February 10, 2009
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – A series of public lectures on Saturday evenings, April 25, June 13, July 11 and August 8 in Jamestown Settlement’s Robins Foundation Theater will explore themes related to the museum’s “Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies” special exhibition opening March 1. The exhibition, which continues through October 15, examines the shared history and links between England’s first two permanent colonies in the New World.
• On April 25, Lucinda Spurling of Afflare Films in Bermuda will show portions of her production company’s new documentary, “The Lion and the Mouse … the Story of America and Bermuda,” and discuss the making of the film. The film charts the landmark moments, relationships, conflicts and characters that played a part in four centuries of settlement in America and Bermuda from the perspective of Bermuda’s people and their direct role in the birth of America and its development as a nation.
• On June 13, University of Tennessee Professor of History Lorri Glover, co-author of “The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America,” will provide an overview of the 2008 book, “the tale of one of the greatest rescue stories in American history,” one that became the inspiration for Shakespeare’s last play The Tempest and ensured England’s continued commitment to colonization in the West.
• On July 11, University of Rochester Associate Professor of History Michael Jarvis, who received his Ph.D. from the College of William and Mary and has written about Bermuda and Virginia history in several publications, will present “Sister Colonies: Virginia, Bermuda, and the Beginnings of English America.” He will discuss how cross-cultural influences shaped a distinctly new culture and, through characterizations of Bermuda as a “finite” space and Virginia as an “infinite” space, consider how these qualities shaped settlement pace and patterns into the 1620s.
• On August 8, Founding and Creative Director Tom Butterfield of the Masterworks Foundation and Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art, in “Somewhere Beyond the Sea: Art, Artists, and Bermuda,” will explain why artists like Winslow Homer and Georgia O’Keeffe have been drawn to Bermuda and provide an overview of Bermudian art. His quest to identify and recognize Bermudian artists – famous as well as lesser known – led to the creation of the Masterworks Foundation and Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art.
The series is sponsored by the Dominion Foundation. Each of the four lectures begins at 7 p.m., and admission is free. Advance reservations are required at (757) 253-4415 or rsvp.lecture@jyf.virginia.gov.
Jamestown Settlement, a museum of 17th-century Virginia, is located on State Route 31 just southwest of Williamsburg, adjacent to Historic Jamestowne. For more information about Jamestown Settlement, call (888) 593-4682 toll-free or (757) 253-4838.
