A conversation about one of the most famous heroes from that infamous date, December 7, 1941, and how he has been remembered for nearly 80 years.
Join us virtually for an enlightening program about one of the first American heroes of World War II, Doris “Dorie” Miller. Dr. Chester will share the story of Miller, his actions at Pearl Harbor, his newfound celebrity, his post-Pearl Harbor service, and how the memory of Miller and his actions have evolved in the collective American conscience.
Robert K Chester, PhD, grew up in England, where he developed a fascination with the films and popular culture of the United States. He moved to the United States in 2001 and, after completing an MA in American Studies at the University of Wyoming, arrived at the University of Maryland in 2003. He has been at UMD—first as a graduate student, then as a member of the faculty—for thirteen years, and his love and enthusiasm for teaching is very much intact. Dr. Chester’s courses and research interests focus on the ways in which popular culture shape narratives of US history, on which of those narratives becomes privileged, and on the place of marginalized groups within those narratives. He has an abiding interest in World War II and popular remembrance of it, and his publications thus far attend to war memories and their deployment to various ideological ends in the postwar period.
