LAKELAND, Fla. (Nov. 4, 2008) — Florida Southern College’s Center for Florida History welcomes author and documentary filmmaker Bill Belleville to the Florida Lecture Series on Nov. 13. Belleville will discuss “Losing it All to Sprawl: How Progress Ate My Cracker Landscape.” The lecture will start at 7 p.m. in the William M. Hollis Seminar Room of the Thad Buckner Building on the FSC campus. The event is free and open to the public. A book signing follows the lecture.

“We are delighted to have Bill Belleville with us and also to have Florida’s premier historic preservation group, Historic Lakeland, Inc., as a partner in bringing him to campus,” said James Denham, professor of history and director of FSC’s Center for Florida History. “Bill Belleville’s work on the dangers of urban sprawl and our threatened Florida landscape is a wake-up call for everyone who treasures the ‘Real Florida,’ and what is left of it.” 

The award-winning author and documentary filmmaker specializes in nature, environmental issues, and “sense of place.” The author of four books and over 1,000 articles in such publications as Newsweek, Audubon, the New York Times, Sports Afield and Oxford American, he has worked overseas as a writer on Discovery Channel expeditions in the Galapagos Islands and Cuba. Belleville has scripted and co-produced five PBS documentaries, including the recent “In Marjorie’s Wake: Rediscovering Rawlings, a River and Time,” and winning an Emmy for the production and scripting of “Wekiva: A Legacy or Loss?”

 “Losing it all to Sprawl” (2006) focuses on Belleville’s personal battle to save his “Cracker” farmhouse and his beloved rural landscape in the face of urban sprawl that engulfed his Seminole County community. The book laments not only the consumption of Florida’s natural landscape, but the loss of Old Florida neighborhoods and their history. He has lectured widely on environmental literature and was named Environmental Writer of the Year by the Florida Audubon Society and Florida Wildlife Federation.

The lecture is sponsored by Historic Lakeland, Inc., which promotes awareness, understanding and an appreciation of Lakeland’s history and works to assure the preservation of those things which represent the character of our city and are significant to its history.

About the Florida Lecture Series
The Florida Lecture Series is produced by the Center for Florida History under the direction of Dr. James M. Denham. The program brings speakers to the Lakeland campus who approach the issue of “Florida Life and Culture” from a wide range of disciplines, including history, public affairs, law, sociology, criminology, anthropology, literature, music and art. Its overall objective is to create an opportunity for members of the community, faculty, and student body to listen to, interact with and learn from leading scholars and specialists of the state’s history and culture.