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Deborah Harkness Examines "The All Souls Trilogy" for Seaver Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series

Deborah Harkness, a student and scholar of history, will present the second lecture in the 2012-2013 Seaver Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series Tuesday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m. at Elkins Auditorium, Malibu. 

Deborah Harkness' career in fiction began in September 2008, when she began to wonder, "If there really are vampires, what do they do for a living?" A Discovery of Witches, the first in "The All Souls Trilogy," was her remarkable answer to that question and, in February 2011, the novel was released in the United States and the United Kingdom. Soon after, thirty additional editions and translations appeared around the globe.

Harkness continued to examine questions of magic and science in European history, especially during the period from 1500 to 1700, as evidenced by the "Trilogy," which follows the story of Diana Bishop, a historian and reluctant witch, as she solves the mystery of Ashmole 782, falls in love with a mysterious vampire named Matthew Clairmont, and learns how powerful it can be to accept who you are.

Harkness holds academic degrees from Mount Holyoke College, Northwestern University, and the University of California at Davis. Currently, she teaches European history and the history of science at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Her previous books include two works of non-fiction: John Dee's Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature (1999) and The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution (2007). She has received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Humanities Center.

For more information about the 2012-2013 Seaver Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series, visit the Seaver College Web site.