Topic and speaker for Joel M. Jones lecture announced
March 9, 2024
UNM’s American Studies Department announces an exciting lecture featuring Professor Phil Deloria titled “The Year the Stars Fell: Toward a Continental History of a Very Few Hours” on Thursday, March 21, 2024, from 6-7:30 p.m. as this year’s Joel M. Jones lecture. The lecture will take place in the Bobo Room located in Hodgin Hall. A reception will immediately follow the lecture. The lecture is open to the public. 
Almost two centuries ago, meteors from the annual Leonid showers fell in such abundance, frequency, and size that people ran from their homes to contemplate the celestial light show.
The lecture focuses on the annual Leonid meteor shower, which first appeared in the late night/early morning hours between Nov. 12 and 13, 1833. Deloria draws upon the “Year the Stars Fell” to link disparate local histories among American Indian peoples.
His research traces references to the meteor shower in the memory and writing from across the continent, from enslaved African Americans in the South to Latter-Day Saints and Second Great Awakening revivalists in small towns to the scientists of Philadelphia, Cambridge, and New Haven, among others.
Full story at UNM Newsroom
