2009 Symposium:
Meet Mr. Lincoln
October 2-3, 2009Presenters
include Michael Burlingame, "Meet Mr. Lincoln," Joshua Wolf
Shenk, "Lincoln's Melancholy," Bruce Evans, "Lincoln's Health
and Death," Richard Schwartz, "Introducing Mr. Lincoln," and
Randall Saxon, "Lincoln's Religion."
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The Lincoln Bicentennial is an extraordinary
year, and we are happy to present an extraordinary Seminary
Ridge Symposium, featuring a distinguished program of speakers
and the one-act play, "Lincoln Lives." Some of you will remember
that during the Civil War Centennial in the 1960’s a picture
book titled Meet Mr. Lincoln gave a preliminary glimpse
into the face and person of the Great Emancipator. Since then, a
great deal of new scholarship has brightened and deepened the
picture of Lincoln, and studies of his psychology, health, and
religion have supplemented growing work on his more public
visage.
The word "magisterial" is not an exaggeration
when applied to Michael Burlingame’s new Abraham Lincoln: A
Life; and those who have read his The Inner World of
Abraham Lincoln must agree that Publishers Weekly did not
exaggerate in calling this book a "revelation," "the most
convincing portrait of Lincoln’s personality to date," and
"perhaps the most important piece of Lincoln biography" to
appear in the last fifty years. At the ninth Seminary Ridge
Symposium, we have an opportunity to hear and meet the greatest
Lincoln scholar and biographer of our time.
Joshua Wolf Shenk’s Lincoln’s Melancholy is similarly a
revelation, as it presents not only a psychological portrait of
Lincoln, but places it in the wider context of his challenges
and achievements. The large popular audience generated by this
book attests not only the contribution made by Mr. Shenk’s work,
but to the sensibility behind the work. The same can be said for
our other presenters: each brings a unique, profound, and
intelligent lifetime of meditation to an aspect of this giant
and still mysterious character. Perhaps the 2009 Symposium will
bring "the Lincoln nobody knows" into sharper focus, clarify our
own vision, and prove that in a nation given "a new birth of
freedom," Lincoln lives.
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Director and Host of the Symposium
Kent Gramm Director of the Seminary
Ridge Symposium, Kent Gramm is the author of
Gettysburg: A
Meditation on War and Values; November: Lincoln's Elegy
at Gettysburg; and
Some-body's
Darling: Essays on the Civil War,
and contributor to the volumes
The Gettysburg Nobody
Knows and
Giants in Their Tall Black Hats: Essays
on the Iron Brigade. He is editor of
Battle: The Nature and Consequences of Civil War Combat. |
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The Symposium will conclude with a panel discussion. Your questions and observations will be
welcomed. Join us for what promises to be an exceptional
Seminary Ridge Symposium. See the brochure for
on-campus housing information. For other accommodation in
Gettysburg visit the Gettysburg Convention & Visitors Bureau at
http://www.gettysburg.travel/
*If the registration deadline (September 18,
2009) has
past, please call 338-3030 to attend.
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