Loyola University Maryland 2026 Humanities Symposium Keynote Address
Pulitzer Prize–winning author and public historian David W. Blight will deliver this free lecture exploring how the Declaration of Independence’s aspirational ideals continue to shape and challenge our understanding of equality 250 years after its signing.
A book signing with books available for purchase will immediately follow the talk. Guests can meet Blight, who has written and lectured extensively on slavery and abolitionism, the Civil War and Reconstruction, race relations, and problems in public history, American historical memory and African American intellectual and cultural history.
His Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom garnered nine book awards – including the Pulitzer Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Bancroft Prize and the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize – and was optioned by Higher Ground Productions and Netflix for a projected feature film. He previously consulted for such documentary films as “Death and the Civil War,” the PBS series, "Africans in America," and "The Reconstruction Era."
In addition to being one of the authors of the bestselling American history textbook for the college level, A People and a Nation, Blight is series advisor and editor for Bedford Books’ American History and Culture series. He is also a frequent book reviewer for The New York Times, Washington Post Book World, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Slate, and other media outlets.
Having previously taught at Amherst College and held distinguished fellowships at Cambridge University, the Huntington Library, and the New York Public Library, Blight currently is Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. As chair of the Yale and Slavery Working Group, he co-authored Yale and Slavery: A History.
Advance registration for the keynote address is encouraged by visiting www.loyola.edu/symposium.
The keynote address will cap off various faculty workshops, student-faculty colloquia and activities following the theme “Life, Liberty, and the Unfinished Work of Democracy.” Since 1986, Loyola’s Humanities Center has sponsored the annual Humanities Symposium – a series of events related to a particular text for students, faculty, friends of the University and the Baltimore community. The main goal has been to get a large portion of the Loyola community to read the same work at roughly the same time and to be engaged in a common inquiry. Keynote speakers have included Elie Wiesel, Toni Morrison, Tracy Chevalier, Czeslaw Milosz, Phil Klay, Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale and William Bennett.
Event Links
Sponsor: https://go.evvnt.com/3399137-0
