February 16, 2003 Historian Paul Boyer Speaks at the Library of Congress March 6

Noted American historian Paul S. Boyer, Merle Curti Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be the featured speaker at a program at the Library of Congress at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 6 in Room 119 on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First Street, S.E., in Washington, D.C.

Boyer's presentation, "Moral Guardianship and First-Amendment Rights: Reflections on Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age," is co-sponsored by the Washington Area Group for Print Culture Studies, the Library's Office of Scholarly Programs, and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. It is open to the public and no reservations are needed.

After his speech, Boyer will sign copies of his book "Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age" (Second Edition, University of Wisconsin Press, 2002) which recently has been issued in paperback. The first edition of "Purity in Print," which was subtitled "The Vice Society and Book Censorship in America," was published in 1968.

Currently a James Pinckney Harrison Visiting Professor at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., Boyer is also the editor-in-chief of "The Oxford Companion to American History" (Oxford University Press, 2001) and the author/editor of several other notable books about American cultural and intellectual history. He is the assistant editor of "Notable American Women, 1600-1950" (3 vols., 1971); the co-author, with Stephen Nissenbaum, of "Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft" (1974); and the author of "Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1920" (1978); "By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age" (1985); "When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in American Culture" (1992); and "Fallout: A Historian Reflects on America's Half Century Encounter with Nuclear Weapons" (1998).

Boyer directed the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin and served on the advisory board of the Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America, a joint project of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. The center was founded with support from the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

The Washington Area Group for Print Culture Studies provides a regular, monthly forum for those interested in book history and print culture studies. It usually meets at the Library of Congress on the first Thursday of each month. For further information, consult its Web site at http://www.wcupa.edu/_academics/sch_cas.eng/wagpcs.htm.

The Library's Office of Scholarly Programs administers the John W. Kluge Center, which seeks to stimulate scholarly exchange among researchers and staff and to facilitate communication about research across national and disciplinary boundaries. For further information, see the Kluge Center's Web site at www.loc.gov/loc/kluge.

The Center for the Book was established in 1977 to use the resources and prestige of the Library of Congress to stimulate public interest in books and reading. For information about its program, publications, and forthcoming events and the activities of its affiliates in 50 states and the District of Columbia, visit its Web site at www.loc.gov/loc/cfbook.