This week’s hot weather prompted the campus cherry trees to bloom — just in time for Alumni Weekend. (Photo by Sam Starnes, 8:45 a.m. Thursday)
Archive for April, 2010
PMC Alumnus Publishes Book on Civil War Hero
April 6, 2010
Bill Speer’s (’72) research on Delaware Military Academy graduate and Civil War hero Henry Clay Robinett (1860), profiled in the January 2010 issue of Postscript, has been published by Deeds Publishing.
The book, From Broomsticks to Battlefields, After the Battle: The Story of Henry Clay Robinett in the Civil War, sheds light upon “several aspects of the American experience and society in the mid-nineteenth century that have not been fully explored,“ according to the publisher. “Unlike many who returned to civilian life after the Civil War, Robinett pursued a career in the regular Army. That career, however, was marred by ever increasingly erratic behavior that ended in his suicide just three years after the war – the result of complex psychological problems that are carefully discussed in the book. From Broomsticks to Battlefields gives us a little more insight into the extent to which the horrors of war affect the personality and reminds us that historians and psychologists have barely begun to study the question of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury among Civil War veterans.”
The book can be purchased for $21.95 through the Deeds Publishing website.
Speer is continuing his research on Delaware Military Academy graduates focusing on Brigadier General David Vickers Jr. (1861). In Widener’s history dating back to 1821, the school existed as Delaware Military Academy from 1859-1862. You can follow Speer’s research on his blog at http://broomstickstobattlefield.blogspot.com.
– Dan Hanson, Editor, Postscript
Widener Professor to Lead Discussion of Hemingway Memoir at Philadelphia Museum of Art
April 1, 2010
Janine Utell
A book discussion related to Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris, a major exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will be led by a Widener associate professor of English. Dr. Janine Utell, a faculty member since 2003, will guide the museum’s discussion of A Moveable Feast at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 11. First published in 1964, Hemingway’s memoir about his life in Paris in the 1920s came out posthumously three years after the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner ended his life. Scribner in 2009 published a restored edition of the book edited by Hemingway’s grandson, and an excerpt appeared in The New York Times. Attendees are asked to read the book beforehand, and tickets are required to attend the discussion. A Moveable Feast is a poignant and personal work that no reader of Hemingway should miss. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and other notable figures also pass through the pages.
I also highly recommend the Picasso exhibit. In addition to several stunning Picasso works, it provides insight into how cubism and other modern styles developed, and features work by many other less celebrated artists of the time. Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris runs through May 2.
– Sam Starnes, Editor
Hemingway in Paris, 1924
