On March 17th from 10:20 to 11:30 The History Department and WKU Libraries sponsored the first in a continuing series on monarchs and minions, beginning with BY GEORGE: BRITISH HISTORY, 1760-1820. The free, swipeable event featured a panel of WKU faculty, staff and students leading a discussion on George III: The Man, The Mistake, The Mischief, The Monument in Helm Library, Room 100.
Author Archives: Daniel Peach
By George: British History, 1760-1820
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Kentucky Live! Presented Fred Gross
WKU Libraries’ Kentucky Live! talk series featured Fred Gross, author and speaker from Louisville. Gross talked about his book One Step Ahead of Hitler to a Bowling Green, KY audience of over 40 people at Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Cambell Lane in the evening of March 5, 2010.
Fred Gross, a graduate of New York University, was a reporter for the Journal-Courier, a daily newspaper in New Haven, Connecticut, and has been a public-relations specialist for nearly thirty years, specializing in education. Gross has been actively involved in the Jewish community in Louisville, Kentucky. He has taught a Holocaust curriculum to Sunday school students, and for years has also shared his story with middle and high school students.
Fred Gross knew much about the history of the Holocaust, but he didn’t know his own, being a young Jewish child during those terrible years. In the late 1980s, he asked his mother to tell him the story of his family’s flight from the German invasion of Belgium and the Nazi policies that would become the Holocaust. One Step Ahead of Hitler is a story of survival told in words and in photographs of a journey beginning in Antwerp and ending with his freedom in America.
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Far Away Places: Dr. Saundra Ardrey on Ghana
Dr. Saundra Ardrey, Head of the Department of Political Science at WKU, spoke about Ghana in this month’s Far Away Places series at Barnes & Noble. Her lecture is part of the international talk series sponsored by the Friends of WKU Libraries and the Kentucky Museum. Dr. Ardrey led a study abroad delegation from WKU to Ghana in 2009. She’s partnering with the village of Sanka and with the village elders to provide needed resources for the village.
Dr. Ardrey received her PhD from Ohio State for her research on “The Political Behavior of Black Women in the South.” She’s taught at Furman University in South Carolina and at the Washington Center for Internships and Seminars before joining the faculty of WKU in 1988. She’s co-founder of the institute of Civic and Social Responsibility.
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Dr. Ron Fritze – Prince Madoc and the Welsh Indians: A Myth
Dr. Ron Fritze, Dean of Arts & Sciences at Athens State University, spoke on “Prince Madoc and the Welsh Indians: A Myth” and other topics on pseudohistory and pseudoscience in this month’s Kentucky Live! talk at Barnes & Noble this Thursday, February 11th. Ron is the author of ten books on a variety of topics including: Legends and Lore of the Americas Before 1492 and New Worlds: The Great Voyages of Discovery, 1400-1600. His newest book Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-religions has been drawing international attention including a featured review in the Times Literary Supplement in London. Ron will be signing copies of his new book following his presentation. This talk series is sponsored by the Friends of WKU Libraries and the Kentucky Museum.
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Far Away Places: “The Baker’s Boy” by Barry Kitterman
Barry Kitterman was this month’s featured speaker in our Far Away Places series. He talked about his experiences in 1970s Belize as well as about his novel and creative writing on Thursday, November 19 at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Bowling Green, KY. A book signing followed.
His first novel, The Baker’s Boy, was published by Southern Methodist University Press in 2008 and in 2009 won the Maria Thomas Fiction Award. He drew inspiration from his work as a Peace Corps volunteer in Belize in the 1970s.
Set in Central American and Middle Tennessee it tells the story of a former Peace Corps worker at a boys’ training school in Belize near the Guatemalan border who thirty years later is toiling as a baker while still haunted by his earlier experience. Kitterman spent almost a decade writing the novel which has drawn praise from critics everywhere.
Kitterman coordinates the creative writing program and visiting writers series at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN where he’s been a member of the faculty since 1994.
Filed under Events, Far Away Places, Flickr Photos, Past Events, Podcasts
Robert Dickey: A Look Back At Beech Bend Park
Robert Dickey was the featured speaker in this month’s Kentucky Live! on Thursday, November 12, 2009 at Barnes & Noble. Dickey attended WKU and graduated from Centre College. Following a stint in the marines and a hitch as a reporter for the Bowling Green Daily News he graduated from Vanderbilt Law School. His first client was Beech Bend Park owner Charles Garvin. In Charles Garvin’s Dynasty of Dimes he tells the history of a man who he calls an “eccentric entrepreneur” who built an amusement park “empire” in Bowling Green, Kentucky based on 10 cent admissions. It’s a fascinating story spanning four decades, and one indelibly linked with the tourist business in South Central Kentucky.
Filed under Events, Flickr Photos, Kentucky Live, Past Events, Podcasts
Kentucky Live! Mike Guillerman, Western Kentucky Coal Miner
Mr. Guillerman spoke as part of our Kentucky Live series on Thursday, October 15th at Barnes & Noble on Campbell Lane.
Michael D. Guillerman worked for the Peabody Coal Company from 1974 to 1991. Over his long career, his jobs included belt shoveler, timberman, shooter, drill and shuttle car operator, rock duster, and finally section foreman. Now retired, he lives with his wife Marie in Union county, Kentucky.
More Photos | Podcast | Audio
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Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read
Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read
September 26 – October 3, 2009
Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States. This year WKU Libraries hosted exhibits on the Cravens 4th Floor and at the ERC. The ERC display included quotations from students in Children’s and Young Adult Literature classes about how their lives had been impacted by reading some of these “challenged” books. The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings. Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections.
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Filed under ERC, Events, Past Events
Charles H. Smith at the Darwin Conference in Brazil
Science Librarian Charles H. Smith recently spent several days at a Darwin conference in Brazil. He was invited by the conveners of the international ‘Echoes of Darwin’ symposium, the Institutos Humanitas UNISINOS (IHU), to present an evening session on the work of Alfred Russel Wallace, another evolutionist and colleague of Darwin’s. The IHU is a division of UNISINOS, a large Jesuit-founded university situated near the southern city of Porto Alegre in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Smith’s topic for the day was ‘Alfred Russel Wallace and the Notion of Final Causes in Evolution,’ and featured discussions of his research on both history of science and systems theory subjects. An interview of Smith conducted online prior to his arrival appeared in a UNISINOS magazine just before the conference, and while there he was interviewed again for another publication.
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Far Away Places: Namibia
David Keeling, head of WKU’s Geography and Geology Dept. spoke to a large enthusiastic crowd on Namibia at this month’s Far Away Places series at Barnes & Noble this past Thursday, October 1. Keeling most recently visited Namibia in November, 2007 as expedition lecturer for the American Geographical Society sponsored “Casablanca to the Cape” educational expedition. His prior visits included trips to the Skeleton Coast, Windhoek, and the Fish river canyons. David is WKU’s most well traveled faculty member. In 2008 alone his travels covered 133,840 miles.
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Filed under Events, Far Away Places, People