UCLA Civil War sesquicentennial lecture series

The UCLA Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions (CLAFI) has inaugurated a five-year lecture series on the Civil War in connection with the sesquicentennial. They plan to sponsor at least two lectures each year, with the lecturers concentrating on events of the corresponding year of the Civil War. The inaugural lecture was by Daniel Walker Howe, on the secession crisis of 1861. One unusual feature of our series is that each lecturer also participates in a two-hour Saturday morning seminar with up to twenty people, on readings selected by the lecturer. Both the lectures and the seminars are free and open to all, but because of the size capacity, advance registration is required for the seminars. Continue reading →

Meeting of November 27, 2012

Death and The Civil War, Part 2

From acclaimed filmmaker Ric Burns, based on Drew Faust’s groundbreaking book, This Republic of Suffering, this film tracks the increasingly lethal arc of the war from its opening, through the chaos of Shiloh, and the following major battles which left an American landscape littered with the bodies of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, many unburied, most unidentified. The staggering casualties brought death to the American experience as never before—permanently altering the character of the republic, the psyche of the American people, and posing challenges for which there were no ready answers when the war began.

Meeting Minutes November 2012

Meeting of October 30, 2012

Death and The Civil War, Part 1

From acclaimed filmmaker Ric Burns, based on Drew Faust’s groundbreaking book, This Republic of Suffering, this film tracks the increasingly lethal arc of the war from its opening, through the chaos of Shiloh, and the following major battles which left an American landscape littered with the bodies of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, many unburied, most unidentified. The staggering casualties brought death to the American experience as never before—permanently altering the character of the republic, the psyche of the American people, and posing challenges for which there were no ready answers when the war began.

Meeting Minutes October 2012