Scholar of gender and Civil War history to deliver 2006 Brose lectures

University Park, Pa. -- Nina Silber, associate professor of history at Boston University, will deliver the lectures on Northern and Southern women's experience in the Civil War for the 2006 Steven and Janice Brose Distinguished Lecture Series in the Era of the Civil War, on Nov. 2, 3 and 4, in Pattee Library's Foster Auditorium on Penn State's University Park campus.

The Brose Lectures, which are free to the public, feature three thematically linked lectures sponsored by the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center. The schedule
follows:

-- Thursday, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m.: "Gender and Political Obligation in the U.S. Civil War."

-- Friday, Nov. 3, at 7 p.m.: "The Problem of Women's Patriotism, North and South."

-- Saturday, Nov. 4, at 3 p.m.: "Union and Confederate Women and the Memory of the Civil War."

Silber has worked extensively on topics related to gender and the Civil War, and the Civil War in public memory. Her most recent book, "Battle Scars: Gender and Sexuality in the U.S. Civil War" (2006), co-edited with Catherine Clinton, examines the ways in which gender, race, nationalism, religion, literary culture and sexual mores underwent radical transformations between 1861 and the end of Reconstruction. She also is the author of "Daughters of the Union: Northern Women Fight the Civil War" (2005) and "The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South 1865-1900" (1993).

Silber has done extensive work for the National Park Service as a consultant and is a regular adviser for Gettysburg National Military Park.

The Steven and Janice Brose Distinguished Lecture Series in the Era of The Civil War is supported by an endowment established by the Broses, both alumni of Penn State.

For more information, contact the center at (814) 863-0151, or at RichardsCenter@psu.edu via e-mail. The Web site is http://www.richardscenter.psu.edu/