Offering Solutions to the Baffling Problems of History

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Professor Felipe Fernandez-Armesto will discuss “Change: Why History Happens and What Might Happen Next” on Monday, April 4, at 4 p.m. in Giffels Auditorium, Old Main, at the University of Arkansas. His talk, sponsored by the Hartman Hotz Lecture Series in Law and the Liberal Arts, is free and open to the public.

In a world of baffling and rapid change, Fernandez-Armesto tackles the biggest unsolved problems in history and proposes solutions: he explains why cultures mutate, why cultural changes accelerate, and how change itself might change.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto joined Notre Dame’s history department in 2009 after occupying chairs at Tufts University and the University of London (Queen Mary College). He spent most of his career teaching at Oxford, where he was an undergraduate and doctoral student. He has had visiting appointments at many universities and research institutes in Europe and the Americas, and has honorary doctorates from la Trobe University and the Universidad de los Andes.

Among other distinctions, he has won the John Carter Brown Medal, the Caird Medal of the National Maritime Museum (United Kingdom), the Premio Nacional a Investigacion of the Sociedad Geografica Espanola, Spain's Premio Nacional de Grastonomia for his history of food, and the Tercentenary Medal of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

In recent years, he has made contributions to global history, understood as the study of genuinely global experiences, and to environmental history, especially on a global scale. Among his works are a series of classic studies of medieval colonial expansion and a vulgarization about the year 1492 in global history.

>He is an editorial consultant for many journals and collaborative projects, including Comparative Studies in Society and History and the Journal of Global History.

The University of Arkansas Hartman Hotz Lectures in Law and Liberal Arts were established by Dr. and Mrs. Palmer Hotz of Foster City, Calif., to honor the memory of his brother, Hartman Hotz. Hartman Hotz was a graduate in history from the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. After graduating from Yale University Law School, he joined the faculty of the University of Arkansas School of Law, where he made significant contributions to the study of law.

Many distinguished speakers have participated in this lecture series, among them Chief Justice Warren Burger, G. Edward White, Shirley Abbott, Daisy Bates, Thomas Grisso, George Fletcher and George McGovern.