About the event : Eric Foner is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. Author of The Story of American Freedom (1998) as well as several other books on freedom in American history, and recipient of the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching from Columbia University in 2006. His talk will discuss how freedom has been both a universal aspiration and a highly contested ideal throughout American history, and how definitions of freedom have changed in response to events at home and abroad. It will examine how pivotal moments such as the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, and the 1960s affected Americans' understandings of freedom. The talk will end by looking at how the meaning and practice of freedom have changed since the events of September 11, 2001.

(See www.ericfoner.com/ )