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CORVALLIS, Ore. - Miriam Reumann, an author and historian from the University of Rhode Island, will give a free public lecture on Thursday, March 2, that looks at the impact of sexual behavior researcher Alfred Kinsey.

Her talk, "In Consideration of Our Social Problems: Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behavior and the Postwar American Family," begins at 4 p.m. in Memorial Union Room 206. The lecture is part of OSU's 2005-06 Horning Lecture and Conference Series, which examines the themes of marriage, reproduction and sexuality.

Reumann is the author of "American Sexual Character: Sex, Gender and National Identity in the Kinsey Reports," which was published last year by the University of California Press. She is working on a study of sex survey research in the United States since 1900.

In her Horning lecture, Reumann will discuss how the "Kinsey Reports" were widely interpreted by critics as evidence that family models were being threatened by rampant promiscuity and a breakdown of norms. Others, though, embraced Kinsey's findings as evidence that these behaviors were more refective of changing family structures and values than a factor in their decline, she said.