Kuroda lecture, seminar to feature UVa scholar

Skidmore's Kuroda Lecture this year features James W. Ceaser, Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, who will lecture April 12.

“The American Founding and the Choice of a Foundation” is the title of the 2013 Kuroda Lecture at Skidmore College, to be presented Friday, April 12, by James W. Ceaser of the University of Virginia. Free and open to the public, the talk will begin at 8 p.m. in Gannett Auditorium of Palamountain Hall.

Ceaser is a the Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics at Virginia, where he has taught since 1976, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He also is the author of several books on American politics and political thought, including Presidential Selection, Liberal Democracy and Political Science, Reconstructing America, Nature and History in American Political Development, and Designing a Polity. In addition, he has co-written a series on American national elections since 1992.

Ceaser has held visiting professorships at Oxford University, the University of Bordeaux, Harvard University, Princeton University, and the University of Rennes. He currently serves as a presidential appointee to the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and is a frequent contributor to the popular press.  

Every other year Skidmore hosts the Kuroda Seminar in Early American Politics and Culture in honor of the late Tad Kuroda, a beloved history professor who taught at the College from 1969 to 2005. The selection of the speaker for the seminar rotates within the departments of Government, History, and American Studies. The seminar consists of a public lecture, and the following day features a panel discussion. The panel consists of three to six students majoring in American studies, history, and government, who deliver summaries of papers that they have written for courses within their respective majors. The three departments select the students who will present and the guest speaker delivers comments on each paper.

This year’s panel, at 9 a.m. Saturday, April 13, in the Surrey Williamson Inn, features the following students presenting their research:

• Connor Grant-Knight, Government, “Lured into Liberty: Tocqueville on How the Americans Channeled Their Love of Material Well-Being to Preserve Their Love of Freedom,”

• Jesse Hardman, Government, “For Charity or Self-Preservation? John Locke’s and John Winthrop's Arguments Concerning the Scope and Purpose of Government,”

• Evan Krasner, American Studies, “John James Audubon: Debunking the Myth of the Early Conservationist,”

• Jean-Ann Kubler, Government, “Lincoln’s Extension of Federalist Concerns,”

• Ned Porter, History, “John Campbell: An Exploration of the Life of an American Loyalist in New York State,”

• Sara Vosburg, American Studies, “The Role of Witchcraft in Shaping America’s History, Past and Present.”