Sunday Scholar Series: The Civil War and the American Spirit

Music, the Civil War, and American Memory

Dr. Lawrence Kramer focuses on music from the Civil War through the Vietnam War as well as Walt Whitman’s collection of Civil War poems, Drum-Taps, which is steeped in musical language.  It is a clear departure from the heroic war narratives that defined epic poetry passed down to us from ancient Greece.

Composer and musicologist Lawrence Kramer, Distinguished Professor English and Music at Fordham University, discusses the stirring music we associate with America’s Wars on November 20.  Author of numerous books and articles about music, he edits the journal Nineteenth-Century Music, and the new edition of Walt Whitman’s Drum-Taps.