What can we really know about the extraordinary peasant girl, Joan of Arc (ca. 1412–30 May 1431)? How did a female peasant from the fringes of France become, as Mark Twain tells us, the “youngest person of either sex to lead her nation’s army before the age of nineteen”? How do we explain her prominent role first in the military victory in Orléans and then in the coronation of King Charles VII at Reims? Some claim that Joan changed the course of European history in her two public years before (still a teenager) she was burned at the stake as a heretic. Joan of Arc is one of history’s most famous and best documented persons, and these lectures consider not only her life as recorded in extensive trial records and contemporary reports, but also her later reputation in literature, film, and propaganda.

5:15 PM Reception/ 6:00 PM Lecture

About Professor Wheeler:

https://www.smu.edu/Dedman/Academics/Departments/English/People/Faculty/BonnieWheeler

Parking is available for this event in the Meadows Museum Parking Garage