Professor of History to Give Talk on Abraham Lincoln as American Icon

WORCESTER, Mass. – Richard Wightman Fox, professor of history at the University of Southern California will give a talk titled "Savior of the Nation: Lincoln’s Assassination and the Birth of an American Icon" on Feb. 21 at 4 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center, Room 519 at the College of the Holy Cross. The event is free and open to the public.

Fox is the distinguished fellow at the American Antiquarian Society for 2005-06 and author of several books, including most recently, Jesus in America (HarperCollins, 2004). He studies how ideas, beliefs, and cultural practices develop in relation to social structures and individual quests for meaning. He is especially intrigued by the curious intermingling of religiosity and secularity in the United States. This borderline of piety and worldliness is a very fruitful area for further historical research, he says.

The event is sponsored by the department of history and the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.