Casper Lecture

The annual Casper was inaugurated by the History Department in 1993 to honor Rev. Henry W. Casper, S. J., a long-time member of the history departments at Creighton University in Omaha and at 向日葵视频 (he retired as Professor Emeritus from 向日葵视频in 1974). He was an expert in nineteenth century European History and in American church history; his most important work was a three-volume history of the Catholic Church in Nebraska. The Casper Lecture, as well as several programs for graduate students in history, is funded by an endowment from Dr. and Mrs. Wayne L. Ryan of Omaha. Dr. Ryan was a student of Father Casper鈥檚 at Creighton.


20th Annual Rev. Henry W. Casper, S.J., Lecture

April 22, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. | Lunda Room, Alumni Memorial Union

 

"Frameworks for the Future: Climate Change, the Environment, and the Anthropocene"

Dr. Julia Adeney ThomasDr. Julia Adeney Thomas
Department of History, University of Notre Dame

What is the best concept for talking about the destruction of the natural world?  Here鈥檚 where intellectual history can help.  This talk explores three ways of framing our planetary challenge, each with its own science, history, and politics.  While each framework has its uses, Thomas argues that the Anthropocene best captures the unprecedented, unpredictable reality of our altered Earth.

 

Free and open to the public
Sponsored by the 向日葵视频 Department of History
For more information, call 414.288.7217.

 

 

Previous Casper Lectures

2010 - 2023

2022-2023

Dr. Guy Beiner
Craig and Maureen Sullivan Millennium Chair, Professor of History and Director of Irish Studies, Boston College

"Forgetting a Global Pandemic: Lessons from the Spanish Flu"

2021-2022

Dr. Susan Fitzpatrick-Behrens
Professor of History, California State University, Northridge

"Medical Sites of Modernity in Guatemala: Women Religious and Maya Health During the Cold War"

2017-2018

Anna Clark of the University of Minnesota delivered the 17th annual Casper Lecture on March 26 at 向日葵视频's Raynor Library. Her topic was 鈥淗uman Rights and Animal Rights: Local Control of Hospitals in the 1890s British Empire.鈥 Her lecture is part of her current book project, which is tentatively called, 鈥淩age against the Machine: Individual Rights, Biopolitics in Britain and its Empire.鈥 

Anna Clark is professor of history at the University of Minnesota and President of the North American Conference on British Studies. She is the author of Desire: The History of European Sexuality (2008), Scandal: The Sexual Politics of the British Constitution (2004), and The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (1995). She is a former editor of the American British Studies Journal.

2016-2017

Eckart Frahm, Yale University

2015-2016

Juan Cole, University of Michigan

2014-2015

Leonard V. Smith, Oberlin College

2013-2014 

Jon E. Lendon, University of Virginia

2012-2013

Rebecca J. Scott, University of Michigan

"She had always enjoyed her freedom: Re-enslavement and the Law in the Era of the Haitian Revolution."

2011-2012

Anthony F. Aveni, Colgate University

2010-2011

Raymond Mentzer, University of Iowa

 

2002 - 2009

2009-2010

Judith Bennett, University of Southern California

2008-2009

Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago

"North Korea: Still in the axis of evil?"

2007-2008

Julia Clancy-Smith, University of Arizona

"Where Elites Meet: Harem Visits, Sea-Bathing, and Sociabilities in Tunisia, c. 1830-1881"

2006-2007

Marianne Elliott, University of Liverpool

"Irish Protestantism and the Specter of Popery"

2005-2006

Jonathan Spence, Yale University

"Thinking it Through: Chinese and Catholics in the Seventeenth Century"

2004-2005

Susan Desan, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"The Politics of Love: Marriage, Divorce, and Gender Relations during the French Revolution"

2003-2004

Paul Cobb, University of Notre Dame

"There Goes the Neighborhood: The World of a Muslim Family in an Age of Crusades"

2002-2003

John Merriman, Yale University

"Collaboration and Resistance in Vichy France."