(upbeat music) - The Tanner Humanities Center advances humanities exploration and engagement through outreach, academic research, and educational enrichment.

And Director Scott Black is here to talk about an upcoming book conversation.

Hi, Scott.

Welcome.

- Thank you.

- I'm just a big fan of what you do there, so thanks for being here.

And you're bringing in an author who's got a fascinating book.

- Yeah.

Yes, we program at the Tanner Humanities Center, both with external people, nationally known people to come in to speak with us, as well as our own faculty.

Isabel Moreira is a distinguished professor of history who specializes in medieval France, and her new book is about a fascinating woman, Balthild of Francia She was brought to France originally as a slave.

Ends up becoming the queen of France, marrying the king.

He dies and she becomes queen regent to their young son.

When he comes of age, she moves to a monastery, and eventually is recognized as a saint for her work, abolishing the slave trade in France.

- Wow, that is a story!

- What a story.

- That's a great story.

And I mean, one, I'm sure a lot of people, I didn't know, a lot of people just don't know.

- She's relatively unknown except for historians of France.

So Isabel has done a lot of work, compared various sources, and bringing the story to a much wider audience.

So it's an academic biography, so she talks about the kind of work she's done.

She talks about the larger context of the Merovingian world, medieval France, and it's really fascinating.

- Oh, yeah.

Yeah, the people you bring in are always impressive, so I can't wait to hear about this.

- Yeah.

- And about the story.

So thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

- Thank you for having me.

- And if you'd like to know more about that upcoming Tanner Humanities Center conversation with Isabel Moreira, it's February 13th from four to five in the Tanner Humanities Center, Jewel Box Room 143, and that's on the University of Utah campus.

To find out more, just go to thc.utah.edu/events, thc.utah.edu/events.

(upbeat music) I'm Mary Dickson.

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