WILLIAMSBURG, Va., May 20, 2009 – University of Tennessee Professor of History Lorri Glover, co-author of “The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America,” will speak at 7 p.m., Saturday, June 13, at Jamestown Settlement’s Robins Foundation Theater. The presentation is the second in a series of four public lectures related to the museum’s current “Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies” special exhibition.
Dr. Glover will provide an overview of the 2008 book she co-wrote with Daniel Blake Smith about the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture in Bermuda and ensuing events, in which the survivors – inspiration for Shakespeare’s last play “The Tempest” – built two small vessels and sailed on to Jamestown in 1610. The Sea Venture episode evolved into “one of the greatest rescue stories in American history” and “ensured England’s continued commitment to colonization in the West.”
Author of three other books and numerous articles on early American Southern history, Dr. Glover is on the board of editors of the Journal of Southern History. She has taught at the University of Tennessee since 1997 and received a Ph.D. in 1996 from the University of Kentucky.
“Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies” will be open to lecture attendees from 6 to 6:45 p.m. on June 13 and, following the presentation, until 8:30 p.m. Dr. Glover also will be available to sign copies of “The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown.” The exhibition, which continues through October 15, examines the shared history and links between England’s first two permanent colonies in the New World.
Future lectures are scheduled at 7 p.m. on July 11 with University of Rochester Associate Professor of History Michael Jarvis, speaking on “Sister Colonies: Virginia, Bermuda, and the Beginnings of English America,” and August 8 with Masterworks Foundation and Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art Founder and Creative Director Tom Butterfield, presenting “Somewhere Beyond the Sea: Art, Artists, and Bermuda.” Lucinda Spurling spoke on April 25 about her new documentary film, “The Lion and the Mouse … the Story of America and Bermuda.”
Advance reservations are required for the free evening lectures and can be made at (757) 253-4415 or rsvp.lecture@jyf.virginia.gov.
