The critically acclaimed film Mr. Turner examines the life and work of the British Romanticist painter J.M.W. Turner, whose style earned him the informal title “the painter of light.” Historian William Rodner (Tidewater Community College) is the author of J.M.W. Turner: Romantic Painter of the Industrial Revolution. Rodner says Turner was one of the first major artists to depict the Industrial Revolution. And: In the 1830s, thousands of women were involved in the movement to abolish slavery. Stephanie Richmond (Norfolk State University) says the presence and activity of women in the abolitionist movement laid the framework for another important movement: women’s suffrage.

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons user Oren neu dag

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons user Oren neu dag

Later in the show: The power of logos and branding wasn’t lost on the ancients. Bruce MacDonald (Virginia Military Institute) says after William the Conqueror defeated Harold, the Saxon king, William wisely combined the crests of the two forces into a new British logo—two winged lions on a yellow field—which helped him unify and govern his new land. Also featured: Sequoyah, or as he signed his name, (ᏍᏏᏉᏯ Ssiquoya, is the great Cherokee Indian who invented the Cherokee alphabet that made reading and writing in Cherokee possible. Ken Smith (Radford University) is having the students in his typography and design class create new typeface designs for the Cherokee language