Overview
Our departmental lecture series, begun during the 1971-72 academic year, is named in honor of John C. Pflaum (1904-1975) who was a member of the History faculty from 1946 to 1972. Thanks to the generosity of his former students and colleagues, each spring a distinguished scholar is invited to campus to speak on a significant issue in history.
About John C. Pflaum
John C. Pflaum (1904-1975) was a professor of history with special interests in the Civil War, the European origins of the First World War, and early Carlisle. He held the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in recognition of his popularity with students during his Dickinson tenure which began in 1946. He received his master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania where he also taught for three years after spending six years on the faculty of Temple University. During his lifetime, he was a most voracious reader–especially a devourer of history, memoirs, biography, and prose literature. Above all, John Pflaum was a born teacher who inspired fanatical devotion in several generations of Dickinsonians. His teaching placed an emphasis upon precision and fact and evidenced love of conventional art and literature. His enthusiasm and dedication are best described in his own words, “The sheer pleasure of teaching, the fun I’ve had in the average class--this is what I remember more than anything else. My heart is in the lecture room. It’s almost a shame to take the money.”
2026-27 Pflaum Lecture: Tues., October 27, 6:30 PM in the Stern Great Room (Doors open at 6PM for light refreshments before the talk)
"Thinking about the Aztecs: Could we have been wrong for 500 years?"
Of all Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Aztecs have the very worst reputation. It is built largely upon assertions first made by Spaniards, and later, by scholars who could not read their language. Recently, there has been a revolution in scholarly understandings of the Aztecs: we have learned a great deal by reading what they had to say when they wrote in their own language for their own posterity.
About the speaker: Camilla Townsend is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is the author of numerous books, among them, Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs. Her work on Nahuatl (or Aztec) language sources has been supported by the American Philosophical Society, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress.