The West Virginia Division of Culture and History will continue this season’s Collegiate Series with a lecture entitled “Abraham Lincoln in Memory and Remembrance on his 200th Birthday” by Dr. Mark A. Snell, associate professor of history and director of the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War at Shepherd University on Thursday, Feb. 12, at 7 p.m. The talk will take place in the Norman L. Fagan West Virginia State Theater at the Cultural Center, State Capitol Complex in Charleston. Snell’s lecture is timed to coincide with the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth. The Collegiate Series is free and the public is invited to attend.
The lecture will focus on how the 16th president has been captured in the collective memory of West Virginia and the nation as a whole. Snell will discuss Lincoln myths, iconography, memorial statues and more, as they relate to how Lincoln has been remembered since his assassination. A reception with light refreshments will follow the talk.
Before joining the Shepherd University faculty, Snell taught in the department of history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Recently, he served as the visiting senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, England. At Shepherd University, he teaches courses on the Civil War, World War I and World War II.
Snell is the editor of Dancing Along the Deadline: The Andersonville Memoir of a Prisoner of the Confederacy (Presidio Press, 1996) and Unknown Soldiers: The American Expeditionary Forces in Memory and Remembrance (Kent State University Press, 2008). In addition he served as co-editor of Bugle Resounding: Music and Musicians of the Civil War Era (University of Missouri Press, 2004) and is the author of From First to Last: The Life of Major General William B. Franklin (Fordham University Press, 2002).
For more information about the lecture “Abraham Lincoln in Memory and Remembrance on his 200th Birthday” by Dr. Snell or the Collegiate Series, contact Jacqueline Proctor, deputy commissioner for the Division, at (304) 558-0220, or call (304) 558-0162 in the evenings.
The Collegiate Series consists of performances and lectures by students and faculty from colleges and universities across the state. First Lady Gayle Manchin hosts the program.
The West Virginia Division of Culture and History, an agency of the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts, brings together the state’s past, present and future through programs and services in the areas of archives and history, the arts, historic preservation and museums. Its administrative offices are located at the Cultural Center in the State Capitol Complex in Charleston, which also houses the state archives and state museum. The Cultural Center is West Virginia’s official showcase for the arts. The agency also operates a network of museums and historic sites across the state. For more information about the Division’s programs, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
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