Focus of Skeptics: “Why Study History?”

Dr. Peter Gibbon returned as a Society of Skeptics speaker on Tuesday, November 27 in Armstrong-Hipkins Center for the Arts. He featured a PowerPoint presentation on the topic, “Why Study History?” Prior to this, he spoke on “A Call to Heroism.”

Gibbon’s program examined the role of chance and the influence of the individual in shaping events, speculates on the connection between private and public life, and contrasts the nineteenth century exemplary lives approach to history with the contemporary emphasis on ordinary lives and complex causation.

The presentation offered familiar names and events in American history interspersed with provocative quotations about the study of history and was designed to promote comments and questions. The PowerPoint included paintings, such as Winslow Homer’s “Sharpshooter,” engravings; statues such as Houdon’s bust of Ben Franklin and that of Andrew Jackson on horseback in New Orleans; photographs; and a variety of primary sources, ranging from Martha Ballard’s Diary to Thomas Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence – all narrated to enhance knowledge of American history and to analyze the discipline of history.

Gibbon is currently a senior research fellow at Boston University’s School of Education. He was a research associate for eight years at Harvard University’s School of Education and a teacher and administrator for 30 years. He has taught ancient and medieval history, European history, anthropology, American history and a variety of electives in American, English and European literature. He is the former headmaster of Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York. Gibbon is a graduate of Harvard College and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University Teachers College. He is the author of A Call to Heroism: Renewing America’s Vision of Greatness published by Atlantic Monthly Press in 2002 and in paperback in 2003. In May 2003 he was a speaker at the White House Forum on History, Civics and Service Education.

A full listing of the fall term Skeptics programs is available here.

Updated 11/28/07

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