Remembering Lincoln By Those Who Knew Him, will bethe topic of the 2019 Emil C. Weis Lecture at noon April 24 at SoutheastMissouri State University.
The event is free and open tothe public and will be held in the Forrest H.Rose Theatre in the Grauel Building.
Dr. Shawn Parry-Giles, professor of communication atthe University of Maryland, will be this years lecturer.
Parry-Giles will discuss adebate that broke out in the press among President Abraham Lincolnsacquaintances over how best to remember the man and president. Some shared themundane and even embarrassing memories of Lincoln, while others thought it onlyproper to remember an exalted leader who led the country through its darkestdays. The democratization of the press only fueled the debate. Parry-Giles willexamine the moment when the American people participated in a public debateover the relationship of the people to their president.
Parry-Giles, is the author,co-author and co-editor of seven books, including Memories of Lincoln and theSplintering of American Political Thought. She has published her work inseveral outlets, including U.S. News & World Reportand The Huffington Post. Sheis director of the Mark and Heather Rosenker Center for Political Communicationand Civic Leadership, and co-editor of the NEH-funded Voices of Democracy: The U.S. OratoryProject and Recovering Democracy Archives: Speech Recovery Project.
This presentation is sponsored by the Department of Communication Studies and Modern Languages and the Department of Mass Media.
Weis, forwhom the distinguished lecture is named, was a professor of speech and Englishand earned a Bachelor of Science from the Southeast Missouri Normal School (nowSoutheast Missouri State University) in 1918. He completed his graduate work atthe University of Missouri. As a young man, Weis declined overtures from theNew York Yankees for what he deemed to be more important work. Instead of acareer in baseball, he chose to teach so he might nurture the speaking andwriting abilities of students and clergy. He endowed this lectureship atSoutheast to provide an opportunity for students, faculty and community membersto interact with a guest speaker who could further an understanding andappreciation of rhetoric and public address.