Roosevelt Montas, director of the Center for the Core Curriculum and associate dean at Columbia University, will present “Education for Freedom: Access and the Promise of Democratic Citizenship” at 11:45 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 21, in 201 Riley Hall at Linfield College.

Lunch, available on a first-come first-served basis, will be served at 11:45 a.m., and the lecture will begin at noon.

Montas will discuss the relationship between liberal education and good citizenship. His research is focused on Antebellum American literature and culture, with a specific interest in citizenship and American national identity. His dissertation, “Rethinking America: Abolitionism and the Antebellum Transformation of the Discourse of National Identity,” won the 2004 Bancroft Award. Montás is currently writing on the interrelated biographies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass and Charles Sumner. He also lectures and writes on the history and future of liberal arts education.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Nick Buccola, assistant professor of political science, 503-883-2246, nbuccol@linfield.edu.