Missouri State University will host the 34^th Mid-America Conference on History at the Doubletree Hotel, 2431 N. Glenstone Sept. 20-22. All sessions of the conference are free and open to the public.

There will be 46 sessions on a wide variety of historical subjects, including the American Civil War, women’s history, Eastern Europe and the West, environmental history, religion in early America and the history of the American South. There will be a special session on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy at 2:15 p.m. Sept. 21 that will feature a discussion of the latest insights on this momentous event. Strong, Garner, and Bauer, Trial Attorneys and the department of history at Missouri University of Science and Technology will co-sponsor this session.

“This year’s Mid-America Conference on History promises to be one of the best educational experiences held in Springfield in years,” said Dr. Worth Robert Miller, professor of history at Missouri State and conference coordinator. “Participating scholars will cover a wide range of interesting topics, and the featured speakers are extraordinary.”

This year’s Mid-America Conference will have three featured speakers:

• Rami Khouri of the American University of Beirut (Lebanon) will speak on “History in the Making: Understanding the Arab Uprisings in Their Proper National and Political Contexts” at 7 p.m. Sept. 20. Khouri is an internationally-syndicated journalist who has been a visiting scholar at several American universities. He also serves as managing editor of the Daily Star (Beirut) newspaper. His appearance is sponsored by Drury University.

• Douglas Brinkley of Rice University will speak at 1 p.m. Sept. 21. His topic is “Walter Cronkite: An Eyewitness to American History,” on which he will draw from his recent biography of the famous journalist. Brinkley is the author or editor of more than 20 books on modern America, including “The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America” and the New York Times best-seller, “The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.”

• George Rable of the University of Alabama will speak at 8 p.m. Sept. 21 on “God as General: Was There a Religious History of the American Civil War?”  His 2010 book, “God’s Almost Chosen People: A Religious History of the American Civil War,” received the Jefferson Davis Award and his 2002 book, “Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!” won numerous awards, including the Douglas Southall Freeman Southern History Award.  The Civil War Roundtable of the Ozarks will co-sponsor this session along with Missouri State University.

There will also be free continuous  shuttle bus service between Strong Hall (west side) at Missouri State University, Drury University, and the Doubletree Hotel on Thursday and Friday during the daytime sessions. The shuttle driver will make a special effort to depart from Missouri State University 20 minutes prior to the start of each session from the west side of Strong Hall. It will then proceed to Drury University stopping at the North East corner of Benton Ave and Central Street approximately five minutes later. The shuttle schedule is available online.

Missouri State University originated the Mid-America Conference on History in 1978. Currently, Missouri State University, Oklahoma State University, University of Arkansas and the University of Oklahoma co-sponsor the Mid-America Conference on History. The conference rotates between these universities.

This year’s Mid-America Conference on History will include 150 participants from 24 states, the District of Columbia and one foreign country. The entire conference program is available online.

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Filed Under: history