FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Cindy Deppe, media relations, 641-269-4834

January 24, 2008

GRINNELL COLLEGE HISTORIAN TO DISCUSS CIVIL WAR MOURNING AT SCHOLARS’ CONVOCATION

GRINNELL, IA.- Historian Sarah Purcell will deliver the Grinnell College Scholars’ Convocation on "The Politics of Mourning and the U.S. Civil War" on Feb. 7 at 11 a.m. in Herrick Chapel on the Grinnell College campus.

Purcell, who is associate professor of history at Grinnell, is currently writing a book by the same title about how the public funerals of politicians, military men, and social activists of the Civil War era shaped American politics and culture.

"National identity and militarism are intertwined," Purcell said. "During and after the Civil War, large public funerals shaped the political debates and cultural trends." Purcell’s talk will consider how mourning the first two martyrs of the war fueled enthusiasm on both sides of the historic conflict. A memorial to Grinnell College students and faculty killed in the Civil War hangs in Herrick Chapel, where Purcell, a 1992 Grinnell honors graduate, will deliver her talk.

Purcell joined the Grinnell faculty in 2000, following completion of M.A. and Ph.D. at Brown University and teaching at Central Michigan University. Her research interests include the Early National, Antebellum, and Civil War periods, popular and political culture, gender history, and military history. The recipient of numerous awards for teaching and research, Purcell was recently named director of the college’s Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, Human Rights, and International Relations. She is the author or co-author of four books.

Purcell’s lecture is part of the college’s Scholars’ Convocation series. For more information about the speaker series, go to http://www.grinnell.edu/offices/ce/convocations/. Herrick Chapel is located at the intersection of 7th Ave. and Park St. on the Grinnell College campus.

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