Lander University will host Professors Donald M. McKale, of Clemson University, and Stefan W. Wiecki, of Presbyterian College, for a public forum on the fall of the Berlin Wall, offering analysis and reflection nearly thirty years after the wall's demolition. The event will be held Tuesday, Nov. 5, at 5:30 p.m. in the Abney Cultural Center Auditorium on the Lander University campus. It is free and open to the public.
Dr. McKale is a specialist in modern Germany and the author or editor of eight books including Hitler's Shadow War: The Holocaust and World War II; Hitler: The Survival Myth; War by Revolution: Germany and Great Britain in the Middle East in the Era of World War I; The Swastika Outside Germany; and The Nazi Party Courts. He completed his Ph.D. from Kent State University in 1970 and joined the Clemson faculty in 1979. In 2006, he won Clemson's Class of '39 Award for Excellence that honors a faculty member for the highest levels of service to the university.
Dr. Wiecki is a modern European historian whose current research focuses on the transformation of East Germany after 1989. A native of Germany, he served in a NATO peacekeeping operation in the Balkans before completing his Ph.D. from Brandeis University. He joined the Presbyterian College faculty in 2008. A former president of the S.C. Historical Association, Wiecki has published in the proceedings of the S.C. Historical Association and received a research grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The forum will be moderated by Dr. Robert Figueira, professor of history at Lander. Figueira is a specialist in medieval European history and joined the Lander faculty in 1991. He has held fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) that enabled study and research in Germany at the University of Regensburg and at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich as well as taught at the University of Würzburg. His publications include an edited volume of studies, journal articles and book chapters; and, as editor, more than a dozen annual issues of the proceedings of the S.C. Historical Association.
This event is sponsored by the College of Behavioral & Social Sciences and is FALS approved. For more information, please call 864-388-8176.