Baylor Emeritus Professor Wallace Daniel Presents “Speaking Truth to Power”
On Thursday, March 27, 2025, at 3:30 p.m. in the Treasure Room of Baylor’s Armstrong Browning Library & Museum and via Zoom Webinar, Dr. Wallace Daniel, Distinguished Professor of History, Mercer University, and Emeritus Professor of History, Baylor University, will present the 2025 Keston Spring Lecture, “Speaking Truth to Power: The Revolt of a Russian Priest.” Following his presentation, Daniel will converse with Dr. Stephen Sloan, Baylor Professor of History & Director of the Institute for Oral History. The conversation will be followed by Q&A, a reception with refreshments, and a book signing for Daniel’s latest release, “Freedom and the Captive Mind: Fr. Gleb Yakunin and Orthodox Christianity in Soviet Russia” (NIU/Cornell University Press, 2024). Copies of the book will be available for purchase for only $20.
“We are pleased to welcome Dr. Wallace Daniel back to Baylor as our Keston Spring lecturer. Daniel was instrumental in establishing the Keston Center and bringing the Keston College Library and Archives from Oxford to Baylor in 2007. The Russian and Soviet historian continues to be a ‘voice for the voiceless’ through his research, writing, and teaching,” said Kathy Hillman, Director of the Keston Center for Religion, Politics, and Society.
Wallace Daniel joined the Baylor faculty in the fall of 1971 as assistant professor of History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a Ph.D. candidate with an emphasis on Russian history. During 1969-1970, he participated in the official United States-Soviet Union educational and cultural exchange program at Moscow State University, and in 1967 and 1969 attended the Summer Slavic Workshop at Indiana University. In 1996, Baylor named History Department Chair Daniel as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences while remaining the Ralph L. and Bessie Mae Lynn Professor of History. During his 37 years at the University, Daniel was instrumental in initiating the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core and instilling a love for history in thousands of students.
In 2008, Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, named Daniel as Provost, and in 2012, he returned to the classroom as Distinguished University Professor of History. A Baylor Emeritus Professor of History, he continues to serve on the Keston Advisory Board.
“Wallace Daniel is the consummate historian,” said Julie deGraffenried, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Baylor University, “For decades at Baylor, Dr. Daniel was a superb teacher of Soviet history, mentoring countless students, including me, who went on to careers related to studying and understanding modern Russian and East European history. With the publication of his last three books—all in the last decade—he has become the foremost scholar of dissident Orthodoxy during the Soviet era, redefining and refining contemporary conversations around religious freedom. There is no more relevant scholar-teacher Keston could bring as its speaker.”
The 2025 Keston Lecture is proudly presented by the Keston Center for Religion, Politics, and Society and sponsored by the Baylor Libraries, International Studies, and the Departments of History, Religion, and Modern Languages and Cultures.
For more information, visit library.web.baylor.edu/truthtopower or contact Kathy Hillman by email at kathy_hillman@baylor.edu or by phone at (254) 710-6684.