Alexander Nemerov, the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial professor in the arts and humanities at Stanford, is among the most innovative humanists working today. In his celebrated book Acting in the Night: Macbeth and the Places of the Civil War, Nemerov focuses on a single performance of Macbeth at Grover’s National Theatre on October 17, 1863—a night when Abraham Lincoln was in attendance—to rethink not only the Civil War but the entire cultural iconography of 19th-century America through the president’s favorite play. But what did the treachery, violence, and guilt of Macbeth mean in the midst of war? And where does Walt Whitman fit in all of this? Join Nemerov as he shares his unique brand of cultural criticism that borders on poetry and dissolves the boundaries between America’s theaters of art, literature, and war.
Read the CHF blog post about this program.
This program is presented in partnership with The Newberry Library and the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture at the University of Chicago.
