News
Erik Linstrum's book, Ruling Minds: Psychology in the British Empire, has just received attention from New York Magazine. Read the article HERE.
MAKE HISTORY GREAT AGAIN!
History Distinguished Majors Program Information session
MARCH 17, 4-5pm GIBSON 242
DMP director and professor of history Brian Balogh,
along with current History DMPs will answer
your questions about the program.
"Recently, BackStory co-host Brian Balogh moderated a panel of Hollywood insiders and a fellow academic in a Google hangout discussing inclusion in the film industry. Rather than focus solely on racial issues, the group sought to shed light on issues impacting multiple minority communities in cinema – from the early years through today – and offer some solutions for achieving an on-screen America that accurately reflects the real thing."
Read more about the discussion and watch highlights from the Google hangout HERE.
Leif Fredrickson, a PhD candidate in the Department, recently published an article, "The surprising link between postwar suburban development and today's inner-city lead poinsoning" in The Conversation, work that is a result of his dissertation research. Read the article HERE.
Political Partisanship in the U.S.
Brian Balogh, Professor in the Department, and Joanne Freeman, UVa History alumna and Professor at Yale, talked about the history of political parties and partisanship from the founding era to the 21st century.
Watch the video of their discussion on CSPAN HERE.
Congratulations to our undergraduate students who were awarded the Harrison Research Fellowship:
Deanza Cook • Patrick Depret-Guillaume • Madison Lahey • Aidan Lee • Xiaxia Wan • Charles West • Selena Coles • John Connolly
Read more about the award HERE.
Brian Rosenwald, recent PhD in the Department, coauthored an opinion piece with CNN host Michael Smerconish, discussing the situation in which "GOP leaders have bowed down to the power of conservative media, including radio hosts like Limbaugh." Read the article HERE.
The recent Congressional Briefing on the history of political partisanship in Congress, featuring the discussion of Brian Balogh, Professor in the Department, was written up in the American Historical Association's blog. Read the post HERE.
Congratulations to Neeti Nair, Associate Professor in the Department, who has been awarded a Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship by the ACLS. She will spend next year at the Kluge Center, in the Library of Congress, working on her project on blasphemy laws in South Asian history. Read more about the award HERE.
Under the guidance of John Mason, Associate Professor in the Department, the largest group of photos by Gordon Parks collected in decades is now on display at an exhibition at Wichita State University.
The exhibition, Visual Justice: The Gordon Parks Photography Collection, will be at WSU, presented at the Ulrich Museum of Art from January 16 through April 10, 2016.
You can read more about the exhibition and Professor Mason's work HERE.
Congratulations to Kate Geoghegan, Noel Stringham, and Jeff Zvengrowski who each recently successfully defended their PhD theses. Their dissertation titles are as follows:
Kate Geoghegan "The Specter of Anarchy, The Hope of Transformation: The Role of Non-State Actors in the U.S. Response to Soviet Reform and Disunion, 1981-1996"
Noel Stringham “Marking Nuer Histories: Gender, Gerontocracy, and the Politics of Inclusion in the Upper Nile from 1400-1931”
Jeff Zvengrowski "They Stood Like the Old Guard of Napoleon: Jefferson Davis and the Pro-Bonaparte Democrats, 1815-1870"
Members of the Math Department can teach us all how ridiculous lotteries are as a way for individuals to use their money. But it takes a historian to explain why people keep buying lottery tickets nonetheless, and how and why our governments promote them. One of our grad students, Jon Cohen, has been doing just this of late. You will enjoy seeing his opinion piece in The Hill as well as his discussion of the issues on BackStory. These arise from his dissertation work on lotteries.
Read the opinion piece in The Hill.
Listen to the discussion on BackStory.
Alexandra F. Levy, Program Director at the Atomic Heritage Foundation, who received her MA from the Department in 2012, published an article, "Promoting Democracy and Denazification: American Policymaking and German Public Opinion", in Diplomacy and Statecraft. The article, which treats the subject of her Master's thesis, analyzes the differece in practical action from policy goals of the denazificaiton program in American-occupied Germany at the close of WWII.
Read the article (access required) HERE.
The following resolution was prepared and read at the A&S Faculty Meeting last week by Phyllis Leffler. Many thanks to Phyllis for this wonderful tribute to a remarkable force in American life—and in the life of this department.
Read the resolution HERE.
The Chronicle contains a very interesting discussion of presidential studies (link below), featuring Brian Balogh’s recent edited volume, Recapturing the Oval Office.
Read the article HERE.
Grace Hale has won an NEH grant from the Department of Public Programs for a Digital Humanities project Participatory Media. She will examine community documentary making in the 1960s and ‘70s.
She will be working with a former UVA American Studies undergrad, Lauren Tilton, now a PhD candidate at Yale. As Grace notes, Lauren "was one of those amazing UVA students who do everything--she was the head of student government and lived on the lawn AND was a terrific student."
Brian Balogh and Peter Onuf discuss the controversy about Woodrow Wilson's name at Princeton on NPR.
Listen HERE.
Olivier Zunz, Commonwealth Professor in the Department, participated in an event launching a new permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History about philanthropy, inspired in large part by his book, Philanthropy in America: A History (Princeton UP, 2012). He was joined on stage by David Rockefeller and Warren Buffett.
With the launch of the Philanthropy lnitiative, the National Museum of American History embarks on a long-term project to collect research, document, and exhibit materials relating to the history and impact of American philanthropy. Rotating exhibits, programs, and public outreach will explore the collaborative power of giving in all forms and at all levels across a wide spectrum of issues and movements.
Come study the world's greatest book on democracy at the institution founded by America's greatest democratic thinker. Over two mid-summer weeks on the idyllic grounds of Thomas Jefferson's historic University of Virginia, 16 NEH Summer Scholars will read and discuss the entirety of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America with two leading experts on Tocqueville and his thought: Arthur Goldhammer (Harvard) and Olivier Zunz (University of Virginia).
For more information, including how to apply, click HERE.