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Jewell lecture examines American values Contact: Rob Eisele, 816-415-7574 February 26, 2007 Dr. Garry Wills, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and cultural historian, will offer a public lecture on “Values Americans Live By” at 7:30 p.m. March 28 in John Gano Memorial Chapel on the William Jewell College campus in Liberty, Mo. The public is invited to attend, and no reservations are required. In addition to the lecture, Dr. Wills will participate in a roundtable discussion on the topic “What Jesus Meant,” scheduled at 4 p.m. March 28 in Peters Theater on the William Jewell campus. The public is also invited to attend the discussion at no charge. Dr. Wills, who is serving as the Hall Distinguished Visiting Professor at William Jewell, began writing professionally at the age of twenty-two, when a story he had written parodying Time magazine was accepted by William F. Buckley, Jr. at the National Review. Over the course of his career, he has penned thirty-three books, including Nixon Agonistes (1970), Reagan’s America (1987), Saint Augustine (1999), Why I Am a Catholic (2002) and What Jesus Meant (2006). In 1993, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for Lincoln at Gettsyburg: The Words that Remade America (1992), an examination of the 272-word Gettysburg Address. Former New York governor Mario Cuomo wrote of the book, “Seldom have so few words excited such scholarship, penetrating analysis, and brilliant explication.” Wills was born in Georgia and grew up in Wisconsin. Raised in a family of devout Catholics and educated in Catholic schools, Wills briefly planned to join the priesthood, but instead turned to classics, earning his Ph.D. from Yale in 1961. Wills is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and a recipient of many awards, including two National Book Critics Circle Awards and the 1998 National Medal for the Humanities. He is an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University.

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