Enjoy these books by our 2025/26 season speakers:
January 15, 2026 with Fritz Nemeth ’74: Othello and its Relevance Today
Suggested pre- or post Chat activities provided by Fritz Nemeth, ’74
Read the Play: The easiest reading of Shakespeare’s script is really the original that can be found online from The Folger Shakespeare Library. This link includes a cast of characters, synopsis, and the full play.
Watch a Film: The best film version of Othello is the 1995 film starring Laurence Fishburne as Othello and Kenneth Branagh as Iago. It is available on demand.
Another highly recommended film is “Stage Beauty” (2004). It’s about the English actor Ned Kynaston who was the last male actor to play Desdemona. Ned Kynaston was considered the most beautiful “woman” on the English stage. When King Charles was restored to the English throne in 1660, he banned male actors from playing female roles and women were finally allowed to act on the stage. Stars Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Rupert Everett and Tom Wilkinson. Rip Roaring good fun – a sort of tragicomedy that triumphs in the end.
Notable Hamlet Quotes:
Here’s a fairly good resource from the Royal Shakespeare Company of some of the most notable quotes from the play – https://www.rsc.org.uk/othello/about-the-play/famous-quotes
November 20 with Knox Professor Stuart Allison
(click to open)
When Is a Restoration Successful? Results from a 45-Year-Old Tallgrass Prairie Restoration. By Stuart K. Allison
Ecological Restoration and Environmental Change | Renewing Damaged Ecosystems. By Stuart K. Allison
October 16 with Steve Friesen
Galloping Gourmet: Eating and Drinking with Buffalo Bill, published by Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, 2023.
Lakota Performers in Europe, published by University of Oklahoma Press, 2017.
Buffalo Bill: Scout, Showman, Visionary, published by Fulcrum Books, 2010.
A Modest Mennonite Home: The Story of the 1719 Hans Herr House, an Early Colonial Landmark, Good Books, 1990.
All available from Amazon.
September 18 with Owen Muelder and Doug Wilson
Owen Muelder:
The Underground Railroad in Western Illinois, Owen W. Muelder, McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2008
Theodore Dwight Weld and the American Anti-Slavery Society, Owen W. Muelder, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2008
Doug Wilson:
Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words, Douglas L. Wilson, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006
Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln, Douglas L. Wilson, Alfred A. Knopf, 1998
Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln, Edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, University of Illinois Press, 1998
Herndon’s Lincoln, William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, University of Illinois Press, 2006
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The Lincoln Studies Center Edition, Edited by Rodney O. Davis and Douglas L. Wilson, University of Illinois Press, 2008
Prairie Fire Chats 