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Two Alumni Scholars to Lecture on
American Literature and History

Posted Apirl 8, 2003

HOLLAND -- Two Hope College graduates, spouses who are university professors in Pennsylvania, are returning to campus on Thursday-Friday, April 10-11, to present lectures on American literature and history.

Dr. Linda Patterson Miller, professor of English at Pennsylvania State University Abington, will present "The Lost Generation on the French Riviera," on Thursday, April 10, at 3:30 p.m. in the Maas Center conference room. Dr. Randall M. Miller of the history faculty at Saint Joseph's University will discuss "The Meaning of the Civil War," on Friday, April 11, at 3:15 p.m. in the DeWitt Center Herrick Room.

The public is invited to both events. Admission is free.

Linda Patterson Miller, a 1968 Hope graduate, earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Delaware and has become widely recognized for her work on early 20th- century American literature and art. She is co-editor of "The Book of American Diaries: Day-by-Day Personal Accounts through the Centuries" (1995) and "Letters from the Lost Generation: Gerald and Sara Murphy and Friends" (1993).

She has lectured nationally and internationally on modernist art as it relates to Hemingway and other American artists. A year ago she served, with Susan Beegel, as guest scholar for C-Span's two-hour show on Hemingway. The program was aired live from Key West, Fla., on April 22, 2002, as part of C-Span's ongoing series "American Writers: A Journey Through History."

She has a book forthcoming, "Reading Hemingway: In Our Time" (Kent State University Press), and is completing another book, "The Summer of '26," on the American expatriate artists in France. Her lecture at Hope will draw upon her research for that book and will deal with such well-known Jazz-age figures as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald, Archibald MacLeish and Dorothy Parker.

Randall M. Miller, a 1967 Hope graduate who completed his Ph.D. at Ohio State University, is the William Dirk Warren '50 Sesquicentennial Chair and Professor of History at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, where he has taught since 1972. He is the author or editor of 20 books, and has published more than 80 articles, on topics such as African-American culture and life, religion, popular culture in America, regional culture (especially the American South), the uses and character of American autobiography and diary-keeping, the American Civil War, urban affairs, and ethnic and immigrant history.

His best known book is the award-winning "'Dear Master': Letters of a Slave Family" (1978; rev. & enlarged ed., 1990). He also co-edited the award-winning "Dictionary of Afro-American History" (1988; rev. & enl. ed., 1997). More recently, he co-edited "Religion and the American Civil War" (1998) and "The Birth of the Grand Old Party: The Republicans' First Generation" (2002).

He has been a consultant for, and appeared in, documentaries on American culture and history, the Civil War, political culture, African-American culture and life, Philadelphia life and politics, and other topics documentaries that have aired on national cable and pubic broadcast channels, regional television, and local television and are used in schools across the country.

He also is the series editor for the acclaimed 26- volume series, "Guides to Historic Events of the Twentieth Century," published by Greenwood Press; series editor of the 12-volume series "Major Issues in American History," published by Greenwood Press; and co-editor of the "Southern Dissent" series at the University Press of Florida. He has appeared on national and local radio and television to comment on American culture, history, and politics (especially as they relate to Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia region).

The Maas Center is located on Columbia Avenue at 11th Street. The Herrick Room is on the second floor of the DeWitt Center, which is located on Columbia Avenue at 12th Street.

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