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Professor Stephen West teaching the course Abraham Lincoln in History and Memory.Thinking ahead to Lincoln’s 200th birthdayon Feb. 12, 2009, School of Artsand Sciences Dean L.R. Poos sent out acall to his faculty in the summer of 2008.He requested proposals for new spring2009 courses that would study Lincoln, hisaccomplishments, his superior mind andthe legacy of this man of humble originswho became one of America’s most consequentialpresidents. Five of the proposedcourses were chosen; meant to be takenalone or in tandem, they offer studentsinsight into Lincoln through the spectrumof politics, history, literature, rhetoric, artand film. This collection of electives, dubbedthe “Lincoln Semester,” is believed to be thefirst themed group of classes ever offeredat CUA.The course that included the student reenactmentof the Lincoln-Douglas debateswas an outgrowth of Professor West’sregular class on Civil War-era America.He set out to examine Lincoln throughthe president’s own words and those ofhis contemporaries, as well as throughhistorians’ accounts.“I wanted to examine his multiple roles,”says the history professor. “Antebellumlawyer and politician; wartime executiveand commander in chief; public orator andman of ideas. I also wanted to study howsuccessive generations have venerated hispresidency and made him such a potentsymbol for the meaning and promise ofAmerica’s past.”Generations have commemoratedLincoln’s presidency in a variety of tangibleways: The sharp contours of his faceare etched into a mountainside, his profileimprinted on the penny and $5 bill. At thewestern end of the National Mall, a marblestructure of noble columns houses hisseated figure — with millions flocking topay their respects each year.But beyond those physical memorials,Lincoln lives on in his words, which findas much currency in the present as theydid during the Civil War. That’s the conclusionof another Lincoln Semester coursetitled Lincoln’s Eloquence, which surveyedLincoln’s accomplishments as a writer andpublic speaker.“It’s almost startling to think that in anera of mass electronic media and 24-hournews, people still turn to speeches, of allantiquated things, to get a grasp on theirpolitical world,” says the course’s teacher,Stephen McKenna, associate professor andchair of the media studies department.“Lincoln gets cited as often as any othercandidate or president as being exceptionallygifted in his use of well-timed andwell-tuned words, not just to get thingsdone but to take the measure of historicalmoments in the canniest of ways.”Indeed, on election night 2008, PresidentBarack Obama quoted Lincoln’s simple,poetic words as he called for bipartisanship.“We are not enemies, but friends.We must not beenemies. Thoughpassion mayhave strained,it must notbreak ourbonds ofaffection,”he toldthe crowdgathered inChicago’sGrant Park,borrowing the final lines of Lincoln’s FirstInaugural Address.McKenna tells the class of 20 graduatestudents and upperclassmen that theyoung-adult Lincoln is said to have ownedfewer than a dozen books, which he readand reread as prized possessions. Theseinfluenced his rhetorical style, but so didnewspapers, which, McKenna says, werenot the constantly updated breaking-newsportals that they are today. Rather, manycontained miscellaneous information — amélange of news stories, lectures, sermonsand famous (and not so famous) passagesfrom literature.“Lincoln likely imbibed many things fromvarious newspapers,” McKenna tells thegroup. It was such rhetorical sourcesthat helped make Lincoln so successful,in contrast to many politicians of his day,who prided themselves in using high-flownCiceronian rhetoric.“Probably not the most effective way tospeak to an agricultural nation that lackedformal schooling,” McKenna notes of thoseeducated rhetoricians. “Lincoln’s speecheswere remarkably colloquial; that’s one reasonhe got the nickname of Honest Abe.”To reveal Honest Abe as completelyas possible to their students, theinstructors of the five Lincoln Semestercourses capitalized on a geographic advantageenjoyed by CUA — they used thecity Lincoln called home for four yearsas their extended classroom. Most of thecourses relied heavily on fieldtrips to Washington, D.C.,museums and monuments,including President Lincoln’sS U M M E R 2 0 0 9 25