December 6, 2025

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

Charles J. Shields to be Featured on Public Radio Program

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Charles J. Shields

Charles J. Shields, associate director of the Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series, will explore how Kurt Vonnegut’s experience as a World War II prisoner of war influenced his later writing during an interview on the With Good Reason public radio program beginning Saturday, January 28.

The interview can be heard on January 28 at 4:30 p.m. on WCVE 88.9 FM and on Sunday, January 29 at 7 p.m. and Monday, January 30 at 12:30 a.m. on WAMU 88.5 FM. The segment, “From Combat to College,” is expected to be online beginning the week of the show at http://withgoodreasonradio.org/2012/01/from-combat-to-college/.

The full news release is available at http://www.umw.edu/news/2012/01/23/umw-great-lives-associate-director-to-discuss-kurt-vonnegut-on-public-radio-program/.

In addition to his interview on With Good Reason, Shields will appear on C-SPAN2‘s BookTV to discuss Kurt Vonnegut as well as the Great Lives lecture series. The segment is expected to air Saturday, January 28 at 10 a.m. and Sunday, January 29 at 3 a.m. and 11:15 p.m.

On Thursday, February 2, Shields will appear on WABC-AM‘s “John Batchelor” show at 9 a.m.

A feature article about Shields’ And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut and the subject of his biography appeared in the January/February issue of Humanities, the magazine of the National Endowment of the Humanities, written by David Kippen, former director of the literature program for the National Endowment of the Arts.

Great Lives Lecture Series Starts Next Week

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The Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series starts Tuesday, Jan. 24 with a lecture on Kurt Vonnegut, and continues through April. All lectures begin at 7:30 p.m. and are held in George Washington Hall’s Dodd Auditorium.

A full calendar of lectures is available at http://www.umw.edu/greatlives/calendar-of-lectures/.

The Free Lance-Star highlights the lecture series in the Jan. 19 issue: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2012/012012/01192012/677222.

Crawley and Shields Interviewed for Radio Program

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William Crawley

William Crawley, director of the Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series, and Charles J. Shields, associate director, will be featured on AM 1230 WFVA. The interview, which will air Sunday, Jan. 15 at 8 a.m., will focus on the upcoming season of the lecture series.

Shields talks about his book, And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut, A Life, in a segment on the syndicated Colorado public radio program, Page by Page. The segment originally aired on Tuesday, Jan. 10 and is available online at http://www.aspenpublicradio.org/pod_listen.php?row=2126.

Charles J. Shields

He also shares the book in an interview on AARP Prime Time Radio, taped on Wednesday, Jan. 11.

In addition, Shields discusses the life of Harper Lee in a video on the Biography Channel website.

Review of Charles Shields’ Book Appears in The Washington Post

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Charles J. Shields, associate director of the Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series, is featured in the Monday, Dec. 12 edition of The Washington Post. The article, “Charles J. Shields’s ‘And So It Goes’: Excellent Biography of Kurt Vonnegut,” is a review of Shields’ book, “And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut, A Life.”

Great Lives Series Starts in January

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UMW will present its 2012 Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series beginning in January and running through April. The popular program, which will examine the lives of a wide range of intriguing historical figures, is open to the public free of charge. The lectures will be held at 7:30 p.m. in George Washington Hall’s Dodd Auditorium on selected Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

The series begins Tuesday, January 24, with a lecture on Kurt Vonnegut by Charles J. Shields, associate director of the Great Lives Series. Shields is the author of the recently released “And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut, A Life,” the first full-length biography of Vonnegut. The book has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Shields also is the author of “Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee,” the bestselling biography of the author of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The 2012 series will continue with lectures on major figures such as Christopher Columbus, Marquis de Lafayette, Marie Curie and the Wright brothers. The recent biographers of Aaron Burr, Noah Webster, Clarence Darrow and Marie and Pierre Curie also will present lectures.

For more information or for a complete listing of lectures, contact the Office of Events and Conferencing at (540) 654-1065 or visit www.umw.edu/greatlives.

Winner of Great Lives Contest Announced

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The winner of the Great Lives contest has been determined! The FIRST person to correctly identify the faces on the display in Monroe Hall is… Jeremy Thompson.

The 17 persons featured in the display who have been the subjects of biographies and film are:

1.      Kurt Vonnegut (American novelist)

2.      Marie Curie (discoverer of radium)

3.      Madam CJ Walker (cosmetics entrepreneur)

4.      The Wright Brothers (inventors of the airplane)

5.      P. T. Barnum (circus showman)

6.      Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (first President of Turkey)

7.      Clarence Darrow (American attorney)

8.      Jackie Robinson (first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era)

9.      Noah Webster (creator of the first American dictionary)

10.     General Marquis de Lafayette (French-born general of the American Revolution)

11.     Anne Frank (diarist of her experiences as a Jewish girl in hiding)

12.     Mildred Loving and Richard Perry Loving (plaintiffs in landmark case overturning laws forbidding mixed marriages)

13.     Aaron Burr (American Revolutionary War general, later Vice President)

14.     Louisa May Alcott (author of Little Women)

15.     Christopher Columbus (explorer of the New World)

All of the above will be the subjects of presentations in the Great Lives Lecture Series beginning in January 2012. As the winner, Jeremy will have his choice of either dinner for two at the Fredericksburg restaurant of his choice; or, dinner for two with the guest speaker/author of his choice in the spring Great Lives Lecture Series.

Congratulations, Jeremy.

– From Charles J. Shields, associate director of the Great Lives Lecture Series

Great Lives Student Contest

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The Great Lives program is sponsoring a contest to see which student can identify the greatest number of famous faces on a display in Monroe Hall. “These are all people of the past, who will each by the subject of a biographer or historian’s lecture during our 2012 season,” said Charles J. Shields, associate director.

The Great Lives/Chappell Lecture Series features approximately 18 biographers, scholars, and historians each spring to talk about the lives of influential persons from all walks of life. The student who can identify the greatest number of famous faces on the display will have his or her choice of dinner for two at a Fredericksburg restaurant, or dinner for two with a guest speaker this spring. Entries must be submitted to Shields (cshield2@umw.edu) by Wednesday, October 26 at 5 p.m.. In case of a tie, the first entry received with the highest number of correctly identified faces will be the winner.

“This is the perfect opportunity,” said Shields, “for a student to impress someone special with his or her outstanding grasp of history.”