Louise W. Knight often gives booktalks and lectures, and appears at bookfairs and bookstores, universities, clubs and on television and radio stations.
Upcoming Events
Busy writing a biography of the Grimke sisters, for publication in a few years...!!!
Past Events (Including Links to Past Events Available on the Internet)
November 25, 2019. Fourth Institute Lecture, "Jane Addams and John Dewey Debate War." American Institute for Philosophical and Cultural Thought, Murphysboro, Illinois. On Youtube.
November 15, 2019. Keynote, "Before Seneca Falls: Women's Equality in the Thought of Sarah and Angelina Grimke," Feminist-Pragmatist Colloquium, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY.
February 28, 2019. Talk, "Jane Addams: Spirit in Action," at the Flagler Museum, in Palm Beach, FL. The talk can be viewed here.
March 3, 2018. 2 p.m. Talk. "The Grimke Sisters in Their Hyde Park Years: Educators, Aunts, and Voters." Part of the 150th anniversary celebration of the founding of Hyde Park, Massachusetts (now a Boston suburb). Location: The Menino Arts Center, 26 Central Ave., Hyde Park, Mass. February 2018 - Lapham's posted a letter by Angelina Grimke, with an introduction I wrote.
November 11, 2017. Keynote speech, Jane Addams Forum, Northampton, Mass. On this video, Knight's talk begins at 9:00.
October 22, 2017. 2 p.m., "The Story of Sarah and Angelina Grimke and Human Rights," National Abolition Hall of Fame (see event above). This event builds on the popular novel, Invention of Wings, about Sarah Grimke and her slave Hetty. Knight will talk about the history Sue Monk Kidd used as a partial inspiration for the novel. e. October 21, 2017. 2 p.m. talk, "The Remarkable Transformation: Angelina Grimke's Journey." One of an afternoon of talks about five abolitionists at the National Abolition Hall of Fame, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro, NY. Admission to a single talk is $5. Call 315-280-8828 for more information.
March 2, 2017. Evening lecture. "Untold Stories: Enslaved People in the Home of the Grimke Family." Evanston History Center, 225 Greenwood Street, Evanston, Illinois.
January 15, 2017. Brown Bag Lunch talk. "The Fight for Women's Equality in the Anti-Slavery Movement, 1833-1840." Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts.
2016
December 10, 2016. Talk on Jane Addams and the Presidential Election of 1912. Part of a 10th anniversary celebration of the State of Illinois's Jane Addams Day, "Women, Leadership, and Election Politics: Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr." The event takes place at the University of Illinois-Chicago Student Center at 1 p.m. , East Room 603, 750 S. Halsted Street, Chicago. Hosted by the American Association of University Women-Illinois and the Illinois Woman's Press Association. Tickets can be purchased for $10 via eventbrite.
October 26, 2016. 12:15 pm. Brown Bag talk. "Untold Stories: Enslaved People in the Home of the Grimke Family." Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina. The Avery Center website has details (scroll down to the October events). October 22, 2016. Afternoon lecture on Angelina Grimke. Part of an afternoon of lectures on five different abolitionists being inducted into the National Abolition Hall of Fame, Peterboro, NY. Free event. This story in the local paper gives more details. 2016 September 30, 2016. Speaker. Theodore Roosevelt Symposium. Dickinson State University, Dickinson, North Dakota. May 26-29, 2016 -- Atlanta. "Looking in from the Outside, or A Few Angles on Rhetoric and Change." Keynote speaker, Rhetorical Society of America biennial conference, Atlanta, GA. March 19, 2016-- Nantucket Island. Lecture on the true history of the Grimke sisters. 4 p.m., Atheneum Building.
2015
April 20, 2015. Chicago, IL. Lecture, "Sarah Grimke and the Feminist Tradition." Shimer College. Now available on YouTube.
March 30, 2015. Geneva, NY. Lecture on the Grimke Sisters. Hosted by Geneva Reads.
February 24, 2015. Cambridge, MA. Lecture on the Grimke sisters. "How Massachusetts Women Became Political: The Grimke Sisters' 1837 Anti-Slavery Petition Campaign." Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. 4:15 p.m. . Sheerr Room, Fay House, 10 Garden Street. An article in the Harvard Gazette captures the highlights of the talk.
2014
October 20, 2014. Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C. "What to do about Slavery?: The Grimke Sisters Great Dilemma." 4:30 p.m., ZSR Auditorium. Open to the public.
June 7, 2014. Chicago. Talk at Benton House, comparing Jane Addams and the Grimké sisters.
December 7th, 2013. Talk at the Minnesota Historical Society.
September 6, 2013. In honor of Jane Addams's birthday, WBEZ (Chicago Public Radio) did a radio show on Addams, in which Knight was the main interviewee.
July 9, 2013. Rochester, NY. Talk, "The Passing of the Torch: Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony and the Woman Suffrage Movement," Susan B. Anthony House.
June 12, 2013. Book proposal writing workshop. Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University.
April 10, 2013. Elmhurst, IL. "Jane Addams and the NAACP," Elmhurst College.
March 28, 2013. Ogden, Utah. "Jane Addams: Social Activist and Progressive Trailblazer," at Stewart Library, Weber State University.
March 9, 2013. Boston, MA. Remarks at a celebration of Angelina Grimke in the Hyde Park Neighborhood where she lived her last years.
March 6, 2013. Evanston, IL. Speaker at the Women's History/One Book, One Northwestern event, Women's Center, Northwestern University.
January 17, 2013. Chicago. Interviewed on the question, Was Jane Addams a socialist? The Chicago Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America talk show.
January 4, 2013. New Orleans, LA. Chair and commentator, panel, "Disaster Progressivism: Urban Crisis, Power, and Reform." American Historical Association annual meeting.
October 19-20, 2012. Dayton, OH. Plenary speaker at the Feminist Pragmatist Conference, University of Dayton.
May 26, 2012. Philadelphia. Participant in a panel on women and rhetorical agency at the Rhetoric Society of America conference.
May 21, 2012. Princeton University. Participant in a panel on the Progressive Party Campaign of 1912. The event was part of a conference, "American Constitutionalism and the Legacy of Progressivism," organized by the James Madison Program.
May 19, 2012. Moderator at a panel at the Biographers InternationalOrganization annual conference on the University of Southern California campus in Los Angeles. The panel was on the uses and dangers of chronology for biographers.
April 21, 2012. Participant on a panel at the Organization of American Historians meeting in Milwaukee, WI. The biographer of Jane Addams (Knight) and the biographer of Emma Goldman, Vivian Gornick, will explore their subjects' views on issues ranging from women voting, to world war, to free speech. Chair of the panel and moderator for the discussion: Prof. David Levering Lewis, biographer of W. E. B. Du Bois.
March 22, 2012. Panelist at the New Biography Seminar, "Writing Biographies of Siblings," held at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. This was a talk about my new project, a book about of the abolitionist-feminist sisters, Angelina and Sarah Grimké.
January 11, 2012. Lecture, "Jane Addams: Social Activist and Progressive Trailblazer." Baker Demonstration School, Wilmette, Illinois.
2011
November 14, 2011. Hull, England. Lecture on Jane Addams as an idealist, co-hosted by the Center for Idealism and the New Liberalism, University of Hull.
November 9, 2011. Wales. Presentation, University of Aberystwyth, Wales.
November 7, 2011. Portsmouth, England. Presentation to a noontime women's history seminar, University of Portsmouth.
October 20, 2011. Radio interview on Talk Radio Europe,
June 14, 2011. Madison, WI. Booktalk hosted by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom-Madison chapter.
June 4, 2011. Chicago: Printers Row Lit Fest. One of four panelists on the "art of biography." Will be signing books. Free but best to get(free) ticket at the printers row lit fest website.
April 15, 2011. New York City. Lecture. To settlement staff. Goddard-Riverside Community Center.
April 14, 2011. New York City. Booktalk. Cosmopolitan Club.
April 13, 2011. Waltham, MA. Lecture. "Politics and Peace: Jane Addams's Journey to the Nobel Peace Prize." Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis College.
April 12, 2011. Wellesley, MA. Lecture, "Jane Addams, Gender and the Barriers to Peace," Wellesley College
March 27, 2011. Chicago, IL. Booktalk. Women and Children First Bookstore.
March 24, 2011. Evanston, IL. Talk hosted by Literature for All of Us and the YWCA of the North Shore. Location: Northwestern University,
March 16, 2011. Chicago, IL. Remarks on "Jane Addams's Struggles for Personal and Social Peace,"in conversation with Mary Schmid, Chicago Tribune. At St. James Cathedral.
March 15, 2011. Milwaukee, IL. Talk at Alverno College. "How Peace Brings Women's Rights and Women's Rights Brings Peace: The Life Lessons of Nobel Prize Winner Jane Addams."
March 1, 2011. Ottawa, IL. Booktalk. IVCC Ottawa Center. Co-sponsored by AAUW chapter, the IVCC Diversity Committee, and Book Mouse.
March 2, 2011. Chicago. Talk, to the Social Work group, Children's Hospital.
February 3, 2011. New York City, NY. In conversation with Ira Harkavy on "Connecting Education, Values, and Action: Jane Addams and John Dewey, Then and Now," Horace Mann School.
January 9, 2011. Chicago, IL. Talk on Jane Addams and the Pullman Strike. Pullman State Historic Site, Pullman.