Pulitzer-winning scholar to discuss American Revolution Oct. 19 at MTSU

Dr. Alan Taylor, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and American historian, will deliver the 2015 Strickland Visiting Scholar Lecture in History on Monday, Oct. 19, in MTSU’s Business and Aerospace Building.

The topic of his 6 p.m. address in the State Farm Lecture Hall, Room S-102, is “Race and Violence in the American Revolution: Indians, Britons, and The Enslaved.”

Dr. Alan Taylor

Taylor’s free lecture is open to the public. A campus map with parking notes is available at http://tinyurl.com/MTSUParking2015-16.

Taylor, the Thomas Jefferson Chair in American History at the University of Virginia, also will meet with Department of History students and faculty during his visit to MTSU, which is coordinated by the College of Liberal Arts.

The Strickland Visiting Scholar program allows students to meet with renowned scholars whose expertise spans a variety of historical issues. The Strickland family established the program in memory of Dr. Roscoe Lee Strickland Jr., a longtime professor of European history at MTSU and the first president of the university’s Faculty Senate.

Taylor is best known for his work with “microhistory” and narrative history, using meticulous research with public records, letters, diaries and other documents to reconstruct the topics of his work.

Dr. Alan Taylor, MTSU's 2015 Strickland Visiting Scholar, will speak Oct. 21 on topics related to his 2013 book, “The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832,” which earned him his second Pulitzer Prize last year.

His 1996 book on the settlement of Cooperstown, New York, “William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic,” won that year’s Pulitzer Prize in History as well as the Bancroft Prize and Beveridge Award. Taylor was a repeat Pulitzer winner in 2014 for his 2013 book, “The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832,” which also received the National Book Award for nonfiction.

Taylor also is the author of “Liberty Men and Great Proprietors: the Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier 1760-1820” and four other books on early U.S. history as well as essays and book reviews for The New Republic magazine.

A reception and refreshments are planned for 6 p.m. Oct. 19, before Taylor’s lecture. He also will sign copies of his books, which will be available for sale, after his talk.

For more information about this Strickland Visiting Scholar Lecture, please contact Dr. Robert Hunt in MTSU’s Department of History at robert.hunt@mtsu.edu or call 615-494-7628.

— Gina E. Fann (gina.fann@mtsu.edu)