Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eric Foner will present a complimentary public lecture titled “Lincoln and Slavery” Thursday, Oct. 8, on the University of Oklahoma Norman campus. The lecture is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Sam Noble Museum, 2401 Chautauqua Ave.

Foner is coming to OU at the invitation of Professor Stephen H. Norwood of the History Department as part of the President’s Lecture Series. Norwood identified Foner as “one of the world’s foremost scholars of the Civil War and Reconstruction.” Norwood called Foner’s book on Lincoln, "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery," “a cutting-edge work of scholarship, presenting a new and more complex view of Lincoln, who is arguably America’s greatest and most important president.” "The Fiery Trial" was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize and the Lincoln Prize.

In addition to "The Fiery Trial," Foner is the author and editor of more than 20 books, including "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War"; "Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877"; "The Story of American Freedom"; "Tom Paine and Revolutionary America"; and, most recently, "Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad." His works have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.

Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, has been accorded the highest honors of the historical profession. He is one of only two scholars to serve as president of the three major professional historical associations: the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians and the Society of American Historians.

Foner earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1969 and taught there for more than 30 years until his retirement this year. He also held the Harmsworth Professorship at the University of Oxford and the Pitt Professorship at the University of Cambridge in Britain.

For further information or for accommodations on the basis of disability, contact Professor Stephen H. Norwood at 405-816-8007.