Most university press releases are available on-line at: https://www.fresnostatenews.com/

Dr. Donald Kagan, chair of the Yale University Classics Department, will deliver the first

“McClatchy Lectures in Classics” at California State University, Fresno on Wednesday, Sept. 30.

Kagan’s lecture, “Thucydides: The Revisionist Historian,” will be in the Satellite Student Union from 7 to 9 p.m.

The “McClatchy Lectures in Classics” is supported by the school’s Phebe Conley Endowment Fund which was bequeathed to the university from the estate of Mrs. Conley, a long-time university supporter and former chair of the CSU Board of Trustees.

She was the widow of the late Carlos K. McClatchy, founder and first editor of The Fresno Bee, and the late Judge Philip Conley. Mrs. Conley died in 1992.

Dr. Luis Costa, Arts and Humanities dean, said the McClatchy family earmarked part of the $300,000 endowment to sustain annual lectures for the Classical Studies Program, featuring nationally recognized scholars in the field.

The endowment also funds scholarships for students studying Greek and Latin language,

literature and history in the Classical Studies Program, and for students in the bilingual program.

Costa said the university is honored to bring Kagan, a professor of history, classics, and western civilization at Yale and former dean of Yale College, to Fresno.

“He is one of the foremost authorities on classics in the country,” Costa said. “I am absolutely delighted to have someone of his stature inaugurate the McClatchy lectures.”

Kagan has authored numerous articles and twelve books on topics as diverse as “Western

Heritage,” the most widely used text in Western civilization courses on university campuses today.

He is perhaps best known for his four-volume monumental work, “A New History of the Peloponnesian War,” and his most recent book, “On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace.”

Kagan’s talk is also the second lecture in the “Humanities Matters Lecture Series,” which debuts on campus Sept. 29 and runs through the fall semester.

The “Humanities Matters” series features eight other speakers and is funded primarily through the Office of the Provost and a national humanities grant awarded in August to the School of Arts and Humanities in partnership with Bullard High School.

Costa said the partnership will develop a Humanities-based curriculum at Bullard and bring high school students to the lectures as well as to special discussion sessions at the university. They will receive college credit for participating.

The lectures will be free to the public. Most of the following lectures will be held in the Satellite Student Union from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

•Sept. 29, “What is the West?” by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, coordinator of Fresno State’s Classics Program.

•After Kagan, the third lecture on Oct. 6 features Dr. Pedro Amaral, professor in the Fresno State Philosophy Department, whose topic is “Why Good People Don’t Succeed According to Plato and Aristotle.”

•On Oct. 20, history professor Dr. Malik Simba will speak on “Issues of Law and Equality in the Humanities.”

Dr. Robert Levine, professor and former chair of the Psychology Department, will speak Nov. 3 on “The Arbitrariness of Culture: A Geography of Time.”

•On Nov. 17, Dr. Lillian Faderman, English professor, will speak on “Immigrant Experience: Oral History, the Humanities and the Hmong Community.”

•Dr. Gina Strumwasser, professor of art history, and Dr. Lisa Weston, English professor, will speak Nov. 24 on “Issues of Gender in the Humanities” in the Walhberg Recital Hall.

•On Dec. 8, the series closes when Jim Tucker, Mass Communications and Journalism professor, speaks on “The Power and Responsibilities of a Free Press in a Democracy.”

For more information, call (209) 278-3056.