Historian to deliver Voyages lecture

GREENVILLE, N.C. —   Felipe Fernández-Armesto, professor of modern history at Oxford University, will present the Lawrence Brewster Lecture in History as part of the 2008-09 Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences’ Voyages of Discovery Lecture series. 

Fernández-Armesto’s talk, entitled “The Man Who Gave His Name to America,” will be given Feb. 25, at 7 p.m. in Wright Auditorium. Tickets are free for ECU faculty, staff, and students, and $10 for the public, available at ECU’s Central Ticket Office, 328-4788.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto.

Fernández-Armesto, also a professor of global environmental history at Queen Mary, University of London, is author of the best selling book, “Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years,” which inspired CNN’s Millennium, and such critically acclaimed works as “The Times Atlas of World Exploration” and, most recently, “Civilizations.” 

His recent honors include the Caird Medal of the National Maritime Museum (1995) and the John Carter Brown Medal (1999). His journalistic works have been widely syndicated and appear frequently in The Times of London and regularly in the Sunday edition of The Independent. Fernández-Armesto also contributes to BBC Radio.

Alan White, dean of the Harriot College, said, “Dr. Fernández-Armesto’s prodigious scholarship on the nature of exploration and discovery in world history makes him a superb fit for the Voyages of Discovery Lecture Series. We look forward to Dr. Fernández-Armesto’s remarks illuminating significant ironies in the voyages of discovery that led to the naming of our continent.”

ECU’s Department of History sponsored the first Brewster Lecture in 1982 as part of the university’s 75th anniversary celebration and has published the lectures since 1984. The series bears the name of the late professor emeritus of history whose generosity supports the series, the department and the discipline at large. 

“The Brewster Lecture is not only the history department’s premier intellectual presentation to the rest of the campus each year, it is also a public event that reflects our ongoing engagement with the entire Greenville community,” said Gerald J. Prokopowicz, chair of the department. 

For additional information, visit http://www.ecu.edu/voyages.