News
Congratulations to Lauren Haumesser (UVA PhD 2018) on the publication of her book, The Democratic Collapse: How Gender Politics Broke a Party and a Nation 1856-1861!
https://uncpress.org/book/9781469671437/the-democratic-collapse/?fbclid=...
In a new Washington Post "Made By History" article, Professor Justene Hill Edwards discusses the 7th annual Freedman's Bank Forum, how the forum has obscured the bank's history, and how the history of the Freedman's Bank "highlights flaws in using public-private partnerships to address racial inequality."
Read the article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/27/freedmans-bank...
Professor John Edwin Mason has directed the Holsinger Studio Portrait Project since 2015, and says the project aims to transform the way people see Black history. The research done on these portraits has helped tell a more complete story of African American history in Charlottesville, and it has helped descendants in the Charlottesville and UVA community better understand their personal history.
Read more about the project here: Portrait Project Opens Windows on Black Citizens and Connections to Descendants
Professor John Edwin Mason was featured in The Washington Post for his work as the director of the Holsinger Portrait Project and new exhibit, "Visions of Progress: Portraits of Dignity, Style and Racial Uplift" which features portrait photographs of Black Virginians in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The exhibit is on display now at the University of Virginia Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library through September 2023.
Learn more about the story here, Revolutionary Black portrait exhibition opens at UVA.
Congratulations to Professor S. Deborah Kang for being appointed to the Organization of American Historians (OAH) Distinguished Lectureship Program!
Learn more about the fellows and their work http://ow.ly/G5VN50KEJJG
Congratulations to Doctoral Candidates Justin Winokur and Matt Frakes for being named 2022-2023 National Security Policy Center Fellows. This fellowship is a part of the National Security Policy Center at the UVA Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.
View fellows page here: https://www.nspcbatten.org/people/fellows/
Congratulations to Professor Corinne T. Field on the publication of her co-edited volume with Univ. of Michigan Prof LaKisha Michelle Simmons. The Global History of Black Girlhood “explores the many ways scholars, artists, and activists think and write about Black girls' pasts.”
https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p086694
The Global History of Black Girlhood boldly claims that Black girls are so important we should know their histories. Yet, how do we find the stories and materials we need to hear Black girls’ voices and understand their lives? Corinne T. Field and LaKisha Michelle Simmons edit a collection of writings that explores the many ways scholars, artists, and activists think and write about Black girls' pasts. The contributors engage in interdisciplinary conversations that consider what it means to be a girl; the meaning of Blackness when seen from the perspectives of girls in different times and places; and the ways Black girls have imagined themselves as part of a global African diaspora.
Thought-provoking and original, The Global History of Black Girlhood opens up new possibilities for understanding Black girls in the past while offering useful tools for present-day Black girls eager to explore the histories of those who came before them.
Contributors: Janaé E. Bonsu, Ruth Nicole Brown, Tara Bynum, Casidy Campbell, Katherine Capshaw, Bev Palesa Ditsie, Sarah Duff, Cynthia Greenlee, Claudrena Harold, Anasa Hicks, Lindsey Jones, Phindile Kunene, Denise Oliver-Velez, Jennifer Palmer, Vanessa Plumly, Shani Roper, SA Smythe, Nastassja Swift, Dara Walker, Najya Williams, and Nazera Wright
Congratulations to Professor Neeti Nair on editing a special issue of Asian Affairs. The papers in the special issue were first presented at a conference cohosted by UVAs Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures and the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.
The issue is available online here: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/raaf20/53/2?nav=tocList
In his new "Made By History" article, Stefan Lund (UVA PhD 2022) discusses the history of mob violence in the United States and how "mob violence undermines the core principles of American government." Stefan Lund is currently a postdoctoral fellow at UVA's Nau Center for Civil War History.
Read article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/21/what-perpetrat...
Professor Cynthia Nicoletti has won the George and Ann Richards Prize for the best article published in The Journal of the Civil War Era in 2021. Her article, "William Henry Trescott: Pardon Broker,” appeared in the December 2021 issue. Professor Nicoletti is a legal historian and professor of law at the University of Virginia’s School of Law and an affiliated faculty in the Corcoran Department of History.
View award announcement here: https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2022/07/congratulations-to-the-winner-of-the-journal-of-the-civil-war-eras-george-and-ann-richards-prize-2/
In her recent New York Times opinion piece, Professor Sarah Milov discusses the tobacco industry's history of promoting the illusion that smoking is a choice in light of the FDA's recent proposal to lower the nicotine content in cigarettes.
"The F.D.A.’s nicotine proposal is, at long last, an opportunity to test one of the industry’s core propositions. Only then will we truly see if smoking is a free adult choice rather than the consequence of addiction and skillful product design."
Read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/.../nicotine-smoking-cigarettes.html
Professor Alan Taylor recently presented as one of the keynotes for the Bavarian American Academy (BAA) Conference. His presentation was entitled, "The American Revolution & the Contemporary Culture War."
The recording can be watched here: https://youtu.be/BXOuASrOguY
Congratulations to Professor Penny M. Von Eschen on the publication of her new book, Paradoxes of Nostalgia: Cold War Trumphalism and Global Disorder Since 1989 (Duke University Press)
https://www.dukeupress.edu/paradoxes-of-nostalgia
Description:
In Paradoxes of Nostalgia Penny M. Von Eschen offers a sweeping examination of the cold war’s afterlife and the lingering shadows it casts over geopolitics, journalism, and popular culture. She shows how myriad forms of nostalgia across the globe—from those that posit a mythic national past to those critical of neoliberalism that remember a time when people believed in the possibility of a collective good—indelibly shape the post-cold war era. When Western triumphalism moved into the global South and former Eastern bloc spaces, many articulated a powerful sense of loss and a longing for stability. Innovatively bringing together diplomatic archives, museums, films, and video games, Von Eschen shows that as the United States continuously sought new enemies for its unipolar world, cold war triumphalism fueled the ascendancy of xenophobic right-wing nationalism and the embrace of authoritarian sensibilities in the United States and beyond. Ultimately, she demonstrates that triumphalist claims that capitalism and military might won the cold war distort the past and disfigure the present, undermining democratic values and institutions.
From June 26-29, UVA Lifetime Learning hosted the Summer Jefferson Symposium. This symposium focused on the study of Thomas Jefferson during his years as president with the idea that "studying Jefferson during his eight years in the highest executive office provides important insights both into Jefferson and the nature of the presidency even today." With assistance from various scholars, including members of our department, attendees earned ten educational hours.
Professor Elizabeth Varon, featured in the Washington Post's "Made By History" series, examines the historical connections between southern secessionists in 1860 and the January 6th insurrection.
Read the whole article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/06/15/secessionist-roots-jan-6-insurrection/
Professor Varon's article is also included in this week's History News Network Roundup Top Ten. Check out her piece alongside nine other interesting and timely articles. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/183401
Graduate Student Jeremy Nelson examines the ways Civil War Americans used animal references to denounce their enemies in recent Nau Center Blog Post entitled, "The American 'Beasts of Battle.'" Read here: https://naucenter.as.virginia.edu/blog-page/1631
Ph.D. Candidate Thomas Storrs wrote a book review of Rebecca K. Marchiel's After Redlining: The Urban Reinvestment Movement in the Era of Financial Deregulation (University of Chicago Press, 2020) for EH.Net Review. EH.Net Review is owned and operated by the Economic History Association. His book review can be read here: https://eh.net/book_reviews/after-redlining-the-urban-reinvestment-movement-in-the-era-of-financial-deregulation/
The Nau Civil War Center is co-sponsoring the 2022 Universities Studying Slavery Conference, which focuses on "Legacies of Slavery, Landscapes of Segregation."
Submit proposals for panels or individual papers by July 1 here.
Professor Caroline E. Janney delivered the keynote address at Antietam National Battlefield's Memorial Day service this Monday.
Professor Janney serves as the Director of the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History.
Professor Laurent Dubois was recently featured on the Clauses and Controversies Podast. Dubois discussed the long-term implications of the U.S. occupation of Haiti in the 20th century.
Link to listen to the episode: https://soundcloud.com/clauses-controversies/ep-74-ft-laurent-dubois
Description:
Episode 74: Gunboats, Marines and Bonds: The Ugly US Occupation of Haiti 1915-34
The historical tie between debt and gunboat diplomacy is ugly, rooted in imperialist and racist encounters with western powers. Few examples better illustrate the point than Haiti. In the first decades of the 20th century, Haiti was still repaying the enormous debt imposed by France as a condition of recognizing the new Haitian state nearly a century earlier. Then the U.S. marines arrived. Laurent Dubois (University of Virginia) is a leading historian on Haitian colonial history and joins us to talk about the U.S. incursions into Haiti, beginning in 1914 when the marines spirited away the country's gold reserves in the dead of night for “safekeeping.” In the course of occupying Haiti, and effectively putting the country into receivership, the U.S. engineered still more lending, designed both to protect U.S. commercial interests and to reduce the influence of European investors.