Contact: Meg Henderson

STARKVILLE, Miss.—A former U.S. Foreign Service officer who worked on several presidential visits and summit meetings during her years with the Department of State will speak during Mississippi State's 14th annual John F. and Jeanne A. Marszalek Library Fund and Lecture Series.

To be held Wednesday [March 23] at 2:30 p.m. in Mitchell Memorial Library’s John Grisham Room, Edwina S. Campbell’s lecture is free and open to the public.

After leaving the diplomatic service, the author and historian taught American foreign policy at the University of Virginia, was a professor of grand strategy at National Defense University, and retired in 2014 as a professor of national security studies at Air University.

Since 1985, she has been a frequent practitioner of public diplomacy for the U.S. Information Agency and the Department of State. Campbell’s numerous publications include “Germany’s Past and Europe’s Future: The Challenges of West German Foreign Policy” and “The Relevance of American Power: The Anglo-American Past and the Euro-Atlantic Future.” Campbell will be speaking on her forthcoming book “Citizen of a Wider Commonwealth: Ulysses S. Grant's Postpresidential Diplomacy,” (Southern Illinois University Press) which will be available for purchase April 21 in hardback. The book is currently available for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Ryan W. Lawrence, a senior history major from Starkville, will present his paper titled “Mutual Misunderstandings: A Study on Ida Honoré Grant’s Austrian Experience.” The 2016 Marszalek Lecture Series student essay winner’s work centers on the transnational interactions and cultural interpretations between Ida Grant and the Austrian aristocracy during Fred Grant’s (son of Ulysses S. Grant) appointment as minister to Austria from 1889 until 1893. The collection of Ida Honoré Grant’s letters, donated to the Grant Library by Ulysses Dietz, were invaluable to the completion of this paper.

The John F. and Jeanne A. Marszalek Library Fund and Lecture Series was established in 2002 by the Marszaleks and by MSU Libraries to encourage use of primary source materials related to American history, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Jacksonian America and race relations. The series includes papers presented by university students and a lecture by an established historian of national reputation. The Marszalek Library Fund is a special fund used annually to purchase primary source materials to be added to the holdings of Mitchell Memorial Library.

For more information on MSU Libraries, the Marszalek Lecture Series, and the upcoming lecture, visit http://library.msstate.edu/Marszalek.

Mississippi State University Libraries is a premier research library providing its communities of users an ongoing, creative, technologically advanced library program that provides new and emerging technologies; and enhances and inspires teaching, research, and service of the highest caliber in an environment of free and open inquiry and with a commitment to excellence. For more information about MSU Libraries, visit http://library.msstate.edu/

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.