SLU history professor to present Crader Lecture on Crusades

"Crusaders on High Horses" will be the topic at the annual Crader Lecture to be presented Tuesday at Southeast Missouri State University by Saint Louis University professor of history Thomas Madden.

Madden, an author and historical consultant whose perspectives and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and The History Channel, will explore modern appropriations of Medieval crusading in the Middle East and beyond, according to a news release from Southeast. Madden also is director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at SLU.

"We are especially proud to be bringing Dr. Madden back to campus. As the inaugural lecturer in 2009, he began this series with a standing-room-only crowd," Wayne Bowen, chairman of Southeast's Department of History, said in the release. "As a best-selling author, internationally known expert on the Crusades and commentator on events in the Middle East, Professor Madden is an ideal representative of the values and credibility represented by all of the Crader Humanities speakers."

Madden recently has authored "Venice: A New History," "The Concise History of the Crusades," "Empires of Trust" and "Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice," the release stated. He also has written and lectured on the ancient and medieval Mediterranean, as well as the history of Christianity and Islam.

Awards for his scholarship include the Medieval Academy of America's Haskins Medal and the Medieval Institute's Otto Grundler Prize. He is a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Medieval Academy of America. He is writing a new history of Istanbul, according to the release.

The lecture will be at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in Rose Theatre in the Grauel Building, 408 N. Pacific St. The event is free and open to the public.

For more information on the lecture, call (573) 651-2180.

The Crader Family Endowment for American Values, within the Southeast Missouri University Foundation, is dedicated to education, research and public engagement in the historical traditions of the United States of America and Western civilization, the release stated.

The endowment's objectives are to increase knowledge and appreciation of the political, religious and economic heritage of the United States and the West, and the values of individual liberty, constitutional principles and civic virtue that are at the foundation of this society. The endowment is named in honor of the Crader family: Saundra and the late Don Crader of Marble Hill, Missouri, and Stan and Debbie Crader of Jackson, according to the release.

Pertinent address:

408 N. Pacific St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.