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University of Lynchburg

/ Academics / Lynchburg College of Arts and Sciences / School of Humanities and Social Sciences / Lectureships and Professorships / John Franklin East Distinguished Professor in the Humanities

John Franklin East Distinguished Professor in the Humanities

This professorship was established in 1977 by an endowment gift from Mrs. Margaret East Nelson of Norfolk, Virginia, in memory of her father who served on the University of Lynchburg Board of Trustees from 1917 to 1921. Income from the fund supports a professorship in the humanities. The length of appointment is five years.

Dr. Brian Crim, Professor of History, is the John Franklin East Distinguished Professor in the Humanities.

Former East Professors

  • Dr. Nichole Sanders
  • Dr. Richard C. Burke
  • Dr. Bruce H. Mayer
  • Dr. Thomas C. Brickhouse
  • Dr. James J. H. Price

Ida Wise East Memorial Lecture

The East Professor sponsors the annual Ida Wise East Memorial Lecture. This lectureship in the humanities was established in 1979 by an endowment gift to University of Lynchburg from Mrs. Margaret East Nelson of Norfolk, Virginia, in memory of her mother, Ida Wise East, and in recognition of the lifelong interest of the East and Nelson families in the humanities. Income from the funds are used to support an annual lecture, lecture series, or seminar in the humanities.

East Lectures

2023 Dr. Jake Newsome
Award-winning scholar of German and American LGBTQ+ history		 “Pink Triangle Legacies: Coming Out in the Shadow of the Holocaust”
2022 Madeline Miller
Award-winning author		 “Literary Witches: From Circe, to Shakespeare, Salem, and Oz”
2021 Dr. Ana Lucia Araujo
Professor of history at Howard University		 “Slavery at Mount Vernon and Monticello: Black and White Battles of Memories and Public History”
2020 Dr. Víctor M. Macías-Gónzalez
Professor of History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse		 “Doing LGBTQ Mexican History: Lessons From the Liberal Arts”
2019 Dr. Andrew Chesnut
Bishop Walter F. Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University		 “Skeleton Saint”
2018 Dr. Marcia Chatelain
Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University		 “Better Living Through the Humanities: Teaching, Research, and Social Change”
2017 Dr. Kristina Straub
Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg		 “Curating Will & Jane, or, Humanities Scholarship Can Be Fun”
2016 Dr. Louis E. Newman
John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies, Associate Dean of the College, and Director of Advising, Carleton College		 “The Challenge of Repentance, The Problem of Forgiveness: Windows into the Human Condition”
2015 Dr. Edward L. Ayers
Professor of History and President, University of Richmond		 “The Shape of the Civil War”
2014 Dr. George R. Bent
Sidney Gause Childress Professor in the Arts, Washington & Lee University		 “Pop Art and Crib Notes at the Dawn of the Renaissance: A Painting for the People in Fifteenth-Century Florence”
2013 Dr. Jennifer Paxton
Visiting Assistant Professor, Catholic University of America		 “The ‘Reel’ Middle Ages: Does it Matter if the Movies Get it Right?”
2012 Dr. James E. May
Associate Professor of English, DuBois Campus of Pennsylvania State University		 “The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson and Edward Young: Friends and Fellow Authors”
2010 Dr. Bruce Cole
President and CEO of the American Revolution Center in Philadelphia		 “My Provenance: From Aunt Gertrude to Sydney Freedberg”
2009 Dr. Robert Eldridge ’90
Associate Professor of Japanese and diplomatic history at Japan’s Osaka University’s Graduate School of International Public Policy		 “International Citizenship: Appreciating Self and Others in a Multicultural World”
2008 Dr. Kevin L. Cope
Professor of English, Louisiana State University		 “The Age of Reason, an Age of Eruptions, Some Ages of Immensity: The Future of Eighteenth-Century Values”
2007 Dr. Barbara Newman
Professor of English, Religion, and Classics, Northwestern University and author of God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002)		 “Medieval Jews, Christians, and the Goddess of the Bible”