The Kentucky Wesleyan College Wade Lecture Series will bring two historians of early America to campus this October for talks on the debates that shaped the U.S. Constitution and the minister at the center of the Salem witch trials.
Both lectures will be held in Tapscott Chapel in the Barnard-Jones Administration Building, 3000 Frederica St. Both events are free and open to the public.
Jason Opal, professor of history at Ohio State University, will open the series Thursday, Oct. 22, at 6:00pm. Opal will explore the shared ethical outlook behind the Constitution, focusing on the tension the Framers felt between the need to “establish justice” and their hope that a stronger rule of law would foster goodwill at home and abroad. He will trace how that tension played out in the ratification debates, including arguments over slavery and the slave trade. He is the author of “Avenging the People: Andrew Jackson, the Rule of Law, and the American Nation,” published by Oxford University Press, and “Beyond the Farm: National Ambitions in Rural New England,” published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and his doctorate from Brandeis University.
Daniel Gullotta, assistant professor of history at Ohio State University and assistant director of the Salmon P. Chase Society, will present a Halloween lecture on the Salem witch trials Friday, Oct. 30, at 6:00pm. The talk draws on his current research on Samuel Parris, the Salem Village minister at the center of the of the 1692 trials. Gullotta is a historian of American religion with a focus on Christianity in early America. His first book, on religious politics and the rise of Andrew Jackson, is under contract with Yale University Press. He earned his doctorate in religious studies from Stanford University and a master’s degree in religion from Yale Divinity School.
The Robert H. and Alma J. Wade Endowment Fund provides this lecture series and is possible through the generous donation in memory of Dr. Wade and his wife, Laura Alma Jones Wade, by their son, Dr. Bob Wade.