Wild Bill Donovan Lecture Date: January 16, 2024 The Synergy Periodontics and Implants Lecture He was one of America’s most exciting and secretive generals—the man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated, “Wild Bill” Donovan during World War II was director of the […]

Lewis & Clark/Sacagawea Lecture Date: January 18, 2024 The Davenport & Company Lecture Thomas Jefferson, years before his Presidency, dreamed of an expedition to the Northwest that would open the door to commerce and the Manifest Destiny of the new United States of America. When he became President, Jefferson had both the opportunity and the […]

Shakespeare Lecture Date: January 23, 2024 The Stephen and Patricia Powers Gaske Lecture Shakespeare is the most elusive of biographical subjects. “‘Shakespeare’ is present as an absence—which is to say, as a ghost,” the Harvard professor Marjorie Garber once wrote. What haunts is the very emptiness of the authorial identity, yet this emptiness that has […]

George VI and Elizabeth Lecture Date: January 25, 2024 The Gemini 3 Group Lecture New York Times bestselling author and historian of the royal family Sally Bedell Smith will speak about her new book, George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy. They were introduced to new generations in the movie The King’s […]

Sam Shepard Lecture Date: January 30, 2024 The UMW Theatre Lecture After an introduction to the life and work of Sam Shepard, John will examine the many themes that animate his 1984 play True West, which is being presented in the spring semester by the UMW Theatre Department. The play answers the dramatic question: What […]

George Washington Lecture Date: February 6, 2024 The Roxanne M. Kaufman Lecture Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down--even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything […]

Mary Lumpkin: Enslaved Woman, Liberator Lecture Date: February 8, 2024 The Virginia Partners Bank Lecture Born in Virginia in 1832, Mary Lumpkin lived much of her young life in a slave jail in Richmond known as Lumpkin’s Jail, where she was forced to have the children of her enslaver, the slave jail owner Robert Lumpkin. […]

Franklin D. Roosevelt Lecture Date: February 15, 2024 The Irene and Curry Roberts Lecture This revealing biography shows how Franklin Delano Roosevelt found his true self in his searing struggle with polio—emerging with a strength and wisdom he would use to inspire the world. Franklin Delano Roosevelt seemed to be a political “natural.” Yet for […]

Picasso Lecture Date: February 20, 2024 The Jon Properties/Van Zandt Restorations Lecture Few modern artists captured the popular imagination as did the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Picasso’s influence on art and design in the 20th c. is indisputable. Moreover, for generations of creative individuals Picasso defined what it meant to be “an artist”: free, […]

Stan Lee: Spider-Man and Marvel Comics Lecture Date: February 22, 2024 The Yuh Prosthodontics Lecture Join cultural historian Bob Batchelor on an exhilarating journey into the extraordinary life of Stan Lee, an icon whose legacy is as epic as the superheroes he co-created. Renowned for film cameos as the Marvel movie franchise conquered the world, […]