Richard III team members alight in the US

I’m excited to report that two members of the team who excavated and analyzed the remains of King Richard III in September of 2012 will be coming to the US in February for public lectures. This is the first chance we norms in the US have had to hear from the horses’ mouths about the extraordinary discovery that riveted the world.

The first stop will be Washington, D.C. where they will be giving a talk on the discovery on February 5th, 2014. The lecture is being offered by the Folger Shakespeare Theatre as part of a program devoted to the Bard’s tragedy Richard III. A new staging of the play will be accompanied by Q&As with the performers, talks by the literary director and local poets. The University of Leicester’s Greyfriars Project will be represented by geneticist Dr. Turi King and fieldwork director Matthew Morris, two of the co-authors of the first paper published on the excavation.

Their lecture, entitled Finding Richard, will cover the archaeological excavation (Matthew Morris’ bailiwick) and the DNA analysis (Dr. King’s expertise) that established a genetic link between Michael Ibsen, direct descendant down the female line of Richard’s sister Anne of York, an unnamed second female-line descendant and the skeleton found under the Leicester council parking lot.

The lecture will be held at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation 212 East Capitol Street on Wednesday, February 5th at 7:30pm. Tickets cost $25 for regular people and $20 for members of the Folger Shakespeare Theatre. You can book over the phone at (202) 544-7077 or online here.

After that, Turi King and Matthew Morris will join professors in history, humanities, forensic pathology and English at St. Louis University for a full day colloquium on Saturday, February 8th. The discussion will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the university’s Il Monastero on 3050 Olive Street. It is open to the general public and free of charge.

Jealous of the fine folks of St. Louis who, as if having a kickass arch on the west bank of the Mississippi River weren’t enough, now get to enjoy a day of Richard III nerdery with two pivotal figures from the Greyfriars team? Well don’t be, because the whole thing will be streamed live over the internet! :boogie: 😎 :boogie:

Bookmark this website, mark your calendar, set your alarm clock to wake you up before 10:00 AM Central Time (11:00 AM EST), get breakfast, lunch, beverages and possibly some sort of vessel to hold your waste, then settle down in front of your computer for a luxurious six hours of nothing but Richard III.

13 thoughts on “Richard III team members alight in the US

  1. There is a question, what kind of burial will receive King Richardo III. As we know he was Roman Catholic, as the entire royal family and the nobility plus each englishmen of their time, I hope that they will respect the duty to give him a decent Catholic burial with an appropiate mass before. When I was in London the first peer of England the Duke of Norfolk asked to respect the religious believes of King Richard, the Duke is one of the few members of the high nobility to be a Catholic and a quite faithfull one.

  2. Calendar marked, website bookmarked and, tomorrow, I’m laying in a nice assortment of munchables and sipables. Whoo-hoo, Liv! :notworthy: :hattip:

    @Louis, sorry…but I don’t see how it matters what service covers the reinterment of his bones. Richard was where he was for so long that I don’t think he’d care and, if he did away with the princes, according to Catholic dogma, no number of Masses will help him.

    So, please, let us history nerds enjoy the occasion without dragging some god or other into the mix.

  3. If the weather is right I just might head out on a long trip. Probably a good 10 hours but it would be worth it to see this!

  4. I wonder if some one will copy/or/save this to youtube. So us nerdery Richard fangirls :notworthy: that have to work 😥 weekends can watch at a later date,Does anyone know?

  5. Oh, my, while I was adding this to my calendar, I see a bunch of other RIII history freaks came out of the woodwork too! Must notify my daughter. BTW, when I copied the schedule to paste into my calendar notes, I found that it thoughtfully included the text of the author bios w/o me having to do anything! Thanks, whoever figured that out. I grew up near the Ashland Shakespearean Festival (back in the day)and became entranced by this play. Naturally, Shakespeare was a big part of our high school lit classes. This play fascinated me, since I was also studying history, and soon figured out that Shakespeare used history as a commentary on events of his own time than as a history lesson. One of the productions I saw, without changing the script, nonetheless managed to picture RIII in a sympathetic light (given he was a product of the times). Interesting, and reinforced the notion that one must be careful in approaching fiction (or even non-fiction) as a way of understanding history.

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