World War I Centennial Event
A Discussion with Dr. Vejas Liulevicius and Dr. Ernest Freeberg (UTK)
Thursday, April 6, 2017 at 6:30 p.m. in Dorothy Herron Room A
Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius (Lindsay Young Professor, History, UTK) is an historian of modern Europe and director of UTK’s Center for the Study of War and Society, which he represents on the Tennessee Great War Commission.
His first book, War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge University Press, 2000), also appeared in German translation. His research on WWI has been featured in a German documentary film, Germany’s main news magazine Der Spiegel, and articles in French, German, and Italian. He has produced a taped lecture course on the First World War with the Great Courses company.
Ernest Freeberg heads the History Department at the University of Tennessee, and is author of Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, The Great War, and the Right to Dissent.
His book explores an important legacy of World War I, the fight for civil liberties waged by those who worked to free American socialist leader Eugene Debs from prison. In 1919 Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison for speaking against the U.S. decision to join the fighting in Europe. The incident sparked a national debate over the meaning of the First Amendment and the government’s power to silence its critics, and helped to expand the right to protest against war ever since.
This event is co-sponsored by Blount County Records Management and Archives and the Blount County Public Library.
Free and open to the public, this event will be held at the Blount County Public Library, located at 508 N. Cusick Street, Maryville. For further information about library programs or services, call the library at (865) 982-0981 or visit the Web site at www.blounttn.org/197.
