The annual Reeves Lecture with Jeffrey Hammond, professor of English and and George B. and Willma Reeves Distinguished Professor in the Liberal Arts, will take place on Monday, Jan. 22 at 4:45 p.m. in Daugherty-Palmer Commons on the St. Mary’s College of Maryland campus. The event is free of charge and open to the public.
What sort of relationship exists between the current political atmosphere and St. Mary’s mission as a public honors college? With “Draining the Inner Swamp: Learning as Resistance,” Hammond will examine President Trump’s record to date within the context of skills and values fostered by a liberal arts education. In so doing, he will reaffirm the critical importance of this type of education for our nation’s political and cultural health. In a time dominated by the politics of fear and ignorance, learning becomes a powerful act of resistance.
Colleagues react to previous Reeves Lectures: Professor of English Jennifer Cognard-Black states, “As a speaker, Jeffrey Hammond is that rare combination of intellectual rigor and folksy charm. With each Reeves lecture, Hammond makes topics ranging from toys manufactured in the 1950s by the Louis Marx Toy Company to The Gospel of Mark to this very place where we are–St. Mary’s City–both accessible and enjoyable. Each Reeves lecture is as informative as it is entertaining.”
Associate Professor of English Elizabeth Charlebois said, “Jeff Hammond’s annual Reeve’s lectures masterfully combine brilliant cultural commentary, lively scholarship, and profound personal reflection — all presented with Jeff’s sparkling good humor and insight.”
Hammond has published three books in his primary field of early American studies, most recently The American Puritan Elegy: A Literary and Cultural Study (Cambridge University Press, 2000). His literary nonfiction has appeared in many journals, including Antioch Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Fourth Genre, and American Scholar. His work has won two Pushcart Prizes, Shenandoah’s Carter Prize for Essay, and the Missouri Review Editors’ Prize for Essay, and has been cited numerous times in the Pushcart annual and Best American Essays. His nonfiction books include Ohio States: A Twentieth-Century Midwestern (Kent State University Press, 2002), This Place Where We Are (St. Mary’s Press, 2006), Small Comforts: Essays at Middle Age. (Kent State University Press, 2008), and Little Big World: Collecting Louis Marx and the American Fifties (University of Iowa Press, 2010).
Visit www.smcm.edu for information on additional upcoming speakers such as political analyst and commentator Kathleen Parker on March 22 who describes herself as “slightly to the right of center,” David E. Sanger on April 6 presented by the Presidential Lecture Series, GOP staple and communications strategist Ed Gillespie on April 12, and comedian, actor, and writer Tig Notaro on April 20 presented by the Annual Mark Twain Lecture Series on American Humor and Culture.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education through 2024-2025. St. Mary’s College, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best public liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Approximately 1,600 students attend the college, nestled on the St. Mary’s River in Southern Maryland.