Events

About the C. Ruth and Calvin P. Horn Lecture Series

The C. Ruth and Calvin P. Horn Lecture Series makes a singularly invaluable contribution — it enriches students, faculty, and the community. Since its creation in 1985, this distinguished lecture series has brought to our community leading scholars who interpret the West in ways that both enlighten and entertain. 

This endowed lecture series was established as the “Calvin Horn Lecture on Western History and Culture” in the fall of 1985 with the purpose of honoring the memory of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and to support the study of history, a passion of both Mr. and Mrs. Horn. This endowed lecture series — the only endowed lecture series in the Department of History at UNM — was originally organized by the University of New Mexico Press and honors Calvin and Ruth Horn’s passion for American Western history. The Center for the Southwest has now transitioned as the coordinating organization for the event, which offers a generous honorarium of $1,000 to the featured Calvin Horn lecturer. If you would like to contribute to the C. Ruth and Calvin P. Horn Series, please visit our donation page.

Calvin and Ruth’s vision for the series was to provide the campus and the larger community access to inspiring speakers who brought history to life by providing perspective on the West. By understanding the past we gain new insight into the history of such matters as land use, conservation, access to water, our regional identity, the creative arts, and the actions of historical figures.

Past Calvin Horn Lectures

  • 2019 - Annette Gordon-Reed, Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School, and Dr. Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Virginia
  • 2018 - Dr. Megan Kate Nelson, Historian/Author/Cultural Critic, Why the Civil War West Mattered
  • 2017 - Dr. Ari Kelman (UC Davis), For Liberty and Empire: How the Civil War Bled Into the Indian Wars
  • 2016 - Dr. John Mack Faragher (Yale), Violence and Justice in Frontier Los Angeles
  • 2015 - John Gray, Director, National Museum of American History, American History: What Kind of People Do We Want To Be?
  • 2014 - Dr. Brenda Stevenson (UCLA), Rethinking the L.A. Riots of 1992: Contested Images of the 'Female' in the Murder Trial of Soon Ja Du
  • 2013 - Dr. Ned Blackhawk (Yale), The Indigenous West of Mark Twain: Samuel Clemens and the American Empire, 1861-1866
  • 2012 - Dr. Martha Sandweiss (Princeton), Lost Tales, Forgotten Women, and the Violence of Everyday Life in the Nineteenth Century West
  • 2011 - Dr. Andrew Kirk (UNLV), Doomtown: Picturing Home on the Nevada Test Site
  • 2010 - Dr. Stephen Aron (UCLA), Can We All Just Get Along: In Search of an Alternative History of the American West
  • 2009 - Dr. Dan Flores (Univ. of Montana), Art and Regional Identity in the Northern Rocky Mountain West
  • 2008 - Dr. Sherry L. Smith (SMU), Discovering the Nations Within: Indians, the Counterculture, and the New Left in the ‘Sixties’ West
  • 2007 - Dr. Paul Hutton (UNM), Kit Carson's Ride.
  • 2006 - Lucy R. Lippard (Art Critic, Author), Five Acres: Disputed Land and Disappearing Landscapes in the Galisteo Basin
  • 2005 - Dr. Philip Deloria (Univ. of Michigan), Reading Mount Rushmore: A tour of Landscape and Nationalism at Mount Rushmore
  • 2004 - Dr. David Wrobel (Univ. of Oklahoma), Through Traveler’s Eyes: Visions of Western America in the Travel Narrative
  • 2003 - Dr. Marc Simmons (Author), Kit Carson: The Family Man
  • 2002 - Dr. Hal K. Rothman (UNLV), Tourism and the Next Stage of Capitalism: How Experience Became Currency and Entertainment Replaced Culture
  • 2001 - N/A
  • 2000 - Dr James P. Ronda (Univ. of Tulsa), Roads to Santa Fe
  • 1999 - Dr. Richard Etulain (UNM), Telling Western Stories
  • 1998 - Dr. William deBuys (Writer, Conservationist), West as Southwest
  • 1997 - Dr. Vicki Ruiz (UC Irvine), Conquests and Migrations
  • 1996 - Dr. Patricia Limerick (Univ. of Colorado-Boulder), A Just and Honorable West
  • 1995 - Dr. Glenda Riley (Ball State Univ.), Family Life on the Frontier
  • 1994 - Dr. Elliott West (Univ. of Arkansas), Going West
  • 1993 - Dr. Donald Worster (Univ. of Kansas), Environmental Change in the American West
  • 1992 - Dr. Joan M. Jensen (NMSU), Creativity and Western Women
  • 1991 - Dr. Gerald D. Nash (UNM), Western Historians
  • 1990 - Dr. William H. Goetzmann (Univ. of Texas-Austin), Did Modern Art Kill the Myth of the West?
  • 1989 - Dr. Rennard Strickland (Univ. of Oregon), Indian Images" (1988-1989)
  • 1988 - Dr. David J. Weber (SMU), The Hispanic Southwest
  • 1987 - Dr. Juan Gómez-Quiñones (UCLA), Contemporary Chicano Political History
  • 1986 - Dr. Robert M. Utley (Fmr. Chief Historian, NPS), The Lincoln County Wars