Felix D. Almaraz Jr. is professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His books include Knight Without Armor: Carlos Eduardo Castaneda, 1896-1958 (1999). Most recently, he has been working on two books about the missions of San Antonio from eighteenth to the twentieth century. He is former president of the Texas State Historical Association and of the Texas Catholic Historial Society.

Lecture topics:

• Senator Sam Houston of Texas: His Unionist Role in American Politics at Mid-Nineteenth Century (can be delivered Chautauqua style, in period costume, as "An Evening with Senator Sam Houston")
• Diplomacy of the Republic of Texas and its Annexation: Prelude to the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848
• The Spanish Borderlands: A Chapter in the Northward Movement of Immigrants into the Transitional Zone of the American Southwest

Viewed Friday, November 20, 2009