MOUNT MORRIS —Livingston Arts, in conjunction with its current Expressions of the Civil War exhibit, offers two upcoming guest lectures featuring Retired RIT professor Robert Keough speaking about photography in the Civil War era on Jan. 27 at 3 p.m.
Keough’s lectures explore the impact of photography during the Civil War. According to a release by Livingston Arts, photography was a newly developed technology and there had only been one war photographed to any degree before the Civil War (the Crimean War of 1856). Robert Keough is the camp commander of the Col. George L. Willard Camp, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War in Albany, a member of the Executive Committee of the New York State Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee, and a naval Civil War re-enactor.
On Feb. 3 at 3 p.m. the public is invited to join Livingston Arts for Driven to Emancipation: President Lincoln & The Abolition of Slavery, a talk by Dr. Justin Behrend of SUNY Geneseo’s history department. To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Dr. Behrend will speak about how Lincoln was pushed by runaway slaves and abolitionists to become a fierce advocate for complete abolition at the end of the war.
Dr. Behrend’s talk explores the role slaves had in their own emancipation and he aims to explain why Lincoln changed from believing that he had “no lawful right” to emancipate slavery where it existed, to pushing for the complete of slavery in all the states.
Following the acclaim over the Lincoln film, Dr. Behrend hopes to uncover intriguing aspects of Lincoln and his era that were unexplored in the film.
“I think it is a superb film, but it’s also a film that highlights President Lincoln at his greatest moment: winning the war and ending slavery,” said Dr. Behrend. “How he got to that point of his greatest triumph is a fascinating story in its own right, and it shows how Lincoln changed.”
Dr. Behrend is assistant professor in the History Department at SUNY Geneseo. His current research focuses on grassroots Democracy in the Post-Civil War South, and he was recently a contributor to the New York Times’ “Disunion” series that examining the Civil War during the 150th anniversary.
Livingston Arts is located in Building 4 on the Murray Hill Campus and detailed directions are available at LivingstonArts.org/Visit. Parking is available in front of the building and at the back, where there is a wheelchair ramp. Call 243.6785 for more details.