James Michelin Distinguished Visitors Program
Abstract: During the Gilded Age, the United States began to flex its muscles on the world stage and undertake increasingly ambitious explorations into the unknown—and no place on earth held a greater purchase on the public imagination than the North Pole. Hampton Sides discusses the voyage of the USS Jeannette (1879-81), one of the great early American-led attempts to reach the apex of the planet. In this wide-ranging public lecture and slideshow, Sides focuses on the cartography, the science, and the pseudo-science behind this grand and terrible voyage, the subject of his acclaimed history, In the Kingdom of Ice.
Speaker Bio: Hampton Sides is best-known for his gripping non-fiction adventure stories set in war or depicting epic expeditions of discovery and exploration. He is the author of the bestselling histories Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, Hellhound On His Trail, and, most recently, In the Kingdom of Ice. Hampton is editor-at-large for Outside and a frequent contributor to National Geographic and other magazines. His journalistic work, collected in numerous published anthologies, has been twice nominated for National Magazine Awards for feature writing. A native of Memphis and a Yale graduate, Hampton is the 2015 Miller Distinguished Scholar at the Santa Fe Institute and an advisory board member of the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference and the Author's Guild. He is also a partner of Atalaya Productions, an independent film company that develops non-fiction and historical stories for the screen. A frequent lecturer, Hampton divides his time between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Colorado College, where he teaches narrative non-fiction and serves as Journalist in Residence. For more information on this speaker, please click here.
Sides will be available to sign books after the lecture, and his books will be available for purchase in the lecture hall.
Note: This talk was originally scheduled for Wednesday, April 11, 2018, and is now scheduled for April 10.