimed book On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century (Beacon Books, 2007), explores the history of lynching on the Eastern Shore with a lecture/booksigning at the Bethel AME Church on Tuesday, October 16, 2007.

Civil rights lawyer and scholar Sherrilyn Ifill, author of the acclaimed book On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century (Beacon Books, 2007), explores the history of lynching on the Eastern Shore with a lecture/booksigning at the Bethel AME Church on Tuesday, October 16, 2007.

On Wednesday, January 28 Ted Widmer - director of the John Carter Brown Library - discussed his book Ark of the Liberties: America and the World at the Casey Academic Center Forum at Washington College. Scholar and presidential speechwriter – and founding director of the Starr Center - Ted Widmer explored the surprising history of America’s relationship with the rest of the world, and describes how that past shapes present-day foreign policy.