Evenings with History

You have a unique opportunity to share in the excitement of historical discovery through the annual Evenings with History series.

Sponsored by the University History Institute, the series features presentations by UA Little Rock faculty members and guest speakers. They share their current research and teaching interests and many of the presentations illuminate current affairs. These talks offer insight into the workings of historical scholarship and cover a variety of times, areas, and subjects. The format allows for questions and discussion. Refreshments and an informal atmosphere encourage the interchange of ideas.

Venue and Parking

This year’s lectures will be held in the Ottenheimer Auditorium at the Historic Arkansas Museum, 200 E. Third Street in Little Rock. The museum’s downtown location and adjacent parking lot at Third and Cumberland make the sessions convenient and pleasant to attend.

Schedule

The six sessions of the 2025-2026 Evenings with History series will be held on the first Tuesdays of October, December, February, March, and April, and on the second Tuesday of November. Refreshments are served at 7:00 p.m., and the talk begins at 7:30 p.m.

Subscriptions

Evenings with History is one of the primary ways that the History Institute raises funds to carry out its mission. All proceeds are used to further historical research at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The UA Little Rock Foundation Fund is also a nonprofit Arkansas corporation and holds U. S. Internal Revenue Service tax-exempt status.

Subscribers to the series support historical scholarship.

Individual Subscription: $50 annually
Joint Subscription: $90 annually
Fellow of the Institute: $250 annually
Life Membership: $1,000
Corporate Sponsorships: Available with a $250 minimum contribution
Regular Registered Undergraduate and Graduate Students at UA Little Rock may attend the lectures free of charge.

To purchase your subscription, please visit the Evenings with History Subscriptions page.

If you’re interested in becoming a major donor, contact any officer or board member of the University History Institute email or contact us at [email protected] or 501-916-3236.

Evenings with History, 2025-2026

October 7, 2025 – Katrina Yeaw, Yi Ren, Michael Heil, and Hannah Anderson
Spooky Season: Monsters in History

Monsters, ranging from the gorgons of Greek mythology to the modern zombies of horror films, have consistently appeared in human history and folklore. In celebration of Halloween, four faculty members will share their insights on these haunting creatures, each rooted in various regions around the world: Europe, America, East Asia, and the Middle East. By examining how these monsters reflect cultural anxieties, promote social compliance, define otherness, or evoke awe, the presenters will illustrate how the concept of monsters is shaped by specific locations and time periods.
Prof. Michael Heil will explore tales of the undead, and attempts to neutralize them, in medieval England. Prof. Katrina Yeaw will delve into the role of jinns in the Islamic world, explaining their role as both entities in the Quran and mischievous figures in popular lore. Prof. Hannah Anderson will analyze the Jersey Devil, the country’s only official state demon, and its origins within the politics of early America. Prof. Yi Ren will discuss the fox spirit, a shapeshifting figure from Chinese folklore, literature, and religious belief, and how it reveals cultural anxieties about gender, desire, and the supernatural in late imperial China.

November 11, 2025 – Kristin Mann
Selling America on Independence: The 1950 Savings Bond Drive and its Replica Liberty Bells

The Savings Bond Division of the U.S. Treasury Department launched an ambitious Independence Bond Drive in early 1950, choosing the Liberty Bell and the slogan “Save for your Independence” as its symbols. Savings bond personnel coordinated with the copper industry to fund exact reproductions of the Liberty Bell for each state and territory. Cast in France, shipped to the U.S., and then mounted by Navy personnel on specially-designed trucks, the bells toured each state from May 15 to July 4, 1950. Arkansas’s Replica Liberty Bell was incorporated into the Bicentennial Memorial at the Arkansas State Capitol in 1975. This talk examines what the Independence Bond Drive reveals about politics, economics, culture, and American identity.

December 2, 2025 – James Ross
“The World is on Fire:” Francis Schaeffer and the Making of the Modern Religious Right

Francis Schaeffer was a Presbyterian minister, theologian, and cultural critic, whose ideas and actions played a pivotal role in the development of the modern American Religious Right. Schaeffer initially focused on building a Christian fundamentalist movement in Europe after World War 2 but eventually developed a critique of modern secularism that garnished him a large evangelical following. He would later become a leading voice in the anti-abortion movement. This lecture examines the development of his ideas and actions from the 1930s to his collaborations with C. Everett Koop, which framed abortion as a central issue for evangelical activism. By tracing Schaeffer’s largely hidden role in the formation of the American Religious Right, the lecture will demonstrate how his ideas and actions shaped a political movement that continues to influence contemporary debates.

February 3, 2026 – John Kirk
Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and the Death Penalty in Arkansas and the United States

How many legally sanctioned executions have there been in Arkansas and the United States? How do those numbers break down by race, ethnicity, and gender? What do those statistics tell us about state and national history and the relationship between them? This presentation will address these questions and more in investigating what the death penalty can tell us about wider social trends in history.

March 3, 2026 – Yi Ren
The Making of a Propaganda Society in Rural China, 1938-1976

Several months after the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, a “Red Children Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team” spontaneously emerged in a rural school in Southeast Shanxi. It was not unique, as countless teams flourished nationwide during this decade, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Propaganda Department had suspended all operations. This phenomenon raises a key question: if CCP propaganda did not solely depend on top-down administrative orders, what explains the persistent expansion and remarkable sustainability of grassroots propaganda forces in rural China? The CCP’s development of grassroots propaganda forces began as early as the wartime period and throughout the Mao era, from transforming folk artists into revolutionary propagandists to mobilizing local residents for amateur propaganda activities. Through a case study of Southeast Shanxi, this lecture will trace how an expansive grassroots propaganda force grew, thereby explaining the resilience and durability of propaganda work in rural Communist China.

April 7, 2026 – Special Guest Speakers: David Roediger (Foundation Professor of American Studies at University of Kansas) and Guy Lancaster (Editor, CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas)
An Ordinary White

Historian David Roediger will present stories from his new book, An Ordinary White: My Antiracist Education, and then pursue the meaning of those experiences in dialogue with the great Arkansas scholar of race, Guy Lancaster. The memoir describes Roediger’s youth in a family of southern Illinois workers. He portrays the racism that he was carefully taught, both in a small, all-white town and the city of Cairo. He recalls also the ways in which midwestern places may nurture other conclusions about social justice.

About the University History Institute

The University History Institute is a nonprofit Arkansas corporation created to provide public support for the Department of History at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Funds raised by the Institute are used primarily to support faculty members in pursuing their scholarly research. The History Institute has provided, in conjunction with Ottenheimer Library and other outside grants, over $100,000 for the purchase of archival and library materials to promote this research.

Our current Board of Directors represent a cross section of the Central Arkansas community and include: