FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Gwen O’Brien
Director of Media Relations
Saint Mary’s College
Notre Dame, Ind.
(574) 284-4579
September 29, 2009 (Notre Dame, Ind.)— The Department of Humanistic Studies at Saint Mary’s College is proud to announce that the 2009 Christian Culture Lecture speaker is William Chester Jordan, the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at Princeton University. The annual lecture features a preeminent figure in the humanities who explores some aspect of the Christian dimension of Western culture.
Jordan, who has taught at Princeton since 1973, will present his lecture titled “Crusader Prologues: Preparing for War in the Gothic Age” on Tuesday, November 3 at 7:30 p.m. in O’Laughlin Auditorium. It is free and open to the public. A reception for Jordan will follow the lecture. His talk will address how thirteenth century crusaders prepared themselves and those they were leaving behind psychically and spiritually for a holy war. Jordan hopes to enrich the audience’s understanding of the crusades.
Jordan’s many books and articles on medieval culture include Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership and The Great Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century, which won the Medieval Academy of America’s Haskins Medal for the outstanding book on the Middle Ages of 2000. His latest book has just been published: A Tale of Two Monasteries: Westminster and Saint-Denis in the Thirteenth Century. His general history of Europe in the High Middle Ages (part of Penguin Books History of Europe Series) and The Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia For Students, whose four volumes he edited, highlight Professor Jordan’s long commitment to sharing his love of the period with the general public.
Saint Mary’s College Professor Bruno Schlesinger introduced Christian Culture as a major at the College in 1956 and founded the Christian Culture Lecture in 1957. The major was later renamed Humanistic Studies. At its inception the lecture series was largely funded through a grant from the Lilly Foundation. By 1981, the series had become increasingly difficult to administer and it fell silent for 25 years. Through the generosity of Susan Fitzgerald Rice ’61, a Christian Culture major, and her husband Donald B. Rice, the Christian Culture Lecture was resurrected in 2006.
About Saint Mary’s College: Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Ind., is a four-year, Catholic, women’s institution offering five bachelor’s degrees and more than 30 major areas of study. Saint Mary’s College has six nationally accredited academic programs: social work, art, music, teacher education, chemistry and nursing. Saint Mary's College ranks among the nation's top 100 liberal arts colleges in U.S. News & World Report's 2010 annual survey. Founded in 1844, Saint Mary’s is a pioneer in the education of women, and is sponsored by the Sisters of the Holy Cross.
