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Florida History Lecture Series
2002-2003 Florida Lecture Series Schedule
September 12
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"A Conversation with former Gov. Bob Martinez"
Bob Martinez
(Consultant, Carlton Fields) |
| Bob Martinez served from 1987 until 1991 as Florida's fortieth governor. The second Republican governor elected since Reconstruction and the first in Florida of Hispanic descent, Martinez was born and raised in the Hispanic neighborhood of West Tampa. He graduated from the University of Tampa and earned a masters degree from the University of Illinois. Governor Martinez started his professional career as a teacher and was the advocate and lobbyist for Hillsborough County teachers from 1966 to 1975. He became mayor of Tampa in 1979 and served until his run for Governor in 1986.
President George Bush appointed Martinez the nation's "Drug Czar" after his term in office. Upon returning to Florida, he founded a business consulting firm serving the U.S. and Latin America. He is currently associated with the Carlton Fields law firm in Tampa. |
October 24
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Creating an Old South: Middle Florida's Plantation Frontier before the Civil War
book talk and signing
Edward Baptist (Professor of History, University of Miami) |
Dr. Edward E. Baptist grew up in Durham, North Carolina. He graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service with B.S.F.S. in 1992 then went on to study American History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his Ph.D. in 1997. In 1998, Baptist became the Charlton Tebeau Professor of Southern History at the University of Miami, where he currently teaches various history related courses.
He and his wife Stephanie have two children, Lillian, 4, and Ezra, 1, and they live on campus as associate masters of Mahoney Residential College. Creating an Old South: Middle Florida's Plantation Frontier Before the Civil War, was published in 2002 by the University of North Carolina Press. Baptist is currently researching and writing a book about the forced migration of enslaved African Americans to the Mississippi Valley and Deep South after 1790, which he sees as an essential but neglected part of the story of how the South was created. |
November 14
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"Under the Panther Moon"
book talk and signing
Rick Dantzler (Attorney, Frost, Tamayo, Sessums and Aranda) |
| Rick Dantzler is a third-generation Floridian from Winter Haven. He graduated from the University of Florida with a B. S. and his law degree. In 1982, at the age of 26, Dantzler was elected to the Florida House of Representatives, and then elected to the Florida Senate in 1990. His colleagues in the Senate knew him as "the conscience of the Senate." He resigned in 1998 to run for governor and later that year became the lieutenant governor candidate on the ticket with Buddy MacKay. It was his campaign for governor and then lieutenant governor that provided much of the motivation for writing the book Under the Panther Moon, a collection of fictional stories about life in Florida.
Dantzler is an avid hunter and angler who loves fly-fishing. His love for the natural beauty and wonder of Florida is the backdrop for the stories in Under the Panther Moon, and shapes an agenda for our state that is subtly articulated in the book. He is married to Julie Pope and they have two children. In addition to being an attorney, he is a certified circuit court civil and family law mediator. He is currently associated with Frost, Tamayo, Sessums, and Aranda law firm in Bartow. |
January 31
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"Seeking David Fagen: the Search for a Black Rebel's Florida Roots"
Frank N. Schubert (Historian, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington D. C.) |
| Dr. Frank "Mickey" Schubert was born in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Howard University then went on to get his master's degree from the University of Wyoming and Ph.D. from the University of Toledo. He served in the United States Army from 1965 to 1968, including one year in Vietnam, where he rose to the rank of captain. He has been a historian in the Department of Defense since 1977, and has been chief of the Joint Operational History Branch, in the Joint History Office, Office of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, since October 1993. Schubert has written extensively on military subjects, including frontier exploration, black soldiers, and military construction, and has lectured at universities in Hungary and Romania. A specialist on buffalo soldiers, he has written several books including On the Trail of the Buffalo Soldier: Biographies of African-Americans in the U.S. Army, 1866-1917; Black Valor: Buffalo Soldiers and the Medal of Honor, 1870-1898; and Voices of the Buffalo Soldier: Records, Reports, and Recollections of Military Service in the West, due out in Spring 2003. |
February 20*
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"Florida, a Bellwether for the Nation?: Mental Health, Therapeutic Jurisprudence, and America's First Mental Health Court."
Ginger Lerner-Wren (County Court Judge, 17th Judicial Circuit, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida,) |
| Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren began her service on the Broward County Criminal Court in 1997. That same year she was appointed to administrate and preside over the nation's first Mental Health Court. The innovative specialized Court was established to address the complexities of mentally ill offenders arrested for nonviolent misdemeanors and to impose the administration of justice for those with serious mental and psychiatric disorders. The Mental Health Court is dedicated to the safe diversion, decriminalization, and treatment of mentally ill persons in the community.
Judge Lerner-Wren has recently been appointed by President George W. Bush to the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. The Commission will conduct a comprehensive study of the nation's mental health delivery system and advise the President on methods of improving the system. |
March 27*
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"The South as Other: the Southerner as Stranger"
Dr. Vernon Burton (Professor of History and Sociology, University of Illinois) |
| Dr. Vernon Burton was born in Royston, GA and is one of America's premier historians and sociologists of the South. He holds degrees from Furman University and Princeton University. Since 1974, Burton has served as a member of the history department of the University of Illinois. Burton is currently Professor of History and Sociology and a Senior Research Scientist at the university's National Center for Supercomputing Applications where he heads the initiative for Humanities and Social Science projects. One of Burton's books, In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family Community in Edgefield, South Carolina was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Dr. Burton's research and teaching interests include race relations, family, community, politics, religion, and the intersection of humanities and social science. He is president of the Agricultural History Society. He has won numerous teaching awards. In 1999, he was selected as the Research and Doctoral University Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. |
* Denotes Robert A. Stahl Visiting Lecturer in Criminology. |
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