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For Immediate Release: December 23, 2010
Contact: Gina Hebert, 508-289-7725; ghebert@mbl.edu


Noted Historian Roger Louis to Speak About European Colonial Empires at MBL Falmouth Forum, Tuesday January 11

Roger Louis

WOODS HOLE, MA—Distinguished historian Roger Louis will speak about the dissolution of Europe’s colonial empires at the next MBL Falmouth Forum on TUESDAY, January 11, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. in the MBL’s (Marine Biological Laboratory’s) Lillie Auditorium, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole. The lecture, titled "The European Colonial Empires in Historical Perspective," is sponsored by the MBL Associates and is free and open to the public.

A buffet dinner is available before the lecture at 6:00 p.m. in the Swope Center located near the auditorium. Dinner tickets are $30 and must be purchased in advance at either Eight Cousins Children’s Books, 189 Main Street, Falmouth, or at the MBL’s Communications Office House, 127 Water Street, Woods Hole. Dinner seats are limited and tickets are available until they sell out or until 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 6. All tickets are nonrefundable. For more information contact the MBL’s Communications Office at 508-289-7423.

Louis, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, is best known for his work on the British Empire, which focuses mostly on official British policy and decolonization in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East in the period after the Second World War. Ronald Robinson, one of the most influential of all imperial historians, wrote "Louis takes his place among a handful of writers… who have given us an original view of a major movement in British imperial history."

Professor Louis received a B.A. from the University of Oklahoma, an M.A. at Harvard University, and D.Phil at Oxford University. He joined the history faculty at the University of Texas in 1970 after teaching at Yale University for eight years. He has directed British Studies at the University since 1975, has held the Kerr Chair in English History and Culture since 1985, and has served as chairman of the British Scholar Editorial Advisory Board since 2006. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1993. In 1999 Professor Louis was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by the Queen for professional achievement. He is the editor-in-chief of The Oxford History of the British Empire, and former President of the American Historical Association.

In 2009, Professor Louis was appointed to the Kluge Chair at the Library of Congress for the 2010 spring semester. The Kluge Chair represents the apex of scholarly distinction. The position was originally set up to be the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for scholars in fields of study not represented by that award. Simultaneously, he received the University of Texas Professor of the Year, "in recognition of unwavering dedication and service" to the students of UT. The award, presented by the Senate of College Councils, represents the choice of the 50,000 students at UT—a university-wide honor.

All MBL Falmouth Forum lectures, performances and presentations are sponsored by the MBL Associates for the Cape Cod community and feature topics in the arts, humanities and health. They are always free and open to the public.

The series will continue throughout the winter. The remaining lectures in the series are:

January 28: “Intimacy in the Piano Music of Schumann and Chopin”
Robert Wyatt, Steinway Artist and Director of Music, Highfield Hall, Falmouth

February 25: “Genocide and Problems of Identity”
Frances Deng, Special Advisor to the Secretary General for Prevention of Genocide, United Nations

March 11: “Pictures of the Brain Reveal the Structure of the Mind”
Nancy Kanwisher, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

**JUST ADDED**
April 14: NOTE: THURSDAY LECTURE
“An Evening with Marge Piercy”
Marge Piercy, bestselling poet and author

For more information and for full lecture descriptions, visit mbl.edu/falmouthforum

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The MBL is a leading international, independent, nonprofit institution dedicated to discovery and to improving the human condition through creative research and education in the biological, biomedical and environmental sciences. Founded in 1888 as the Marine Biological Laboratory, the MBL is the oldest private marine laboratory in the Americas. For more information, visit www.mbl.edu.

The MBL Associates are a group of individuals and businesses that support the scientific mission of the MBL through their gifts to the Annual Fund. The Associates sponsor educational and research programs for the MBL and raise funds for special projects. In addition, they operate the MBL Associates Gift Shop, located on Water Street in Woods Hole, the profits from which support scientific fellowships.