Distinguished Faculty Lecture
The Distinguished Faculty Lecture Committee is a standing committee of the Faculty Council. Its chair is the chair-elect of the Council. Its members include past distinguished faculty lecturers.
The charge of the committee is to administer the Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series initiated and supported by the Office of the President. Its responsibilities include:
- Seeking nominations for the lecturer from among the faculty of the university
- Evaluating nominations and making a recommendation to the Faculty Council
- In cooperation with the Office of the President, inviting the elected lecturer and arranging for the time and place of the lecture. The chair of the committee introduces the lecturer
The John F. Morgan Sr. Distinguished Faculty Lecture
2025 Honoree
The 2025 Distinguished Faculty Lecturer is Ruby Lal, D.Phil. Professor of South Asian History at Emory College of Arts and Sciences.
She will be presenting a lecture entitled: Who Decides What History Is?
Here's a summary:
A new and widening threat to history has emerged in India where the Hindu right-wing state is undertaking the widespread erasure of India's deeply held syncretic history. The Mughals, who represent nearly 400 prosperous years of India's history and are responsible for so many cultural touchstones in the nation, have been systematically removed from textbooks. In this lecture, Lal will reflect on how her work as a public historian of the Mughals provide a bulwark against the erasure of the sprawling and storied Mughal empire, and its daring and dynamic female figures and non-power people. For a long time, male scholarship had enacted this erasure. Lal will discuss forms of narration, what is "fact" and who gets to decide what counts as evidence, and therefore as history?
Ruby Lal is an acclaimed historian of India and professor of South Asian history at Emory University. Her work centers on restoring erased female figures and their histories, particularly from the Mughal Empire. She is the author of four critically acclaimed books and numerous essays. Her most recent book, Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan, has been lauded by the BBC, The Hindu, Vogue India, The Wall Street Journal, and was longlisted for the Cundill History Prize. Her previous biography Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2018 and won the Georgia Author of the year Award. Visit Ruby Lal's Website
Please mark your calendars and register here by January 24. We look forward to seeing you there!
The John F. Morgan Sr. Distinguished Faculty Lecture
2023-24 Honoree
Richard D. Freer, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, presented this year’s John F. Morgan Sr. Distinguished Faculty Lecture.
