Gifts of Stories


The biannual Faculty Research Lecture at UCLA has presented the work of the university’s most distinguished scholars since 1925. Its purpose is to recognize their superb achievements, and give the campus and the greater community an opportunity to gain a new perspective on scholarly achievements and the viewpoints of the faculty honored. UCLA History Professor Brenda Stevenson delivered the 127th lecture, a talk titled “The Gifts of the Storyteller.”

She talks about growing up in Virginia listening to her mother’s stories of their enslaved ancestors. As a scholar of slavery and the Antebellum South, some of our country’s most painful moments and eras, she found little documentary evidence of women’s lives. She had to become an investigator, following leads and bits of information to get to the stories told through the ages.

In this lecture she shares the stories of three women from different classes. Her careful listening over the years has unearthed fascinating stories about the women and the time in which they lived.

Watch — Gifts of the Storyteller with Brenda Stevenson – UCLA Faculty Research Lecture