Dr. David S. Reynolds, who is a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, will present the address “Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America” on Tuesday, April 10, at 4 p.m. at Hope College in the Fried/Hemenway Auditorium of the Martha Miller Center for Global Communication.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist, and published in 1852. A best-seller of its day, the book is credited with playing a significant role in building opposition to slavery in the United States.
Reynolds is the author or editor of 15 books, including his most recent, “Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America,” published in 2011, the bicentennial of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s birth. He is the winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Christian Gauss Award, the Ambassador Book Award and the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award. Reynolds is widely recognized for his contributions to criticism, biography and history.
The Clarence De Graaf Lectureship was established in 1988 by the family of Dr. Clarence De Graaf in memory of his service on the faculty of Hope College. De Graaf, who died in 1986, taught in the department of English for 44 years, from 1928 until his retirement in 1972, and served as department chair for 25 of those years.