Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life and Legacy of Award-Winning Biographer and Historian Stephen B. Oates

A wide range of distinguished participants will memorialize the late biographer and historian Stephen B. Oates, a longtime UMass Amherst faculty member, at a daylong celebration of his life and work at Old Chapel on Friday, Sept. 9.

The event is free, although space is limited. Please register in advance. 

Oates served as a professor of history and the Paul Murray Kendall Professor of Biography at UMass Amherst from 1968 to 1997. He died in August 2021. 

Thought leaders and experts will highlight Oates’ contributions as biographer, public intellectual, and professor and colleague in a series of panels. Stephen B. Oates as Biographer illuminates timely issues of employing the art of biography to address race, gender and equality; Stephen B. Oates as Public Intellectual acknowledges him as a biographer and historian, who distinctly embodies moral imagination and courage; Stephen B. Oates as Professor and Colleague presents faculty and alumni appreciations of Oates’ impacts on their lives and careers. The full-day symposium will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Featured speakers and panelists will include: 

• Harold Holzer, keynote speaker, renowned Lincoln scholar and current chair of The Lincoln Forum

• Catherine Clinton, acclaimed author and Civil War historian 

• Frank J. Williams, retired chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court and chair emeritus of The Lincoln Forum 

• David A. Lowy ’83, associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court 

• Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges & Universities; 18th president of Mount Holyoke College 

• Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, professor of English and Paul Murray Kendall chair in biography at UMass Amherst 

• Carla Kaplan, Davis Distinguished Professor of American literature, professor of women's, gender, & sexuality studies, at Northeastern University 

• Playthell Benjamin, Black studies pioneer, scholar, award-winning journalist and broadcaster 

• Jonathan Hensleigh ’81, major motion picture writer, director and producer 

• Joyce Berkman, emerita professor of history at UMass Amherst 

• Helen Sheehy, biographer and lecturer 

• Hugh Carter Donahue ’72, author and consultant 

Family and friends will share remembrances and appreciations to close out the program.  

“We’re immensely appreciative of all the university’s significant engagement and heartfelt support for this exceptional event,” remarks Greg Oates, family representative and Stephen Oates’ son.  

The UMass Amherst Department of History, College of Humanities and Fine Arts, and UMass Amherst Libraries are sponsoring the event.