MEDIA RELEASES

Dominican University concludes its discussion of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms with “Hello to Propaganda,” a lecture by Dr. John Jenks, associate professor of journalism at the university. Part of the community-wide Big Read program, the lecture will be held on Tuesday, November 13 at 7:00 p.m. in Bluhm Lecture Hall, Parmer Hall, 7900 W. Division St., River Forest.

The United States entered World War I, the setting of Hemingway’s tragic love story, the same year that the author graduated from Oak Park River Forest High School. Americans were being inundated with propaganda to encourage enlistments, boost war bond sales and energize overall help with the “war effort.” Unprecedented in volume, intensity and sophistication, the propaganda stirred young men like Hemingway to action. Jenks will discuss the origins and evolution of war propaganda in 1917-18, and its impact on Hemingway and American public life.

Jenks has written and lectured on propaganda in the United States, Canada and Great Britain. He is the author of British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War (Edinburgh University Press, 2006). His lecture is free and open to the public.

Dominican University is a co-sponsor of the Oak Park/River Forest/Forest Park Big Read, part of a program launched by the National Endowment for the Arts to bring communities together to discuss one book.

Founded in 1901, Dominican University is a comprehensive, coeducational Catholic institution offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Dominican offers 50 undergraduate academic programs in the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences and 15 graduate programs through the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, the Brennan School of Business, the School of Education, the Graduate School of Social Work, and the Institute for Adult Learning. In the 2008 issue of America’s Best Colleges, U.S. News & World Report again ranked Dominican University in the top tier of Midwest master’s level universities and as a “best value” for the tenth consecutive year.