Southeastern Louisiana University Dept of History and Political Science

10/27/2026

Put on your costumes and bring a healthy appetite! It's that time again!

The Return of the Son of the Bride of the Great Pumpkin: The Musical’s Revenge
The More-or-Less Annual Halloween Lecture - A Fanfare Extravaganza
William Robison, Department of History and Political Science
11:00, Wednesday, October 28, Student Union Theater

The More-or-Less Annual Halloween Lecture Returns with the usual mix of scholarship, silliness, and sweets as the Head HIPSter resurrects and updates ancient lectures and lore about Doctor Who, Doctor Frankenstein, Frank Zappa, ghosts, goblins, the Great Pumpkin, Guy Fawkes, Harry Potter, Henry VIII, masks, mayhem, monsters, mummies, murder, pagans, piety, plagues, poisons, potions vampires, werewolves, witches, wizards, and the war on Christmas with music!

Do you wonder what that title and the rather cryptic description mean? Me too! Join me and let's find out together!

Hope to see you there! Please share this with anyone who may be interested.

10/22/2026

Check out the new HIPS Military Museum website!

The HIPS Military Museum is home to more than 1000 military antiques including fi****ms, swords, uniforms, and other artifacts spanning centuries of global conflict.

10/18/2026

HIPSters, HIPS Majors, and Friends:

We have a great opportunity this week to hear a lecture by one of the most accomplished historians in the world, Dr. Suzanne Marchand, who is Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University (the highest honor given to a faculty member), the current President of the American Historical Association (the United States' largest and most prestigious professional organization for historians), and one of the most popular instructors at LSU. She will deliver a special presentation, "On Public Painting: A Forgotten Form of Civic Education," at 11:00, Tuesday, October 20 in the Student Union Theater (I am reliably informed that her definition of public art does not include painting a visiting team's locker room in the shade of Baker-Miller pink).

Dr. Marchand earned the Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1992 and was a distinguished member of Princeton University's History faculty before moving to Louisiana State University, where her husband Professor Victor Stater is also a faculty member. Her research specialties are modern European cultural and intellectual history and the history of Austria and Germany. She has been a Visiting Scholar at St. Andrews University in Scotland and the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, lectured at Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford, and is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Award and many other notable honors you can read about on her LSU faculty page: https://www.lsu.edu/hss/history/people/faculty/marchand.php.

Dr. Marchand has authored Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750-1970 (Princeton University Press, 1996); German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Race, Religion, and Scholarship (Cambridge University Press, 2009); and Porcelain: A History from the Heart of Europe (Princeton University Pres, 2020); co-authored Germany at the Fin de Siècle (Louisiana State University Press, 2004); Worlds Together, Worlds Apart (W.W. Norton, 2002); and Many Europes: Choice and Chance in Western Civilization (McGraw Hill, 2013); co-edited Proof and Persuasion: Essays on Authority, Objectivity, and Evidence (Brepols, 1997); and published a plethora of scholarly articles in professional journals.

Dr. Marchand is currently working on a book about the many readers of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus and has also developed an interest in public art, which she will share with us on Tuesday. As she notes, there is a great deal of conversation these days about civic education but little attention to a form that stretches back at least to Renaissance: public murals. In a highly visual presentation, she will discuss deliberately instructional images displayed in public places in Europe and the nineteenth-century United States and the use of art and symbolism in conveying civic messages. This should be of interest to everyone. I will be there with my Western Civilization class in tow. Come and bring your class if you have one at that time, and please share this message with anyone else who may be interested.

Thanks!

10/16/2026

Next up for the Then and Now Fanfare History and Politics Lecture Series, LSU Boyd Professor of History and recent past president of the American Historical Association, Dr. Suzanne Marchand! Don't miss it!

10/16/2026

10/16/2026

Hi, all. Would you like to spend four hours on Saturday, November 14 listening to historians who are experts on the Tudor period discuss Showtime’s The Tudors, twenty years after its premier? It’s absolute free! All you have to do to get the link is register on-line (free, absolutely free). Come and check it out!

SHOWTIME’S THE TUDORS: A TWENTY-YEAR RETOSPECTIVE
An Online Symposium Sponsored by Royal Studies Journal
Moderated by William B. Robison and Valerie E. Schutte
Saturday, November 14, 2026

Admission is free but registration is required. Register here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSclD-RuVyW3rwA-2k5VbchCYNJvzjLCLmexPZZFWXjtEaOD8g/viewform

I. The Men of The Tudors
12:00 pm US-CST / 1:00 pm US-EST / 6:00 pm UK / 5:00 am Sunday Sydney

“Introduction”
William B. Robison, Southeastern Louisiana University, United States

“Opening Remarks”
Elena Woodacre, University of Wi******er

“Star of England: Henry V and Chivalric Kingship in The Tudors”
Lucy Barnhouse, Arkansas State University, United States

“Doubtful Thomases: Henry VIII’s Ministers and Minions on The Tudors”
William B. Robison, Southeastern Louisiana University, United States

II. Queens on The Tudors
1:00 pm US-CST / 2:00 pm US-EST / 7:00 pm UK / 6:00 am Sunday Sydney

“The Deaths of Henry VIII's Queens in The Tudors”
Conor Byrne, University of Southampton, United Kingdom

"'Mais oui, monsieur': Being a foreign queen in The Tudors."
Emily Laland, Independent Scholar

“Princess Mary and Anne of Cleves in The Tudors: Fact vs Fiction
Valerie Schutte, Independent Scholar, United States

III. Rituals of Queenship in The Tudors
2:00 pm CST / 3:00 pm EST / 8:00 pm UK / 7:00 am Sunday Sydney

“Queenship Through the Lens of The Tudors: Expectation and Reality”
Michele Seah, University of Newcastle, Australia

“Ritual, Pageantry, and Historical Reality in The Tudors”
Kristen Vitale Engel, Fitchburg State University, United States

“Material Diplomacy in The Tudors”
Grace Waye-Harris, University of Adelaide, Australia

IV. Actors and Legacy in The Tudors
3:00 pm CST / 4:00 EST / 9:00 pm UK / 8:00 am Sunday Sydney

“A Two-Faced Jane Seymour: Her Portrayal by Two Actors on The Tudors”
Elizabeth Norton, Historian and Television Presenter, United Kingdom

“Anne Boleyn After Natalie Dormer in The Tudors and the Rise of a Q***r Anne”
Stephanie Russo, Macquarie University, Australia

“The Tudors: A Watershed Moment for Royal Biopic Television Serials”
Sarah Betts, University of York, United Kingdom

10/13/2026

SOUTH CENTRAL RENAISSANCE CONFERENCE 2027
JUNE 14-16, 2027 -- NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, USA

The South Central Renaissance Conference (SCRC) invites scholars to submit papers for its 2027 conference, to be held June 14-16, 2027, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded in 1979, SCRC is an international scholarly organization devoted to the study of the Renaissance through interdisciplinary perspectives and across disciplines, regions, and cultures. Each year, SCRC hosts the annual sessions of the Queen Elizabeth I Society and the Society for Renaissance Art History.

For 2027, SCRC welcomes 15- to 20-minute papers on all aspects of Renaissance studies. We invite submissions that explore the Renaissance broadly and from a range of disciplinary, geographic, cultural, and methodological perspectives. SCRC especially welcomes papers related to Tudor queenship, Shakespearean studies and early modern theater, art history and material culture, as well as diplomacy, exploration, and devotional experience. This upcoming conference will also celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Queen Elizabeth I Society.

The 2027 conference will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, at the InterContinental Hotel. Situated near the French Quarter, the location provides convenient access to the city’s museums, restaurants, and the historic St. Charles Avenue streetcar line.

Presenters should submit 300- to 500-word abstracts through the submission portal on the SCRC website, https://southcentralrenaissanceconference.org/. The submission deadline is December 31, 2026. An SCRC membership is required to attend the conference, and presenters must plan to participate in person.

Graduate students presenting at the conference are encouraged to apply for SCRC graduate travel fellowships. Undergraduate students interested in presenting should submit the complete text of their papers, along with a faculty letter of recommendation, by December 31, 2026. Scholars are also encouraged to submit developed versions of their conference papers to Explorations in Renaissance Culture, SCRC’s fully refereed scholarly journal.

For any questions, please contact Dr. Valerie Schutte, Program Chair, at [email protected] or Dr. Samantha Perez, Local Host, at [email protected].

10/11/2026

HIPSters, HIPS Majors, and Friends:

Please join us at 2:00, Monday, October 12 in the Student Union Theater for the sad but joyful occasion of Dr. Joe Burns’ Final Fanfare Lecture, “School House Rock: A Fanfare Farewell Finale.”

It is a joyous occasion for Dr. Burns, as he will retire in December and thereafter be lost in the flesh pots of Florida. It is a sad occasion for the rest of us, for Dr. Burns has been one of Southeastern Louisiana University’s most popular professors for many years – in class in the Department of Communication and Media Studies, in the offices of the Graduate Coordinator and more recently Department, on the printed page as a well-published scholar, onstage as a lecturer and musician (including our shared stint in the band Impaired Faculties), and on the radio with his internationally syndicated “Rock School,” which recently completed its one-thousandth broadcast!

Among the saddest of those he leaves behind will be me, as Joe has been a great colleague, bandmate, and friend, and he has been a fixture in the Then and Now Fanfare History and Politics Lecture Series for most of its existence (since 2001). He is always both informative and entertaining, and no doubt that will be the case this year when he discusses the venerable children’s television program, “School House Rock,” where history, politics, and television intersect to answer such questions as “What is a bill?” (This applies to legislative proposals, not to me, which no one has figured out.) It is certain to be great!

You will have one more chance to see him in action outside of a HIPS-sponsored lecture series, as he will again serve – again, alas, for the final time – as the narrator for the Columbia Theater’s screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” at 8:00 pm, Saturday, October 24. His usual energy and enthusiasm will no doubt be on display. An added bonus is that my former bandmates in The Playback Theory will be onstage prior to the film to play the entire soundtrack live! Tickets are still available, and costumes are encouraged. Please note that anyone under the age of eighteen must be accompanied by an adult. But YOU are over eighteen, so do not miss it! Dr. Burns and Dr. Frank-N-Furter are counting on you!

For more information about Dr. Burns, see https://www.southeastern.edu/employee/joseph-burns/.

For more information about Fanfare, see https://www.southeastern.edu/college-of-arts-humanities-and-social-sciences/fanfare/

For more information about the Columbia Theater’s presentation of Rocky Horror see https://www.columbiatheatre.org/whats-on/the-rocky-horror-picture-show-5.

For more information on The Playback Theory and the band’s brand new show, see https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573925547947.

10/03/2026

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/03/french-film-notre-salut-vichy-regime?CMP=GTUS_email

Movie about Nazi-collaborating administration strikes chord during what director calls ‘time of great uncertainty’

09/30/2026

Sorry for the late reminder, but it has been a hectic couple of weeks.

This week we have two HIPS lectures for you.

(1) A HIPS Society Lecture at 5:00 today in Fayard 238 or streaming at https://meet.google.com/xdf-htcr-qyx. This one will feature yours truly discussing Mark Twain and the Tudors. The title of the lecture is "Princes, P**n, and Poor Jim's Prison: The Subversive Humor of Mark Twain's Tudors," but let me just be clear that there is no actual po*******hy involved. That is a reference to Twain's short work "1601," which was considered risque at the time he published it. But the main focus of the lecture is on Twain's fascination with the Tudor dynasty.

(2) Mark Dries will present a Fanfare lecture tomorrow (Thursday) at 12:30 in the Student Union Theater titled

Amalgamated Selves: Identity and Resilience in Colonial Peruvian Mercury Mines . For nearly 300 years, the mineral wealth that underwrote the Spanish Empire in the Andes depended on mercury from Huancavelica, Peru. To secure this, the Crown established a labor draft to force Indigenous Andeans to work in toxic conditions extracting and refining mercury. Andean communities adapted, framing first their service and later their identities according to Spanish legal culture to mitigate the dangers of Peru's most deadly mine. Come find out more!