Anzalone's Moseley Lecture topic: WWI illustrations

Skidmore?s 2008 Edwin M. Moseley Faculty Research Lecture will be delivered by John Anzalone, professor of French, at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 20, in Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall. Anzalone?s topic, ?From Propaganda to Pity: French Graphic Culture in WWI,? will be illustrated with slides of popular graphic illustrations that depict the changing French attitudes toward nationalism and battle over the course of World War I.

In his research, Anzalone drew on the rich tradition of French satirical political journals, many handsomely illustrated, that took up topical subjects throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. By 1916, he says, many thousands of graphic images of the Great War had been published in France. Poring through such images, Anzalone was intrigued by ?a transition in popular depictions of the war, in which the violent, nationalistic propaganda of the early years wanes, to be replaced by an awareness of the utter, universal hell of war.?

Anzalone?s honors and awards include Skidmore?s 2001 Ralph A. Ciancio Award for Excellence in Teaching and lifetime membership in the Academie Berrichonne, one of the nine regional French Academies; he directs the College?s Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program. Each year Skidmore?s faculty chooses one of its own to deliver the Moseley Lecture. Selection as the Moseley Lecturer is the highest honor the Skidmore faculty can confer upon a colleague.