Skip to Content

Cundill Prize Winner Thomas W. Laqueur (Berkeley) is Final Shannon Lectures Speaker

Fresh from winning the world’s largest prize for a work of non-fiction history, celebrated historian Thomas W. Laqueur will be speaking at Carleton University as a guest of the Department of History. The Helen Fawcett Professor of History at the University of California-Berkeley, Laqueur is the final speaker in the 2016 Shannon Lecture Series, taking place on the afternoon of December 2nd.

The Work of the Dead by Thomas W. Laqueur
The Work of the Dead by Thomas W. Laqueur

Last week, in Toronto, Professor Laqueur won the 2016 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature for his new book, The Work of The Dead. The book offers a richly detailed account of how and why the living have cared for the dead, from antiquity to the twentieth century.

The subject of Laqueur’s book is also the theme of his Shannon Lecture. The lecture, A Cultural History of Caring for the Dead Body, will be given in Lecture Room 282 of the University Centre from 2.30 pm to 4.00 pm. Everyone is welcome. Afterwards, there will be a reception in the History Department, located on the 4th floor of Paterson Hall. Everyone is welcome.

About The Shannon Lecture Series

The theme of the History Department’s Shannon Lecture Series for 2016 is Critical Care: Treatment of Body and Mind in Social and Cultural History, and it examines the social, intellectual and cultural history of health, sickness, disease and medicine. The series is organized by medical historian Susanne M. Klausen and doctoral candidate Christine Chisholm of the Department of History. Laqueur’s presentation is the fourth and final lecture in the monthly series which began in September. The public lectures are made possible by the Shannon Fund, an endowment created by an anonymous friend of the Department of History.

About Thomas Laqueur

Professor Thomas Laquer
Professor Thomas W. Laquer

Thomas Laqueur is the Helen Fawcett Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written a number of award winning books, and his most recent, The Work of the Dead, won the $75,000 (U.S.) Cundill Prize (administered by McGill University’s History Department) on November 17. As well, the book won the 2016 PROSE Award in European & World History (Association of American Publishers), as well as the 2016 Gold Medal Winner in World History (Independent Publisher Book Awards).


Thomas W. Laqueur

A Cultural History of Caring for The Dead Body
Friday, December 2, 2016
2.30 pm – 4:00 pm
282 University Centre, Carleton University
Reception 4:00 pm in the Department of History
(4th floor of Paterson Hall)

For Further Information
History@carleton.ca
613-520-2828

Media Contacts

Nick Ward
nick.ward@carleton.ca
The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Communications
Carleton University
613-520-2828 Ext. 8436


Photo Credit: Diogenes by Jules Bastein Lepage (used with permission)