Even as Silent Sam’s Confederate ties spark controversy across campus, Michael Kreyling said he worries U.S. citizens have forgotten the impact of the Civil War at a guest lecture Tuesday.
Kreyling, an English professor from Vanderbilt University, spoke at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center on Tuesday as part of the James A. Hutchins Lecture series. As the nation approaches the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, he said Americans are not appropriately recognizing this milestone.
“The South is sort of disappearing in many ways,” Kreyling said.
He said that his audience and the nation as a whole neither care about nor remember the Civil War, which he called the greatest single event of American history.
Kreyling spoke on his current project, a book that explores literature about what would have happened had the Civil War ended differently.
After the Civil War’s Centennial celebration, authors began to create novels and movies that examined alternative war outcomes.
Kreyling said that what those authors say or write about the Civil War affects the lessons Americans learn from the conflict.
He said by remembering America’s history, audience members can discover how past concerns apply to contemporary Southern issues.
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