Past Lectures


A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged American Slavery from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War

October 2020 Nebraska Lecture

Will Thomas
Professor of History and John and Catherine Angle Chair in the Humanities

Oct. 6, 2020

More information about A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged American Slavery from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War



Previous Lectures


Looking Back and Looking Forward: the History of Vertebrate Paleontology at the University of Nebraska State Museum

Nebraska Songbook

Navigating Change Forward – Creativity in Community: Reviewing UNL’s Centennial Education Program


History of School Spirit and Louise Pound

Physics at Nebraska: DeWitt Bristol Brace and Einstein

History of Football at Nebraska


Growing a Campus: Landscapes at the University of Nebraska

Willa Cather on Campus

The Hearts of Foreigners: How Americans Understand Others


Grace and Edith Abbott: Nebraska’s Social Justice Sisters

Building Nebraska U: The Saga of University Hall and the Origins of the Modern University

Nebraska’s Unicameral: Still Progressive after All These Years?


Using Arachnids to Inspire D.R.E.A.M.S.

Our Cather Heritage

The Drone Age is Here, and We’re Screwing It Up


Learning to Read: Making Sense of the Evidence

When “They” Becomes “Me”: Responsibility and Action in Literary Activism: The Case of the African Poetry Book Fund

Guts, Germs and Stainless Steel: Creating Winners and Losers in Food


Making for Innovation

What the Heck is a Higgs boson?

The New Normal: A Brain After Concussion


What Good Are the Humanities, Anyway?

Creating a Kinder World: Empowering Youth to End Bullying

Football: Its Physics and Future


The Joy of Applied Science While Feeding the World

The NCAA: Who, What, When, Where, How and Certainly Why

Managing Drought in a Changing Climate


A Battle for the Children: Indigenous Child Removal in the United States and Australia from 1880-1940

Ready for School, Ready for Life: Creating a Future for All Children

The Dead Sea Scrolls After 60 Years: What Have We Learned


HIV/AIDS Epidemic: What Have We Learned in the Past 28 Years?

I pass so poorly with paper and types: The Making and Remaking of Walt Whitman in a Digital Age

Bird Brain! Compliment or Insult?


Quilts: Reflections of Trade, Technology and Tradition

Through Layers of Mud and Time: A Long-Term Perspective on Environmental Change

Feeding 9 Billion People and Other Challenges to Agriculture


Genes, Behavior and Politics

What Is It About Pots?

Genes, Greens, and Disease


An Evening with Ted Kooser

Inventing The Great Plains Region

Sampling Lewis and Clark: Selected Readings from the Journals and Discussion of Events in Context


The Unusual Lifestyle of Giant Algal Viruses