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Book a Distinguished Lecturer from the Organization of American Historians for your next event.
VMI Photo by - H. Lockwood McLaughlin
WHY A HISTORIAN?
Our OAH Distinguished Lecturers are scholars and storytellers, uniquely qualified to bring historical context to some of today's most provocative issues. They engage audiences, sharing monumental moments and unknown stories from our nation's past that influence and inform our world today.
The Distinguished Lectureship Program offers VIRTUAL OAH LECTURES (custom-recorded or live with Q&A) and traditional in-person OAH Distinguished Lectures.
The OAH is a valuable resource for finding speakers!
Christopher Miller, Community Programs Manager - National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
Featured Lecturer
Wendy Kline
Wendy Kline, Dema G. Seelye Chair in the History of Medicine at Purdue University, is internationally recognized for her scholarship in the history of medicine, history of women's health and the history of childbirth. She is the author of three major books: Coming Home: How Midwives Changed Birth (2019); Bodies of Knowledge: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Women’s Health in the Second Wave (2010); and Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom (2001). Her current project, “Psychedelic Birth: R.D. Laing and the Transformation of Psychiatry,” has been funded by a six-month research fellowship...
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Featured Lecture
"Great Acid from America": Murder, moral panic, and the underworld consumption of illicit drugs in countercultural London
This talk features the first and only LSD murder trial in the U.K., which took place in 1968 following the discovery of the body of a French prostitute in Chelsea, London. The culprit was an American drug user who fled the scene after the murder. He was later extradited back to the UK and sentenced to six years in prison. My talk situates the Lipman murder investigation and ensuing trial within the context of the rising illicit use of LSD in the late 1960s.
"By 1968, recreational use of the drug and its role in crime – the Lipman case becoming the jewel in the crown – symbolically transformed LSD from a therapeutic medication into an illicit and destructive drug sought out by addicts. "
