Looking at events and people in the run-up to the Civil War, we will trace the increasingly fractious divide between slave states and abolitionists, including the Compromise of 1850, the concept of Popular Sovereignty leading to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858, Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech and the run-up to secession, and John Brown’s attack at Harper’s Ferry. In the second hour, we will discuss the novel as contemporary literature. Readers and history buffs welcome! You should read The Good Lord Bird by James McBride before class.

Moderators: Stan and Diane Henderson are avid readers. Stan reads history; Diane fiction. In other lives, they would have been history and English professors. Now, they team up to share their passions with us. Pre-retirement, Stan was Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management and Student Life at the Univ. of Michigan-Dearborn, and Diane was an educational program planner/consultant. Both are failing retirement!