UALR kicks off the 2009-2010 William G. Cooper Jr. Honors Program Lecture Series with two lectures by experts in the field on the music, politics, and war of the 1960s.

Dr. Kevin Dettmar will present “Bob Dylan and the Academy” at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 19, in the Donaghey Student Center’s Ledbetter Hall Room B. Focusing on the iconic folk singer, the lecture is a variation of the presentation Dettmar recently gave at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Dettmar, who serves as chair of the Department of English at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., is a music critic and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Popular Music Studies. He authored “Is Rock Dead?,” edited “The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan,” and co-edited “Reading Rock ‘n’ Roll: Authenticity, Appropriation, Aesthetics.”

The second lecture, “Approaching War: Hollywood and Vietnam 1929-1964” presented by Dr. Scott Laderman, will be 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, in the DSC Meeting Room D.

Laderman’s book, “Tours of Vietnam: War, Travel Guides, and Memory,” will be published this year. He is an American studies and history specialist teaching at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

Admission is free and open to the public. A reception and book signing will follow each lecture. For more information, contact Zabelle Stodola at 569-3161 or kzstodola@ualr.edu.