This year’s Eugene History Pub Talks kick off with “The War of the Worlds”

In 1938, Orson Welles’ radio production of the science fiction novel The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells caused panic in America’s newsrooms as listeners mistook fiction for fact. Learn about that day with this talk presented by Patrick Lucanio, PhD.

Monday, September 20
7:00 p.m., live via Zoom

To attend this event please RSVP below by 5:00 p.m. of the event day. Zoom link and details will be sent to the email address provided. All information collected in the RSVP will only be used by event organizers for the purpose of the September 20 talk.

The Eugene History Pub series is cosponsored by the University of Oregon Department of History, Lane County History Museum, and Viking Braggot Co.

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About the Speaker

Patrick Lucanio, Radio Redux’s esteemed historian/lecturer, holds a doctorate in telecommunications and film from the University of Oregon where he once served as a visiting professor of film studies teaching film history and science fiction and horror films. He has taught at the university level for 20 years including 17 years at Western Oregon University where in addition to teaching writing and literature he served for two years as director of student media. He has also been an adjunct instructor in film studies at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon.

Dr. Lucanio has authored numerous articles on film and broadcasting history and genre studies including “Shooting for the Stars: Captain Video, the Rocket Rangers, and America’s Conquest of Space” in 1950s Rocketman TV Series and Their Fans (2012) edited by Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper. He is the author of Them or Us, a scholarly analysis of 1950s monster movies, and With Fire and Sword, the first historical treatise of “peplum” films, i.e., foreign-made films featuring American body-builders. He authored a history of the Frederic Ziv radio and television syndication company for Science Fiction Theatre: A History of the Television Program 1955–1957 (2011), by Martin Grams, and co-authored with Gary Coville three works on genre history: American Science Fiction Television Series of the 1950s; Jack the Ripper: His Life and Crimes in Popular Entertainment; and Smokin’ Rockets: The Romance of Technology in Film, Radio and Television in the 1950s. The latter, along with Them or Us, was the inspiration for the 2008 documentary Monsters from the Id, for which he was an on-screen contributor.

Currently, Dr. Lucanio edits Radiogram, a 16-page monthly newsletter of the Society to Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety and Comedy (SPERDVAC) based in Los Angeles.