Upcoming NIU lecture focuses on history of American frontier

DeKALB – Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Greg Grandin will present “The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America” at an upcoming lecture Nov. 9 at Northern Illinois University’s campus in DeKalb.

Grandin’s lecture, which will start at 7:30 p.m., is part of the Department of History’s annual Lincoln Lecture in Altgeld Auditorium. The presentation, rescheduled from its original September date, is free and open to the public, according to a news release.

The lecture draws on Grandin’s 2020 Pulitzer Prize award-winning book, “The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America,” to explore the changing meanings of the frontier in American identity and U.S. history from the American Revolution to the 2016 electoral politics of the border wall, according to the release.

Grandin serves as the Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History at Yale University. He is author of seven books on Latin America and the U.S., including “Fordlandia”, a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics, Award and the Pulitzer Prize and “The Empire of Necessity,” winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Beveridge Award in American History.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Society of American Historians. Grandin has been published widely in The Nation, where he is a member of the editorial board; the London Review of Books, the New Republic, NACLA’s Report on the Americas and the New York Times, among other venues. He is a regular guest on “Democracy Now!”

The W. Bruce Lincoln Endowed Lecture Series brings to campus distinguished scholars who address topics of interest to both the academic community and the general public. The lectures engage key issues and are often interdisciplinary, in the spirit of Professor Lincoln’s research, writing and teaching.

For more information about this year’s Lincoln Lecture, contact Professor Anne Hanley, Department of History, at ahanley@niu.edu .