Harvard's Robert Darnton to Speak at USU Event Honoring Len Rosenband
Dr. Robert Darnton offers a lecture March 18 at the Haight Alumni Center at 7 p.m. in honor of USU professor Leonard Rosenband's approaching retirement. The talk is offered in conjunction with a day-long conference.
In celebration of retiring Utah State University College of Humanities and Social Sciences professor of history Leonard Rosenband, a special lecture is offered March 18 at the Haight Alumni Center on USU’s Logan campus.
The lecture, featuring Robert Darnton, begins at 7 p.m. and is free and open to all.
Darnton, visiting from Harvard University, will speak on the topic “Blogging, Now and Then (250 Years Ago).” A reception follows the lecture.
Darnton served as Rosenband’s mentor at Princeton University where Darnton taught until 2007 and where Rosenband received his doctorate.
Darnton was educated at Harvard University and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. After a brief stint as a reporter for The New York Times, he became a junior fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard. He taught at Princeton from 1968 until 2007, when he became the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library at Harvard.
Among Darnton’s many honors are a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, National Book Critics Circle Award, election to the French Legion of Honor, the National Humanities Medal conferred by President Obama in February 2012 and the Del Duca World Prize in the Humanities awarded by the Institut de France in 2013.
He has written and edited many books, including The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, which has been translated into 18 languages and The Case for Books and Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris.
Rosenband, who will retire at the end of the current school year, began his career at USU in 1983.
A world-renowned French Revolution scholar, Rosenband has written and co-written several books and papers. Both critics and academics have lauded his written efforts. His book, Papermaking in Eighteenth-Century France: Management, Labor, and Revolution at the Montgolfier Mill, 1761-1805, published in 2000, looks at workers, employers, innovation and competition in pre-revolution France.
The book was acclaimed not only for “fundamental challenge to many orthodox methods and conventional approaches in economic history and the history of technology,” but also for its “evocative imagery and lively narrative,” according to Andre Wakefield of Pitzer College who reviewed the book.
Rosenband said his retirement will allow time to write a companion book to his Montgolfier Mill volume among many other projects he has in mind.
The Darnton lecture and reception will culminate an all-day conference unofficially dubbed “Len-Fest.” Along with breakfast and lunch, the conference will include two round-table discussions, a tribute to Dr. Rosenband and lecture by the retiree.
A Phi Alpha Theta induction ceremony along with a special collections exhibit also will take place as part of the conference.
The Darnton lecture and reception are free and open to the public. There is no cost to attend the conference, but registration is required. To learn more about Wednesday’s lecture and reception, or to register for the conference, see the USU History Department website.
Related links:
USU College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Writer and contact: Kristin Middaugh, CHaSS communications director, (435) 797-0267, kristin.middaugh@usu.edu
USU professor Leonard Rosenband.
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