News Archive

Hammond Awarded Grant

Congratulations Prof. Kelly Hammond for receiving a matching $4,000 grant from the Northeast Asia Council (NEAC) of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS), with the support of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC). The award coupled with her grant from the Vice Provost of Research and Development will allow her to spend extensive time in Japan conducting research in spring 2017.


Cleveland Wins Research Stipend

Congratulations to Prof. Todd Cleveland who won one of the prestigious Fulbright Summer Research Stipends. Cleveland will use the funds to help defer travel and research expenses in Africa for his latest book project, Mobilities: African Labor, Social Ascension, and Tourism in Colonial Mozambique, c. 1890-1975.


Rosales Publishes Book

A timely look at the Chicano experience in the military

What were the catalysts that motivated Mexican American youth to enlist or readily accept their draft notice in World War II, Korea, or Vietnam? In Soldados Razos at War, historian and veteran Steven Rosales chronicles the experiences of Chicano servicemen who fought for the United States, explaining why these men served, how they served, and the impact of their service on their identity and political consciousness.

As a social space imbued with its own martial and masculine ethos, the U.S. military offers an ideal way to study the aspirations and behaviors of these young men that carried over into their civilian lives. A tradition of martial citizenship forms the core of the book. Using rich oral histories and archival research, Rosales investigates the military’s transformative potential with a particular focus on socioeconomic mobility, masculinity, and postwar political activism across three generations.

The national collective effort characteristic of World War II and Korea differed sharply from the highly divisive nature of American involvement in Vietnam. Thus, for Mexican Americans, military service produced a wide range of ideological reactions, with the ideals of each often in opposition to the others. Yet a critical thread connecting these diverse outcomes was a redefined sense of self and a willingness to engage in individual and collective action to secure
first-class citizenship.

 “This will be the ‘go-to’ book for Latino military history for years to come. Rosales captures the voices and experiences of Latino veterans from World War II to Vietnam.”

 

—Steve Estes, author of Charleston in Black and White: Race and Power in the South After the Civil Rights Movement

“Provides the most comprehensive account of Mexican Americans’ experiences in the U.S. military. Rosales nicely presents everyday soldiers’ stories while not losing sight of the G.I. Bill’s and the Veterans’ Administration’s role in helping shape those lives. Soldados Razos at War highlights the struggles and triumphs of a group of individuals whose service has not only benefited Latino America but also theUnited States as a whole.”

—Ernesto Chávez, author of The U.S. War with Mexico: A Brief History with Documents


History Professors Named 2016 Connor Faculty Fellows

Congratulations to Professors Banton and Dominguez for being named two of thirteen 2016 Connor Faculty Fellows. A total of ten HIST faculty have held this fellowship since 2006. You can read more about the other eleven selected this year and about the fellowship itself by clicking here.


Celebrating 75 Years of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly

The Arkansas Historical Quarterly is celebrating its 75th anniversary and for all but six of those years (1953-59) it has been based here in the Department of History. The current issue illustrates the Department’s contribution to the enterprise, featuring an article, “Hipbillies  and Hillbillies: Back to the Landers in the Arkansas Ozarks during the 1970s” by Jared Phillips (PhD 2013), who now teaches in the U of A’s International Studies program. There are also book reviews by Associate Professor Michael Pierce, Assistant Professor Kelly Hammond, and another alum, Kelly Houston Jones (PhD 2014).


History Welcomes Three New Professors

The Department of History would like to welcome its newest assistant professors: Rocio Gomez, Ren Pepitone, and Sarah Rodriguez.

Rocio Gomez holds a Ph.D. in Latin American History from the University of Arizona.  Her research explores the environmental history of Modern Mexico and focuses on the effects of silver mining on water and public health in Zacatecas. Gomez is establishing a strong publication record with peer-reviewed journal articles and encyclopedia entries and is the author of Silver Veins and Dusty Lungs: Water, Public Health, and the Environmental Legacies of Industry in Modern Mexico, 1834-1945, which is under contract with the University of Nebraska Press. She was most recently a visiting assistant professor in our history department.  

Ren Pepitone holds a B.A. in History from Vassar College and a Ph.D. in History from Johns Hopkins University. She specializes in Britain and its empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Research and teaching interests include cultural history, urban history, imperial history, and the history of gender and sexuality. Her article on women’s struggle for the right to practice as barristers recently appeared in the Journal of Women’s History. She is currently revising a manuscript that explores entrenched masculine subcultures, the uses of the past, and the longevity of conservatism in British legal institutions.    

Sarah K.M. Rodriguez received a B.A. in English and History from Vassar College and holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania.  Her areas of specialization are United States History, Southern History, Early Mexican History, Comparative/Transnational History, Labor History, History of Gender and Sexuality, Rural History, and U.A. Empire.  Rodriguez has a forthcoming publication in a special issue of Pacific Historical Review regarding the first Anglo-American immigrants to Mexican Texas.  She comes to the UA from the University of Pennsylvania where she was managing editor of the Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal and an instructor of history. 


Prof. Starks Publishes New Book

Bringing together an impressive cast of well-respected scholars in the field of modern Russian studies, Russian History through the Senses investigates life in Russia from 1700 to the present day via the senses. It examines past experiences of taste, touch, smell, sight and sound to capture a vivid impression of what it was to have lived in the Russian world, so uniquely placed as it is between East and West, during the last three hundred years.

The book discusses the significance of sensory history in relation to modern Russia and covers a range of exciting case studies, rich with primary source material, that provide a stimulating way of understanding modern Russia at a visceral level.

Russian History through the Senses is a novel text that is of great value to scholars and students interested in modern Russian studies.


History Honors Students Win Research Grants

Congratulations to Honors HIST students Corbin Stinnett and Caitlin Beasley who won research grants from the Society for the History of Medicine and Health Professions.  Both completed research at the UAMS Historical Research Center to support their honors thesis.  Beasley defended her thesis “The Medical Marketing of Eureka Springs” under the direction of Professor Trish Starks in Spring 2016 and is headed to the University of Oklahoma to work on a MA in the history of science.  Stinnett is a senior working on his thesis “Confronting the Crimson Killer:  A Critical Examination of Pellagra Eradication in Arkansas” under the direction of Professor Mike Pierce.  You can read more about their activities at the Research center here.


HIST PhD Matt Parnell Accepts Post-Doctoral Fellowship at American University in Cairo

Congratulations to Matt Parnell! He was just awarded a three year Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the American University in Cairo (AUC). While a fellow, he will teach courses in the AUC Core Curriculum and Department of History as well as continuing his scholarly research with funds for travel and other support toward that end. He recently defended his dissertation “Youth…Power…Egypt: The Development of Youth as a Sociopolitical Concept and Force in Egypt, 1805-1923” under the direction of Professor Joel Gordon. Professor Gordon was joined by Professors Nikolay Antov and Lisa Pollard (UNC-Wilmington).


PhD Rebecca Howard Accepts Position at Lone Star College

Congratulations to Dr. Rebecca Howard! She recently accepted a tenure-track professorship at Lone Star College in Houston, Texas starting in Fall 2016. Howard defended her dissertation "Civil War Unionists and their Legacy in the Arkansas Ozarks" under the direction of Dr. Jeannie Whayne in November 2015. 


PhD Candidate Michael Powers wins Two National Fellowships

PhD Candidate Michael Powers just won both a Global South Fellowship from Tulane University’s New Orleans Center for the Gulf South and a month long fellowship from the Smithsonian Library’s Baird Society Resident Scholar Program.  Both will enable him to conduct research there on his dissertation, “The Commercial Union of the Three Americas: Major Edward Burke and Transnational New South Visionaries, 1870-1928” directed by Professor Daniel Sutherland.


PhD Candidate Madeleine Forrest Ramsey Wins Mellon Fellowship from Virginia Historical Society

Congratulations to PhD Candidate Madeleine Forrest Ramsey! She has won a Mellon Fellowship from the Virginia Historical Society to conduct research there this summer on her dissertation, “The Cruel Consequences of War: Life in Fauquier County, Virginia, 1861-1865” under the direction of Dr. Daniel Sutherland.


Professors Cleveland and Hammond win Arts & Humanities Seed Grants

Prof. Kelly Hammond, whose book proposal “China’s Muslim Minority and Japan’s Quest for Empire in Asia, 1925-1945," was selected for funding by the Arts & Humanities Seed Grant competition sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Research (VPRED). The grant will allow Dr. Hammond to travel to Tokyo and Taiwan for research this summer.

Professor Todd Cleveland’s book project “Mobilities: African Labor, Social Ascension, and Tourism in Colonial Mozambique, c. 1890-1975” has also won this year’s Arts & Humanities Seed Grant!  The grant will allow Professor Cleveland to travel to Portugal this summer.


Professor Charles Robinson Appointed Vice-Chancellor of Student Affairs

Charles Robinson has been named vice chancellor for the newly aligned Division of Student Affairs effective May 1. Robinson has served as interim vice provost for student affairs since July 2015, while also serving as vice chancellor for diversity and community.

“We couldn’t ask for a better fit than Charles Robinson to oversee this important division, one that impacts every one of our students,” Steinmetz said. “The reach of the office of diversity and community for our students has grown steadily under his direction. He will continue all of those initiatives in his new role while expanding efforts to increase retention and graduation and enhance the overall student experience at the U of A.”

The new alignment of the division is based on recommendations made by a committee of students, faculty and staff appointed by the chancellor to research the most effective way to support student engagement and success while enhancing the university’s diversity initiatives.

The Student Affairs Division will continue to manage student activities, student media, university housing, career services, the Pat Walker Health Center, university programs, student standards and conduct, the Veterans Resource and Information Center, New Student and Family Programs, Greek Life and many other offices and programs while adding the Center for Multicultural and Diversity Education, TRIO programs, the College Access Initiative and the new Accelerated Student Achievement Program (ASAP).

Robinson served as vice provost for diversity affairs within the U of A division of academic affairs before being named vice chancellor in 2013. He joined the U of A faculty in 1999, achieved the rank of full professor of history and served as director of the African American Studies program.


PhD Student wins National Research Grant to Hoover Presidential Library

Congratulations to PhD Student Arley Ward who won a research grant from the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. Ward will use the grant to research an article, “Articles of Segregation: Westbrook Pegler and Fair Enough” which will become part of his dissertation, directed by Professor Mike Pierce. Congratulations Arley!


PhD Candidate Aaron Moulton Wins National Article Award

Join the history department in congratulating PhD Candidate Aaron Moulton—his 2015 Cold War History article, “Building their own Cold War in their own Backyard: The Transnational, International Conflicts in the Greater Caribbean Basin, 1944-1954” just received the Sturgis Leavitt Award for the best article on a Latin American or Iberian subject published in the previous calendar year by the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies. Congratulations Aaron!


Historians Win Fulbright College Awards

Congratulations to Professor Laurence Hare and Charles Robinson.  Professor Hare recently won the Fulbright College Outstanding Advisor Award for his work as Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of History and as the Director of International Studies.  Fulbright College just awarded Professor Charles Robinson this year’s Omni Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology Award which recognizes faculty efforts to promote a culture of peace and study of nonviolence.


Professor Randall Woods Publishes New Book

Congratulations to Professor Randall Woods who just published his latest book, Prisoners of Hope:  Lyndon Johnson, the Great Society, and the Limits of Liberalism (Basic Books).

President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was breathtaking in its scope and dramatic in its impact. Over the course of his time in office, Johnson passed over one thousand pieces of legislation designed to address an extraordinary array of social issues. Poverty and racial injustice were foremost among them, but the Great Society included legislation on issues ranging from health care to immigration to education and environmental protection. But while the Great Society was undeniably ambitious, it was by no means perfect. In Prisoners of Hope, prize-winning historian Randall B. Woods presents the first comprehensive history of the Great Society, exploring both the breathtaking possibilities of visionary politics, as well as its limits.

Soon after becoming president, Johnson achieved major legislative victories with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But he wasn’t prepared for the substantial backlash that ensued. Community Action Programs were painted as dangerously subversive, at worst a forum for minority criminals and at best a conduit through which the federal government and the inner city poor could bypass the existing power structure. Affirmative action was rife with controversy, and the War on Poverty was denounced by conservatives as the cause of civil disorder and disregard for the law. As opposition, first from white conservatives, but then also some liberals and African Americans, mounted, Johnson was forced to make a number of devastating concessions in order to secure the future of the Great Society. Even as many Americans benefited, millions were left disappointed, from suburban whites to the new anti-war left to African Americans. The Johnson administration’s efforts to draw on aspects of the Great Society to build a viable society in South Vietnam ultimately failed, and as the war in Vietnam descended into quagmire, the president’s credibility plummeted even further.

A cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of even well-intentioned policy, Prisoners of Hope offers a nuanced portrait of America’s most ambitious—and controversial—domestic policy agenda since the New Deal.


PhD Student Selected to Attend National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar

Congratulations to PhD Student Michael Bohlen who was just selected to attend the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar “On Native Grounds: Studies of Native American Histories and the Land” at the Library of Congress in June. Bohlen and sixteen other scholars will be working closely with prominent historians Ned Blackhawk, Kathleen DuVal, and Daniel Richter, among others, with the goal of integrating groundbreaking research into his own teaching and research. Bohlen was one of only three graduate students selected for this program. 


PhD Graduate Bianca Rowlett Accepts Position at University of South Carolina-Sumter

Congratulations to Dr. Bianca Rowlett who just accepted a tenure-track position at the University of South Carolina—Sumter. Dr. Rowlett earned her PhD in 2014 under the direction of Professor Randall Woods with a dissertation titled “Jeane Kirkpatick and Neoconservatism: The Intellectual Evolution of a Liberal.” Please wish her well as she prepares for her move to Sumter, South Carolina.


HIST Graduate Students win Arkansas Historical Association Awards

The Arkansas Historical Association recently bestowed honors on two UA HIST students!

Congratulations to Rebecca Howard whose dissertation “Civil War Unionists and their Legacy in the Arkansas Ozarks” has won the Arkansas Historical Association’s 2016 James L. Foster & Billy W. Beason Award for best dissertation or thesis addressing some aspect of Arkansas history. 

Congratulations to PhD Student Chelsea Hodge whose article “The Coal Operator’s Daughter:  Folklore and Labor Activism in the Upland South” won the Arkansas Women’s History Institute’s best unpublished article award.


PhD Student Rebekah McMillan wins Research Grant

Congratulations to PhD Student Rebekah McMillan.  The Central European History Society has just awarded her a travel grant to enable her to conduct research this summer at the Nordrhein-Westfalen Landesarchiv in Düsseldorf, the Stadtarchive in Wuppertal, and the Landesarchiv in Berlin. These archives hold important collections regarding the Elberfeld Poor Relief System, a central piece of her dissertation, directed by Professor Laurence Hare.


Professors White and Whayne Appointed to UA Press Advisory Board

Congratulations to Professors White and Whayne who were recently appointed to the University of Arkansas Press Advisory Board.  The board will advise the press in its mission to publish the highest quality scholarship that serves the broader academic community and Arkansas and the region.


HIST PhD Blake Duffield Accepts Position at Central Baptist College

Congratulations to Blake Duffield who just recently accepted a position as Assistant Professor of History at Central Baptist College in Conway effective July 1. He recently defended his dissertation “The Grey Men of Empire: Framing Britain’s Official Mind, 1854-1934” under the direction of Dr. Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon. Congratulations Dr. Duffield! 

History Says Farewell to Professor Beth Schweiger

It is with sad hearts that the History Department must say goodbye to a beloved faculty member. Prof. Schweiger has just finished her teaching here at the U of A and is on her way to Seattle, WA, where she will begin a new chapter in her own book. We wish her the very best.  Prof. Schweiger earned her PhD from the University of Virginia in 1994. It wasn’t until 2000 that she joined the faculty here at the University of Arkansas. In her time here, she has received numerous fellowships and awards—the most recent being named Outstanding Advisor in 2014 by the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 2012-13—she also won the College’s Master Teacher Award too. She has presented scores of papers at conferences nationwide. Her historical focus is on books, grammar and literacy, and religion in early America, especially the American South. If you wanted to know whether, and what, people in antebellum America read, she would be the person to ask. 


Distinguished Professor Elliott West Accepts Oxford University Visiting Professorship

Congratulations to Professor Elliott West! He has just been named the 2017-2018 Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History at Oxford University. Prof. West’s position will come with a Chair that is affiliated with Queen's College, Oxford, and the Rothermere American Institute, which will require him to spend a year in England teaching, conducting seminars, and pursuing research.  West joins eminent scholars who have held the chair before including Kristin Hoganson, Annette Gordon-Reed, Richard Blackett, Gary Gerstle, Phillip Morgan, Lizabeth Cohen, Linda Kerber, Alan Brinkley, John Lewis Gaddis, James Patterson, C. Vann Woodward, and William Leuchtenberg


Professor Michael Pierce wins SEC Visiting Faculty Travel Grant

Professor Michael Pierce just won an SEC Visiting Faculty Travel Grant. Funded by the SECU academic initiative, the award will allow Professor Pierce to conduct research at the JD Williams Library located on the campus of the University of Mississippi. He will also be lecturing to students about southern labor history. Congratulations to Professor Pierce!


PhD Graduate Amanda Ford Accepts Position at Carson-Newman University

Congratulations to PhD Candidate Amanda Ford who just accepted a tenure-track faculty position at Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tennessee! Ford is a modern British historian who completed her dissertation this semester on British imperial policy in Kenya during the Mau Mau Rebellion under Professor Grob-Fitzgibbon. Best wishes as she leaves Fayetteville at the end of the semester for a January start in Jefferson City!


Professor Gigantino wins Book Awards and Signs Advance Contract

Congratulations to Professor James Gigantino whose 2014 book, The Ragged Road to Abolition:  Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1775-1865, won the Richard P. McCormick Prize from the New Jersey Historical Commission.  The award honors the best book published in the field of New Jersey history in 2013 or 2014 and comes with a $1500 cash prize.  His book also won the 2015 New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance Authors Award for the best non-fiction book on New Jersey history.

He also signed an advance contract for his new book, William Livingston’s American Revolution, with the University of Pennsylvania Press.  The book uses the life and experiences of Livingston, New Jersey’s first governor, to explore how ordinary Americans experienced the American Revolution.  The New Jersey Historical Commission has supported the project with an $8500 research grant.


 Professor Gomez Receives Book Contract

The University of Nebraska Press has offered Prof. Rocio Gomez an advanced contract for her book Silver Veins and Dusty Lungs: Water, Public Health, and the Environmental Legacies of Industry in Modern Mexico. Gomez’s book argues that residents in the mining city of Zacatecas sought control over nature as a way to define their role as citizens of Modern Mexico. Her research explores how U.S. and European mining interests clashed with farmers and city residents over the access to water, environmental health concerns, and disease compensation. Congratulations Prof. Gomez!


Professor Laurence Hare Named Director of International Studies

Congratulations to Professor Laurence Hare who has been named director of the International Studies program at the University of Arkansas.

"The International Studies program, formerly known as International Relations, has a long history in Fulbright College," Hare said. "I'm excited to carry on the tradition set by former directors to support the college's international mission and reinforce the Fulbright legacy of peace through education."

Hare specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of modern Europe. His research focuses on the development of nationalist movements in Germany and Scandinavia and explores how visions of nations move across borders.

The International Studies program (formerly known as International Relations) encompasses exploration of the world and its peoples, including its politics, economics, cultures, societies and environment. It uses such varied subjects as international security, international economics, foreign relations, history, political science, geography, sociology, anthropology and foreign languages and draws on the resources and expertise of many academic departments across campus. Students are strongly encouraged to participate in study abroad as part of their degree program. The program is housed in Fulbright College, serving as a vital component in the fulfillment of Senator Fulbright's vision.


Professor Hammond Awarded Summer Research Grant

Prof. Kelly Hammond has been awarded a summer research grant from the Center for Chinese Studies in Taiwan for summer 2016. Hammond will be affiliated with the Academia Sinica (the most prestigious research institute in Taiwan and one of the top in Asia). The grant will allow her three months to conduct research in the Nationalist archives, which were moved to Taiwan after the Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949. Her current project argues that Chinese Muslims living under occupation who collaborated with the Japanese were actively involved in creating an on-going dialogue between the Japanese Empire and the Chinese Nationalists about strategies for managing minority populations. The research trip is meant to help her triangulate her argument since she's already done research in Japan and on the Chinese mainland. Hammond hopes that looking at government documents and personal communications between the Nationalist government officials will strengthen parts of her argument concerning Chinese Nationalists' reactions to Japanese policy successes regarding Muslims living under occupation. 


Professor Todd Cleveland Publishes New Book!

Congratulations to Professor Todd Cleveland who recently published Diamonds in the Rough: Corporate Paternalism and African Professionalism on the Mines of Colonial Angola, 1917-1975 (Ohio University Press, 2015), a top publisher in the field of African history. Diamonds in the Rough explores the lives of African laborers on Angola’s diamond mines from the commencement of operations in 1917 to the colony’s independence from Portugal in 1975. The mines were owned and operated by the Diamond Company of Angola, or Diamang, which enjoyed exclusive mining and labor concessions granted by the colonial government. Through these monopolies, the company became the most profitable enterprise in Portugal’s African empire. After a tumultuous initial period, the company’s mines and mining encampments experienced a remarkable degree of stability, in striking contrast to the labor unrest and ethnic conflicts that flared in other regions. Even during the Angolan war for independence (1961–75), Diamang’s zone of influence remained comparatively untroubled.


Professor Gigantino Publishes New Book on Slavery and Secession Arkansas

Congratulations to Professor Jim Gigantino who recently published Slavery and Secession in Arkansas:  A Documentary History with the University of Arkansas Press. 

 The absorbing documents collected in Slavery and Secession in Arkansas trace Arkansas’s tortuous road to secession and war. Drawn from contemporary pamphlets, broadsides, legislative debates, public addresses, newspapers, and private correspondence, these accounts show the intricate twists and turns of the political drama in Arkansas between early 1859 and the summer of 1861. From an early warning of what Republican political dominance would mean for the South, through the initial rejection of secession, to Arkansas’s final abandonment of the Union, readers, even while knowing the eventual outcome, will find the journey both suspenseful and informative.

Revealing both the unique features of the secession story in Arkansas and the issues that Arkansas shared with much of the rest of the South, this collection illustrates how Arkansans debated their place in the nation and, specifically, how the defense of slavery—as both an assurance of continued economic progress and a means of social control—remained central to the decision to leave the Union and fight alongside much of the South for four bloody years of civil war.


Professor Sloan Signs Advance Book Contract with University of California Press

Professor Kathryn Sloan, chair of history, has signed an advance book contract with the University of California Press for her new monograph, Death in the City: Suicide and the Social Imaginary in Modern Mexico.  The book will appear in the Violence in Latin America series.

In the book, Sloan explores the phenomenon of suicide in Mexico from 1880 to 1930 from multiple perspectives and a variety of sources. Marshaling suicide inquests, goodbye letters, testimonies, newspaper reporting, illustrated broadsides, medical studies, and forensic reports, Sloan argues that suicide was a touchstone for public discourse about the consequences of modernity and changing gender roles in Mexican society. Likewise the condition of Mexico’s youth, who seemed the most bent on self-destruction, alarmed observers who lamented the corrupting influences and vices of urban life. Featuring chapters on the changing cultural and medical meanings of suicide, dramatic public suicides in symbolic spaces, vernacular memorialization at sites of suicide, and meanings inscribed on the suicidal body, the book also argues that Mexican essayist and poet Octavio Paz was dead wrong. Mexicans did not taunt, caress, or laugh at death. Death was not their welcome friend. Mexicans displayed a myriad of emotions and grieved in the face of the suicide epidemic that consumed their youth across the cusp of the twentieth century.

Sloan's previous works include Women's Roles in Latin America and the Caribbean (2011) and Runaway Daughters: Seduction, Elopement, and Honor in Nineteenth-Century Mexico (2008).


Professor Muntz Signs Contract with Oxford University Press for New Book

Professor Charles E. Muntz has signed a contract with Oxford University Press for his book, Diodorus Siculus and the World of the Late Roman Republic.  

The book is an exciting reevaluation of one of the most important surviving historians of antiquity. Much maligned in 19th and 20th century historiography, Diodorus received derisive monikers such as ‘the grand epitomizer’ or a ‘mere compiler.’ Professor Muntz has resurrected Diodorus Siculus and analyzed the man in his times, offering new information about the turmoil of the Late Roman Empire and how it impacted the composition and publication of his multi-volume Bibliotheke.

Muntz argues that far from being a mere compiler of earlier works as he is usually portrayed, Diodorus was closely engaged in the intellectual debates surrounding the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of Julius Caesar through his accounts of ancient near-eastern civilizations. Not only does Muntz re-evalute Diodorus but he brings context to the perilous position of historians in the period.  For a Greek provincial without connections or patrons, Diodorus engaged in dangerous commentary and may have never been able to properly publish the work that he spent thirty years on.

Professor Muntz, is currently Visiting Fellow of Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge while completing his year-long fellowship from the Loeb Classical Library Foundation at Harvard University.  He will return this fall to the classrooms of the University of Arkansas where he teaches courses on the history and culture of the ancient world from the late Bronze Age to the fall of the Roman Empire as well as occasional courses on Greek and Latin.


Professor Grob-Fitzgibbon to Join Foreign Service

Professor Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon, Cleveland C. Burton Professor in International Programs, will be joining the United States Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer on the political affairs track. Sadly, this means that he will be leaving the department. Selection to the Foreign Service is a notoriously rigorous process, with only about 3% of applicants accepted.  Once selected, applicants are given little time before training and deployment.  At this time, Grob-Fitzgibbon does not know where he will be deployed as final assignments will not come until five weeks into training.  He and his family will travel to a new assignment every two to three years thereafter.

He leaves the university after a very successful career in research, teaching, and administration. Grob-Fitzgibbon joined the department in 2007 after having completed his PhD at Duke.  He is the author of three books, The Irish Experience during the Second World War: An Oral History (2004); Turning Points of the Irish Revolution: The British Government, Intelligence, and the Cose of Indifference, 1912-1921 (2007); and Imperial Endgame: Britain’s Dirty Wars and the End of Empire (2011).  He has another forthcoming this fall: The British and Europe: From the End of Empire to the Rise of Euroscepticism, 1945 to the Present.

Grob-Fitzgibbon, who served as the director of the International Studies program from 2009 to the present, won several teaching awards, including the “Rising Star” from the University of Arkansas Alumni Association in 2013, the Fulbright College Master Teacher Award in 2012, and was elected to the teaching academy. 

In his farewell to the department, Grob-Fitzgibbon noted: “The University of Arkansas has been a wonderful place to begin my career and I am certain I will be a better diplomat for the experiences I have had here.”


History Undergraduate Receives Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Grant

Zoe Gastineau, a departmental honors student majoring in history and Asian studies, has been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Grant by the US Department of State.  Zoe will be spending the next year teaching English in South Korea.  Find out more about the program here.


Department Mourns Passing of Professor Michael O'Brien

Members of the History department regret to report the passing of their long-time colleague and friend Michael O'Brien. During his time on our faculty (1980-1987), he published both All Clever Men, Who Make Their Way and A Character of Hugh Legare, two studies of antebellum thought in the American South that not only established him as one of the most authoritative scholars in the field, but also pointed the way toward his two-volume Bancroft Prize masterwork, Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life in the American South, 1810-1860.  Michael and his delightful wife Tricia also became socially indispensable during those years, hosting Friday evening gatherings that were often dangerously hilarious, certainly never dull. Those in the department whose youth denied them the pleasure of having known Michael and Tricia during that time had the opportunity to enjoy their company last year, when Michael, by then having achieved his lifetime goal of joining the faculty at his alma mater, Cambridge University, returned to deliver the Donovan Lecture.

Michael O'Brien combined intellectual independence, analytical brilliance, and felicity of expression to a rare degree. He was truly one of a kind. He will be greatly missed.  Our thoughts are with Tricia at this difficult time.

[Thank you to David Sloan for penning this remembrance.]

An obituary from The Guardian is available here.


History Professors well represented in Fulbright College Award Winners

Fulbright college handed out their awards for 2015 and the strengths of the history department were on full display.

  • Elizabeth Kiszonas received the Yowell Graduate Teaching Award
  • Professor Caree Banton received the Omni Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology Award
  • Professor James Gigantino was named a Fulbright College Master Teacher
  • Professor Beth Schweiger received the Nolan Award for Contribution to Graduate Education

History Undergraduate Named Truman Scholar

Madeleine Albright announced John Grant Addison (HIST/PLSC major; THTR/MRST Minor) as one of 58 Truman Scholars for 2015. The Truman Scholarship Foundation, funded through the US Treasury, helps students attend graduate school for careers in government and public service.

Find out more about the Truman Foundation here.


Dr. Jason McCollom has accepted a tenure-track position at Missouri State University-West Plains

Dr. Jason McCollom, who completed his dissertation - "Political Harvests: Transnational Farmers' Movements in North Dakota and Saskatchewan, 1905-1950" -- in 2014 under the direction of Dean Emeritus Bob McMath, has accepted a tenure- track position at Missouri State University - West Plains.  He will begin work at the campus in West Plains, MO in fall of 2015.


Historian Wins NIH/NLM Grant

Trish Starks, Associate Professor of History, has received a $120,000 NIH/NLM Grant for Scholarly Works in Biomedicine and Health. The grant will allow Starks to take research leave for the next two and a half years to complete her monograph on tobacco use in Russia. Cigarettes and Soviets: The Culture of Tobacco Use in Modern Russia will be the first scholarly monograph in Russian or English to detail the explosion of Russian tobacco consumption over the last 130 years and examine the cessation efforts from government, medical, and religious authorities. 

Find out more about the project here.


Dr. Kelly Jones accepts tenure-track position at Austin-Peay State University

Dr. Kelly Jones (UARK PhD, 2014) has accepted a tenure track assistant professorship at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.  Jones, who completed her PhD under the supervision of Dr. Jeannie Whayne, wrote on the history of slavery in Arkansas utilizing slave narratives from the Federal Writers Project. 

Read more here.


Professor Banton Wins Prestigious Fellowship

Caree Banton, Assistant Professor of Afro-Caribbean History, won the very prestigious and competitive $30,000 Lapidus Center Fellowship from the Schomberg Center for the Research in Black Culture. The fellowship provides a six-month residency to work in the archives of the New York Public Library system, office space, and ample opportunities to engage with other scholars with similar interests.  Professor Banton will work on her book, More Auspicious Shores: Post-Emancipation Barbadian Emigrants in Pursuit of Freedom, Citizenship, and Nationhood in Liberia, 1834-1912, which explores the emigration of 346 Barbadians to Liberia via the American Colonization Society. Banton utilizes letters, ship manifests, civil and church records, Liberian government records, and other sources to analyze the changes in the lives of Barbadian migrant families as they transitioned from living in a Caribbean post-emancipation society to life in a West African republic. Banton’s research engages multiple historiographies and challenges scholars to rethink such categories as the “black Atlantic”—a term that has homogenized the experiences of diverse actors.


A Tantalizing Preview of Dr. Woods's Book on The Great Society

Check out Distinguished Professor Randall Woods's article, "The Great Society: The Forgotten Reform Movement," on The Conversation, an online journal funded by many of the philanthropies that support NPR and other journalistic efforts.  Its tagline is "academic rigor, journalistic flair"!

Click here: http://theconversation.com/the-great-society-the-forgotten-reform-movement-35727

Professor Freddy Dominguez Nominated to Send NEH Summer Stipend Proposal Forward

Each year the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) asks universities to nominate two full-time faculty members to apply for the NEH summer stipend competition. Summer stipends ($6,000) support continuous full-time work on a humanities project for a period of two consecutive months. The program receives on average 960 applications per year and makes approximately 80 awards per year.

Humanities research thrives at the U of A. Applications for the in-house vetting increased 400% this year and among a very strong U of A faculty pool, Professor Freddy Domínguez's proposal, "'We Must Fight with Paper and Pens': Spanish Elizabethan Texts and their Many Uses at the End of the Sixteenth Century," received the green light to move forward.

Congratulations Dr. Domínguez!

Posted: Tuesday, September 02, 2014


Doctoral Student Wins 5-year SREB Fellowship

Bethany Henry, PhD student in History, has won a Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) Doctoral Scholars Program Fellowship to fund her studies for 5 years. The SREB program's goal is to produce more minority PhD students who seek careers as faculty on college campuses. According to the SREB website, "The Doctoral Scholars program provides financial assistance, academic/research funding, career counseling and job postings, scholar counseling and advocacy, a scholar directory for networking and recruiting, invitation to the annual Institute on Teaching and Mentoring, and continued early career support." Ms. Henry will continue her research on Native American history during the 19th century. She has worked with Professors Sutherland, West, and Whayne.

Congratulations Bethany!

Posted: Monday, July 28, 2014


Fall Special Topics Courses

HIST 3823 001/ ANTH 3903 002
MWF 10:45 – 11:35 a.m.
WCOB 241
 
Dr. Robert Brubaker

Introduction to Early South Asia
This lecture course is intended to provide students with an overview of the development of civilization in South Asia from the earliest times to c. 1600 CE. Beginning with the early food producers of the Neolithic period, the early portions of this journey culminated in the emergence of the Indus Valley Civilization in the third millennium BCE – South Asia’s first, and ultimately abortive, experiment with urban civilization. Although the achievements of the Indus Civilization included the development of a written script, the latter remains undeciphered, and so our understandings of this (and earlier) periods will rest heavily on the work of archaeologists. Tracing subsequent developments, we will turn our attention first to the Vedic era of the late 2nd – early 1st millennia BCE, and to the re-emergence of urbanism, states, and writing associated with the rise of the Mauryan empire during the succeeding Early Historic period. Moving forward to the first millennium CE, we will consider the formation of regional polities across the subcontinent, mercantile and other contacts beyond it, and the character of Classical Indian Civilization. Our journey will conclude with a consideration of the establishment of Turkish power in South Asia during the latter half of the 1st millennium CE and subsequent developments up through the period of European contact. Although the data are frequently limited, an important objective of the course will be to identify in a holistic manner significant interconnections between political, economic, religious and social developments across the periods in question. Designed as an introduction, this course requires no special prerequisites beyond an interest in learning about early South Asia.


HIST 3983 001 Tu/Th
11:00 – 12:15 p.m.
SCEN 613

Dr. Jared Phillips

Human Rights
This course is designed to acquaint students with the development and growth of universal human rights since the end of World War II. We will begin with discussions about the meaning and nature of human rights, universalism and relativism. From there, we will examine the UN Human Rights Declaration and then move through the rise of the Third World, the development of a global competition in defining and enacting human rights domestically and internationally, and what human rights efforts have looked like since the end of the Cold War. By the end of the course, students should be able to understand the major themes, efforts, and events in the contemporary history of human rights, and will be more ideally situated to comment on the state of human rights in the 21st century.


HIST 3983-002/AAST 499V-005 MWF
12:55 – 1:45 p.m.
BELL 2268

Dr. Timothy Landry

Voodoo: From Africa to Our Imaginations
When Westerners hear the word “voodoo,” images of zombies, black magic, and grotesque ritual sacrifice often flood our thoughts. However, these images – long portrayed by film, popular culture, and news media – can be seen as offensive and even racist to the millions of people across the globe who practice some version of the religion known as “Voodoo” in the world today. Called “Vodún” in West Africa (Togo, Bénin, and Nigeria), Vodou in Haiti, and Voodoo in the Mississippi Valley (especially New Orleans), the practice of “Voodoo” is diverse and expansive. Despite Voodoo’s great diversity, the single term “Voodoo” is often used in the West to condense all sub-Saharan African religious practices into a monolithic religious practice that is thought to be steeped in superstition and irrationality. In this course we will examine the lived experiences of “voodoo” practitioners from West Africa and the religion’s connection to the African Americas (esp. Haiti, and the Mississippi Valley). To complement this inquiry, we will also analyze the role of popular culture in the politics and meaning behind concepts such as “voodoo economics,” “zombies,” and “black magic.” While complicating Western imaginations and fantasies of “Voodoo,” we will also learn that despite racial stereotyping and anti-Africa sentiments around the globe, “Voodoo” is emerging as a “world religion” and a powerful global force supported by complex global “voodoo economies,” tourism, and increased interest in the practice and spirituality of “Voodoo.”

Posted: Thursday, July 24, 2014


New PhD in the History House

Confident before his panel of inquisitors--Professors Muntz, Coon, and Levine—Michael McCoy defended his dissertation, "The Responses of the Roman Imperial Government to Natural Disasters (29 BCE- 180 CE).” His project is the first attempt to systematically investigate how the Roman Empire responded to natural disasters. Through an examination of fires, floods, earthquakes, and the eruption of Vesuvius McCoy establishes the various tools emperors had at their disposal to aid cities suffering from the vicissitudes of nature, and shows how these developed from Hellenistic euergetism. He also reveals how disaster relief could play an integral role in an emperor’s maintenance of power and that a botched effort could have very serious consequences for the imperial government.

Word has it that revisions are done and McCoy will be forever known as Dr. McCoy soon. Congratulations!

Posted: Monday, July 14, 2014


Read the Latest Volume of The Ozark Historical Review

Hot off the press! Volume 43 of The Ozark Historical Review is now available to read. In it, you will find:
  • "Volkswagen and the Volksprodukte: The Failed Revolution in Production and Consumption in the Third Reich," Stuart Bailey, 1
  • "Tokugawa Nationalism: The Decline of Chûgoku and the Restoration of Traditional Identity," Chad Totty, 19 
  • "Retelling a Tale in Pictures: A Fusion of the Arts in a Medieval Emaki of the Japanese Court Romance Genji no monogatari 'Tale of Genji,'" Sheena Woods, 31
  • "Luxury: The Shifting Moral Perspective in Eighteenth-Century Netherlands," Meaghan Morelock, 51
  • "The Prophet's Medicine: How Mormon Doctrine and Medical Practices Evolved Along the American Frontier," Drew Robinson, 69

Posted: Wednesday, June 25, 2014


Distinguished Professor Elliott West Lands Award for Research

A motley crew of Fulbright College fans and a giant check for $5,000 surprised Professor West in his classroom last week! A testament to Dr. West's brilliant research career, the Alumni Award for Distinguished Research is a wonderful honor.

Posted: Thursday, May 01, 2014


Professor Patrick Williams Co-Edits Volume of Primary Documents from the Civil War

Edited by Mark K. Christ and Patrick G. Williams, I Do Wish This Cruel War Was Over (University of Arkansas Press, 2014) offer a first-hand, ground-level view of the war’s horrors, its mundane hardships, its pitched battles and languid stretches, even its moments of frivolity. The book collects diaries, letters and memoirs excerpted from their original publication in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, which has been published since 1942 by the Arkansas Historical Association. The book’s readers will find varying degrees of commitment and different motivations among soldiers on both sides, along with the perspective of civilians. In many cases, these documents address aspects of the war that would become objects of scholarly and popular fascination only years after their initial appearance: the guerrilla conflict that became the “real war” west of the Mississippi; the “hard war” waged against civilians long before William Tecumseh Sherman set foot in Georgia; the work of women in maintaining households in the absence of men; and the complexities of emancipation, which saw African Americans winning freedom and sometimes losing it all over again.

The book’s readers will find varying degrees of commitment and different motivations among soldiers on both sides, along with the perspective of civilians. In many cases, these documents address aspects of the war that would become objects of scholarly and popular fascination only years after their initial appearance: the guerrilla conflict that became the “real war” west of the Mississippi; the “hard war” waged against civilians long before William Tecumseh Sherman set foot in Georgia; the work of women in maintaining households in the absence of men; and the complexities of emancipation, which saw African Americans winning freedom and sometimes losing it all over again.

Posted: Monday, April 14, 2014


History Graduate Student Awarded Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship

Sanket Desai, a doctoral candidate in the department of history, has been awarded a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS) to study Arabic at the University of Wisconsin's Arabic, Persian, and Turkish Language Immersion Institute. The highly-competitive FLAS fellowships, with funds to educational centers made available by the U.S. Department of Education’s Title VI program, provide tuition and fees for both academic year and summer programs where the focus is on less commonly taught modern languages.

The Title VI initiative began in 1958 as part of the National Defense Education Act with the intention of encouraging study of languages, cultures, and histories of less commonly investigated regions of the world. The National Resource Centers funded by Title VI attempt to bring an academic response to global security needs.

Mr. Desai (B.A. Eastern Michigan University,2008; MA Purdue, 2011) is pursuing a PhD under the direction of Professor Joel Gordon, director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies and Professor of History. In his dissertation, “Emerging from Occupation: Development and the Creation of the Iraqi Nation, 1946-1958”, Desai will explore the relationship between nationalism and subaltern groups in interwar Iraq.

Professor Tricia Starks, Director of Graduate Studies in the department of history, notes “Desai is a devoted teacher for the department, an active member of the University community, and a top-flight research scholar. It is great to see one of our fantastic graduate students recognized with an illustrious fellowship like the FLAS award.”

http://aptlii.global.wisc.edu/

http://www2.ed.gov/programs/iegpsflasf/index.html

Posted: Tuesday, April 08, 2014


Professor Richard Sonn Named Fellow in NEH Summer Institute

Organizers of the NEH Summer Institute, World War I and the Arts: Sound, Vision, Psyche, chose Richard Sonn to join their select group of scholars, calling his application "stellar" and his participation certain to enrich discussions. The institute will take place at the University of Cincinnati in June/July 2014. Congratulations Professor Sonn!

Summer Institute description:
The Great War has long been narrated in the West as a largely European story, with only passing attention to colonial territories and to soldiers of non-European origin. The terrible stories of the Eastern Front, or of the Ottoman-Russian front, are little told compared to the Western front. One can watch hours of documentary and fictional film, and read thousands of pages of novels, poetry, and memoirs, without learning much about Indian colonial soldiers, the Harlem Hellfighters, or the many colonial subjects from Africa and Asia who fought in the war. Our institute aims to remedy that by studying this critically important era from transregional perspectives on war and the arts, with arts defined not only as literature, performing arts, visual arts, and film, but also as the healing arts. For more information, see http://www.uc.edu/webapps/NEHwwone2014/default.htm.

Posted: Monday, March 31, 2014


Professor Charles Muntz Lands $30,000 Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship

The Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library Foundation awarded Professor Muntz a $30,000 "salary enhancement" fellowship for the 2014-15 academic year for his project, Writing the World: Diodorus I-III and the Invention of Universal History. Already awarded a Wolfson Visiting Fellowship at the University of Cambridge for 2014-15, Professor Muntz will utilize his research leave and funding to consult scholarly works in the UK, procure scholarly monographs, and complete revisions on his book project.

James Loeb founded the Loeb Classical Library in 1911 with two goals in mind: To make the work of classical authors accessible to as many readers as possible—regardless of their knowledge of Greek or Latin—so they could profit from the wisdom of the ancients that had enriched his life so much. Secondly, he wanted the Loeb Classical Library to offer the best of Anglo-American classical scholarship. The Loeb Classical Library Foundation awards fellowships to qualified scholars to support research, publication, and other projects in the area of classical studies. Fellowships will normally range from $1,000 to $35,000 and may occasionally exceed that limit in the case of unusually interesting and promising projects. Applicants must have faculty or faculty emeritus status at a college or university at the time of application and during the entire time covered by the fellowship.

Posted: Friday, April 04, 2014


History Doctoral Student Wins Fellowship to Complete His Dissertation

History doctoral student Aaron Moulton, has won a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the Harry S. Truman Library Institute for National and International Affairs. The institute is a private, non-profit partner of the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. The Institute supports a number of research grants for scholars investigating the life, career, or public and foreign policy affairs of President Truman.

The $16,000 Dissertation Completion Fellowship will allow Mr. Moulton to focus on writing his dissertation, “The Dictator’s Backyard: Rafael Trujillo and the Dawn of the Cold War in the Greater Caribbean Basin, 1944-1954.” In his dissertation, Mr. Moulton recasts the story of the overthrow of Guatemala’s democracy in the 1950s from a transnational perspective engaging not just materials from the US but also the stories of other Central American and Caribbean nations and creating an engaging history of the many exiles, counter-revolutionaries, democrats, and dictators who shaped the region.

Moulton is completing his dissertation under the direction of the John A. Cooper Professor of History and Distinguished Professor Randall Woods.

Posted: Friday, March 14, 2014


Early Modern Europe Specialist to Join History Department in Fall 2014

Dr. Freddy Domínguez (PhD, Princeton) will join the U of A History department in fall 2014. A Mellon and NEH fellow, Dr. Domínguez completed fields in Early Modern Europe, Tudor-Stuart England, and the Old World and the New. His dissertation "We Must Fight with Paper and Pens": Spanish Elizabethan Polemic, 1585-1598 explores the activities of English Catholic exiles in Spain, Rome, and France. Focusing on the black propaganda writings of Nicholas Sander and Robert Parsons, Domínguez traces the evolution of these writings in their multiple lives and forms. Dr. Domínguez is the first to the discover the Spanish translation of Parson's The Conference and to systematically analyze the differences between the English, Spanish, and Latin versions. His research in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Latin has allowed Freddy Domínguez to recover the workings of a group of English Catholic exiles that had to navigate their way across multiple political arenas and power centers. His work speaks to several fields and sub-fields, including Elizabethan England, Golden Age Spain, the history of the book, counter reformation and confessional politics.

Professor Domínguez will offer two courses in the fall: HIST 4163 Tudor-Stuart England and HIST 4073 Renaissance and Reformation.

Posted: Monday, March 10, 2014


Professor Wolpert Named Senior Research Associate

The Master of Peterhouse at University of Cambridge, Adrian Dixon, has appointed Professor Wolpert a Senior Research Associate for the 2014-15 academic year. Wolpert was also awarded a Visiting Fellowship for the 2015 Lent term. Peterhouse is the oldest of the constituent colleges at the University of Cambridge, founded in 1284 by Hugo de Balsham, the Bishop of Ely. Housed in the lovely libraries among the best collections in early Asian music, Professor Wolpert will continue work on his project "Essentials for Biwa," a product of a lifetime of scholarly research and publications that will bring him full circle back to his original research as a doctoral student at Cambridge. The current project draws from his considerable expertise in Táng music and culture and his training as a computer scientist. Congratulations Rembrandt!

Posted: Tuesday, March 04, 2014


Mr. Bailey Goes to Washington...

The Department of History is proud to announce that Stuart Bailey has been selected for a nationally competitive Summer Research Assistantship at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. According to the Museum’ website, the program “acquaints promising MA-level and first-year PhD students with Holocaust studies by encouraging participation in the broad range of scholarly and publicly available educational programs offered by the Museum during the summer months.” Stuart will spend the summer of 2014 working in the museum archives and assisting postdoctoral fellows with a conference on forced labor in Central and Eastern Europe during the Second World War.

Stuart is a first-year M.A. student working with Dr. J. Laurence Hare in modern European history. His research deals with the history of production and consumption in twentieth-century Germany, with an emphasis on the development of the automobile industry. Before beginning his graduate studies, Stuart was an honors scholar majoring in history and German at the University of Arkansas. His honors thesis, “The Road to Fahrvergnügen: The Development of Car Culture in Postwar Germany,” was supported by a Statewide Undergraduate Research Fellowship from the Arkansas Department of Education.

Congratulations Stuart!

Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014


Professor Charlie Muntz Named Fellow at Cambridge University, 2014-15

History's own Professor Muntz will be headed to Cambridge University next fall as the Arkansas Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge University. Muntz will spend the academic year in the UK working on final revisions of his manuscript, Writing the World: Diodorus I-III and the Invention of Universal History. Fully exploiting the rich library resources at Cambridge, Professor Muntz will lay his hands (gloved of course!) on an 18th century edition of Diodorus, the only complete commentary in existence. Muntz aims to resurrect Diodorus for the scholar he was---erudite, original--and not simply a mere compiler but an individual who could unify a large corpus of diverse material with a careful eye to the contemporary cultural and political context. Congratulations Professor Muntz!

Posted: Monday, February 17, 2014


Professor Liang Cai Publishes Pioneering Research

Hot off the press! SUNY Press has just published Professor Liang Cai's innovative book, Witchcraft and the Rise of the First Confucian Empire as part of their illustrious series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. When did Confucians become the reigning political ideology of imperial China? A pervasive narrative holds it was during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (141087 BCE). In this book, Liang Cai maintains that such a date would have been too early and provides a new account of this transformation. A hidden narrative in Sima Qian's The Grand Scribe's Records (Shi ji) shows that Confucians were a powerless minority in the political realm of this period. Cai argues that the notorious witchcraft scandal of 91-87 BCE reshuffled power structure of the Western Han bureaucracy and provided Confucians an opportune moment to seize power, evolve into a new elite class, and set the tenor of political discourse for centuries to come. Congratulations Professor Cai!

Posted: Friday, February 07, 2014


Two History Grad Students Receive Scholarship Award

The History Department is proud to announce that two history graduate students, Mary Margaret Hui and Bethany Henry, have received the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Award for 2014-2015. The award was presented to them last month at the Fayetteville Town Center. Mary Margaret and Bethany received the award along with 10 high school students and 10 undergraduate students. It is a tremendous honor because out of 10 graduate students selected (from the entire campus) 2 of our own graduate history students were selected! It was a $1,000 scholarship award!

Congratulations ladies!

Posted: Friday, February 07, 2014


Professor Emeritus Awarded International Prize for Scholarship

The Austrian government has awarded the Karl von Vogelsang State Prize for the History of Social Sciences to Professor Emeritus Evan Burr Bukey.

An international jury of distinguished scholars in intellectual, social, and political history bestowed the award for Bukey’s life-long contributions to historical scholarship. The panel of judges emphasized his innovative approach to problems of the recent past and his skill in transmitting his findings to wider public. Bukey joins the illustrious ranks of other Vogelsang winners such as Professor Larry Woolf of NYU, Pieter M. Judson of Swarthmore College, and John Boyer of the University of Chicago.

Professor Bukey will receive the Volgelsang Prize on April 25, 2014 in the Federal Ministry of Science and Research in Vienna. Bukey is an award winning author of three books, most recently Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria (Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Posted: Wednesday, February 05, 2014


Professor Emeritus Publishes Essay

Please join HIST in celebrating the 2014 publication of William Tucker's essay "The Kufan Ghulat and Millenarian (Mahdist) Movements in Mongol-Turkmen Iran" in Unity in Diversity: Mysticism, Messianism and the Construction of Religious Authority in Islam, edited by Orkhan Mir-Kasimov (Boston: Brill, 2014). Congratulations Bill!

Posted: Friday, January 24, 2014


The History Department Mourns the Loss of Walter L. Brown, Professor Emeritus

Walter L. Brown, Professor Emeritus of History, passed away Friday, January 17, 2014. A larger than life scholar, teacher, and promoter of Arkansas history and the state, Professor Brown served as secretary-treasurer of the Arkansas Historical Association from 1955 to 1990 and editor of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly (AHQ) from 1958 to 1990. Walter Brown transformed the AHQ into a full-time scholarly journal. Current editor and Associate Professor of History, Patrick Williams notes "(U)nder Brown's leadership, for example, the Arkansas Historical Quarterly published some of the earliest scholarship on Arkansas's African-American and civil rights history. A pioneering, and unsparing, examination of the Little Rock school desegregation crisis by Numan Bartley appeared in the journal as early as 1966, while Orval Faubus was still governor." His courageous leadership of the Quarterly matched his scholarly zeal. Walter L. Brown wrote the decisive biography of Albert Pike (1997) and a textbook, Our Arkansas (1958), as well as other works. A native of Texas, but a lifelong booster for Arkansas—its history, its people, its relationship to the nation—Walter L. Brown will be missed and remembered by many.

The memorial service is at 2:00 pm today, January 21, 2014, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, AR.  If you wish to view or sign the guestbook, you can click here.

Posted: Tuesday, January 21, 2014


Forthcoming Book By Distinguished Professor of History Feature of Yale @rtbooks Blog

Distinguished Professor of History Daniel Sutherland is the focus of a long piece on the Yale Artbooks blog in preparation for the March publication of his book Whistler: A Life for Art's Sake.  The blog features an excerpt from the book regarding Whistler's journey to South America in 1866.

http://artbooks.yupnet.org/2013/12/13/sneak-peek-of-whistler-a-life-for-arts-sake/

Whistler joins the already staggering stack of scholarship from Sutherland. For more on his eight monographs, five edited books, and over fifty book chapters and articles take a look at his web bio at:

Posted: Friday, January 17, 2014


We Have Another Future Historian

Dr. Andrea Arrington and Tom Sirois welcome: Thomas Cooper Arrington Sirois. Born January 2 at 30 weeks, 2 days at a whopping 4.5 lbs. Cooper and mommy are doing great.

Posted: Thursday, January 02, 2014

"Accolade" is History's Middle Name.

Two History faculty first ranked for Cambridge Fellowships:

The Faculty Development Committee of Fulbright College named Charles Muntz, Assistant Professor of Ancient History, first for the Cambridge Fellowship at Wolfson College. Professor Muntz intends to harness the extensive library resources at Cambridge to complete the book revisions of Writing the World: Diodorus I-III and the Invention of Universal History. Muntz breaks tradition with traditional scholars that dismiss Diodorus as a grand epitomizer. Contrary to the estimation of 19th century author B.G. Niebuhr, Professor Muntz marshals a comprehensive analysis of Diodorus and his contemporaries' writings to posit that Diodorus originated the idea of universal history. Moreover, Muntz argues, Diodorus significantly influenced later, and more well respected writers, such as Strabo, Pompeius Trogus, and Nicolaus of Damascus.

 The Committee also ranked Elizabeth Markham, Professor of History, as their top candidate for the fellowship at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. Professor Markham is an alumna of Lucy Cavendish and a Cambridge-trained historical musicologist working on music and culture in early East Asia. She is the author of an essential book on medieval Japanese music, Saibara—Japanese Court Songs of the Heian Period, 2 volumes, (Cambridge University Press). Professor Markham will collaborate closely with pre-modern Asian music scholars at Cambridge and elsewhere in Europe on her current book project, The Songs of Chinese Poet and Musician Jiang Kui (1155-1221).

Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Chair Wins One of Four Fulbright College Summer Research Stipends:

Tricia Starks, Associate Professor, continues History's track record of winning the Fulbright Summer Research Stipend. Professor Starks will use the funds to complete the final portion of research in Moscow and St. Petersberg for her book project, Cigarettes and Soviets: A History of Tobacco Use in Modern Russia. Her book is an ambitious and encompassing social, cultural, and gendered history of tobacco consumption in Russia. Besides analyzing cessation efforts, policy reports, and internal ministry memos, Cigarettes and Soviets will reconstruct the culture of tobacco using newspapers, journals, industry publications, etiquette manuals, propaganda posters, popular literature, films, cartoons, and advertising images. The project is organized around tensions between consumers, producers, state taxation authorities, and advertisers on one side and medical, state, religious, and moral authorities on the other.

History Doctoral Students SWEEP the Fulbright Dissertation Research Awards:

Only two awards were bestowed on doctoral students in Fulbright College, and History students won both!

Scott Lloyd, medieval Spain (mentor: Lynda Coon), will utilize the funds to conduct archival research in Spain for his project, "Signed with the Sign of Salvation: The Order of Calatrava at the Forefront of Crusading in the Twelfth through early Fourteenth Centuries." Lloyd will peruse documents in several archives including the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid, where a large number of documents on the order of Calatrava have been collected, caches at the Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid, the Archivo General de Simancas, and various smaller archives in and around Toledo and Madrid.

Jeffrey Grooms, British Empire (mentor: Ben Grob-Fitzgibbon), plans to consult records in the Church Missionary Society archives, libraries at the Universities of Manchester and Birmingham, and the British Library in London to complete his dissertation, "A Gentleman's Burden: Difference and the Development of British Education at Home and in the Empire During the 19th Century." Additionally, Grooms will travel to Ireland to investigate the holdings of the National Library of Ireland in Dublin, Queen’s University Library in Belfast and the library at Trinity College.

Posted: Thursday, December 19, 2013


McMath Announces Retirement as Dean of Honors College

Robert C. McMath, the first dean of the University of Arkansas Honors College, announced that he will retire in August 2014, following eight years of service as dean.

“The development of the Honors College has truly been the work of many hands,” McMath said. “During my time at the U of A I have been overwhelmed by the talent, collegiality and can-do attitude of our faculty and staff. We have been strongly supported by our provost and chancellor and by some very generous benefactors. Together, we have turned a number of dreams into reality. I look forward to seeing what the Honors College and its amazing students will accomplish in its next decade.”

Under McMath’s leadership, the Honors College has grown 44 percent in student enrollment while continuing to support a very high level of student success. The average college GPA for Honors College students has risen from 3.58 to 3.76, and the college has maintained over a 90 percent retention rate for freshman students since 2005. Honors College students continue to rack up an impressive tally of nationally competitive awards, and the college’s national reputation continues to grow. The Honors College was ranked 17th in “Overall Excellence” in the first national study of 50 leading public honors programs, and ranked 3rd out of all 50 programs in “Excellence Impact.”

McMath came to the U of A in 2005 as dean of the Honors College and has worked to develop strong ties between the college and research-active professors across campus. He has also encouraged interdisciplinary courses and experiences by awarding more than $500,000 in grants. These grants provided seed funding for 30 honors courses on topics ranging from the digital recreation of ancient Roman cities to nanotechnology. McMath also shepherded the completion of a permanent home for the Honors College in the expanded Ozark Hall and the renovation of Hotz Hall as a well-appointed residence hall and community hub for honors freshmen.

“We have been lucky to have Bob McMath as our inaugural Honors College dean,” Chancellor G. David Gearhart said. “He has developed a strong honors community here on campus and led our Honors College to national prominence. His vision for interdisciplinary collaboration has enabled our honors faculty and students to tackle real world issues and put the university in the vanguard of national trends.”

“Bob McMath has done a superb job in building the Honors College from the ground up,” said Provost Sharon Gaber. “Thanks to his leadership, the Honors College has emerged as one of the crown jewels of the University of Arkansas, offering exceptional students and faculty the opportunity to collaborate on research, service learning and study abroad.”

McMath came to the University of Arkansas from Georgia Tech, where he taught history and held a series of administrative posts over the course of 33 years, eventually becoming the first vice provost for undergraduate studies and academic affairs. While at Georgia Tech he received the Governor’s Award in the Humanities and Georgia Tech’s highest teaching awards. In 2004 he was named an honorary alumnus.

In the historical profession McMath is most widely known for his work on American and comparative populist movements. His book, American Populism (1992) is a standard work in the field. He is the author or co-author of seven books and numerous articles. Currently he is starting work on a new book that will explore connections between religion and populist movements in North America.

McMath is a 1967 graduate of the University of North Texas and received his doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1972.

The University of Arkansas will conduct a national search for a new dean of the Honors College.

Posted: Wednesday, December 18, 2013


More Family News!

On Wednesday, December 11, Ph.D. student Rodney Harris and his wife Kristi finalized the adoption of their two handsome sons Trae Michael (7) and William Rodney (3).  Congratulations to all four of them!

Posted: Friday, December 13, 2013


Announcing the Newest Future Historian

We are excited to announce that grad student, Misti Harper, and her husband, Doc, welcomed a precious girl into their family on Sunday, December 8th. Clara Colette Harper arrived at 5:27 PM and was 6 lbs, 15 oz, and 20.5 inches long. She has dark hair with blue eyes. Mommy and baby are doing well!

Posted: Wednesday, December 11, 2013


Good News Abounds for History Faculty

Professor Calvin White, Jr. was elected to the Board of Directors of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. Since 1974, the Foundation has been a catalyst for change in Arkansas. It has awarded more than $143 million to improve the lives of Arkansans. Dr. White begins his term in 2014.

 Snow days delayed the induction of Michael Pierce into the Teaching Academy but it will happen soon! It is notable that 11 History professors are Academy members….representing the largest group from any University department or unit.

The Teaching Academy named Professor Calvin White, Jr. one of the finalists for the Imhoff Award! Ed Clausen of the School of Engineering ultimately won the award. Way to represent History nonetheless!

Congratulations to all!

Posted: Thursday, December 12, 2013


History Professor has Signed Contract with Cambridge University Press

Professor Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon has signed a contract with Cambridge University Press for his current book project, The British and Europe: From the End of Empire to the Rise of Euroscepticism, 1945 to the Present. This book tells the story of how Britain’s evolving post-war relationship with the European continent was shaped by the government’s handling of the end of empire, by the public’s changing perceptions of that empire and Britain’s place within the world, and by the nation’s search to define what it meant to be British (and European) in the aftermath of both war and empire. It argues that in the immediate post-war period, British politicians, civil servants, and the public at large viewed themselves (and acted) as Britons, imperialists, and Europeans in a multi-faceted national identity without seeing a contradiction between these three layered conceptions. This national identity shaped their approaches to domestic and international policy, their management of the end of empire, and their engagement with the European continent following the Second World War. However, this identity (and the worldview it inspired) was quickly challenged; challenged by the decline of empire and ultimate decolonisation, by the establishment of the European Economic Community based on a model of Europe that Britons by and large did not share, and by questions of Britain’s place within the world raised by a struggling trans-Atlantic relationship and economic pressures, particularly on Sterling. This then is the story of the British and Europe from 1945, a story of how Britons evolved from being imperial Europeans to instead become post-imperial Eurosceptics. Cambridge University Press anticipates publication in the spring of 2015.

Posted: Monday, November 04, 2013


Old State House Museum--Talk and Book Signing

On Tuesday, September 24, 2013, the Old State House Museum presented "A Land Inferior to None," a talk and book signing with Jeannie Whayne, George Sabo, and Tom DeBlack, authors of Arkansas: A Narrative History, Second Edition.

The book is a comprehensive state history that has been invaluable to students and the general public since its original publication over 10 years ago.  The original edition won the Arkansiana Award when it was published in 2002, and the book is widely used in colleges throughout the state.

Posted: Thursday, September 26, 2013


Professor of History Wins Arkansiana Award

Professor Jeannie Whayne has won the Arkansas Library Association's Arkansiana Award for Delta Empire: Lee Wilson and the Transformation of Agriculture in the New South. The Arkansiana Award was established in the late 1970s to honor books or other works which represent a significant contribution to Arkansas heritage and culture. The award for adult nonfiction, won by Whayne for Delta Empire, is given biennially, and the winner receives a certificate and a $1000 cash prize. Congratulations, Jeannie!

Posted: Tuesday, September 10, 2013


Professor of History to Join Fulbright College Dean's Office

Starting in January 2014, Professor Lynda Coon will serve the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences as interim associate dean working alongside interim dean Todd Shields and interim associate dean Yvette Murphy-Erby. A search is being conducted for a permanent dean for the college, who will take on the position in summer of 2014.

Professor Coon's move to the dean's office comes at the conclusion of a five-year term as chair of history. She is on leave for the fall semester, researching a new book on the "Dark Age Jesus" in which she will explore the sensory, spatial, and social imaginings of Jesus in the period from 300-900.

Congratulations Professor Coon!!

Posted: Friday, August 30, 2013


HIST Has Yet Another New PhD

Congratulations to Dr. Jared Phillips who defended A Tangled Hope: America, China, and Human Rights at the End of the Cold War, 1976-2000. Philips has done extensive work with indigenous groups on the Tibetan plateau in China and brings his ground-level perspective to an incisive investigation of how human rights, modernization policies, and diplomacy intertwine in the Cold War era and how the patterns established in those years have influenced continuing relations today. He compares the treatment of groups in China, the United States, and Kenya to discover patterns among developed nations that show that human rights work was not compatible with respect for indigenous cultures, especially in the case of nomadic peoples. As human rights policies aimed towards “modernizing” they often steamed over customary ways of living and working and obliterated nomadic cultures in the process. His research has already led to publications of both journal articles and book chapters and continues to draw interest for its distinctive arguments.

Congratulations Dr. Phillips!

Posted: Monday, August 19, 2013


Two More Milestones in HIST

HIST HAS A NEW PHD!

Mary Suter successfully defended her dissertation, “Dammed Arkansas: Early Developments in how Arkansas Came to be a Dammed State, 1836-1945,” on Friday, July 12, 2013. “Dammed Arkansas” examines the forces shaping the need for dams and identifies the differing purposes they were meant to serve: flood control, municipal water supplies, irrigation, generating electricity, etc. She is currently “Curator of Collections” at the University of Arkansas Museum Collections, responsible for the care and management of the University Museum’s collections in Archeology, Ethnology, History, and Geology. She records and catalogs the collections and makes them available for researchers, for loan, for exhibits, and for teaching. Congratulations Mary!

GRADUATE STUDENT ADVANCES TO CANDIDACY

Denna Clymer passed her written and oral exams and is now officially—A.B.D! Clymer passed exams in US I and II, Colonial and Modern Latin America, and her dissertation field on women in agriculture during the war effort. Her next step is to visit the national archives, archives in various states, and write her dissertation on the Women's Land Army during World War II. Congratulations Denna!

Posted: Monday, July 15, 2013


Another HIST PhD Lands Tenure-Track Position

Dr. Niels Eichhorn, a recent graduate of our stellar doctoral program, has accepted a tenure-track position in 19th-century U.S. History at Middle Georgia State College in Macon. Eichhorn defended his dissertation, “Up Ewig Ungedeelt” or “A House Divided”: Nationalism and Separatism in the Mid-Nineteenth Century Atlantic World, under the direction of Professor Daniel Sutherland in December 2012. History graduate students have an amazing track record of landing tenure-track positions and Eichhorn joins that accomplished group. He will teach courses in U.S. and European History from a transnational perspective. His department will also offer a graduate program in a few years when the college transitions to a university.

Posted: Tuesday, July 09, 2013


Prof. Gigantino Wins American Historical Association Research Grant

More good news from Old Main 416: Professor James Gigantino has won the 2013 AHA Beveridge Research Grant, a highly-competitive, national prize. The funds for this program come from the earnings of the Albert J. Beveridge Memorial Fund.

Prof. Gigantino will use the AHA Beveridge Grant to put the final touches on his forthcoming book, Freedom and Slavery in the Garden of America: African Americans and Abolition in New Jersey, 1775-1861, which is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press (2014).

Congratulations, Jim!

Posted: Friday, May 24, 2013


Ahmet Akturk Triumphs over Dissertation Defense

Yesterday, Ahmet Akturk successfully defended his dissertation, "Imagining Kurdish Identity in Mandatory Syria: Finding a Nation in Exile." 

Mr. Akturk’s committee was made up of Professor Joel Gordon, Professor Richard Sonn, and Professor Nikolay Antov.

Soon-to-be Dr. Akturk heads off this summer to take up a tenure-track position in modern Middle Eastern history at Georgia Southern University.

Congratulations, Ahmet!

Posted: Wednesday, May 15, 2013


Elliott West Elected Member of the American Antiquarian Society

More good news from the HIST propaganda machine! Distinguished Professor Elliott West has been elected to the august ranks of the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), the nation’s oldest historical organization founded in 1812. Since 1812 approximately three thousand notables have been chosen for membership. Professor West is the fourth Arkansan. He follows the lead of federal judge Morris S. Arnold, former director of Crystal Bridges Robert Gene Workman, and Alice Walton. Members of the AAS are elected from among scholars, educators, writers, publishers, collectors, librarians, curators, journalists, civic leaders and lay persons with an interest in American history.

The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) library houses the largest and most accessible collection of printed materials from first contact through 1876 in what is now the United States, the West Indies and parts of Canada. The library is located in Worcester, Massachusetts: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/

Posted: Thursday, May 09, 2013


Internship Opportunity: Lowell Historical Museum

The Lowell Historical Museum is seeking a volunteer for an Internship to work with the director to coordinate new programs, grants and report to grantors.

Requires: Good written and in person communication skills, a degree in history or the humanities, a passion for history, and an attention to detail, experience in public relations is a plus.

Hours are flexible; this position is a non-paid internship, short or long-term, board membership maybe possible for the right applicant.

To apply please send resume to:

Elizabeth Estes, Director
Lizmusic55@aol.com
Lowell Historical Museum
304 Jackson Pl.
Lowell, AR 72745
479-770-0191

Posted: Wednesday, April 24, 2013


History has a Newly-Minted PhD

Congratulations to Dr. Scott Cashion who has just defended his dissertation " 'And So We Moved Quietly': Southern Methodist University and Desegregation, 1950-1970" under the direction of Professor Charles Robinson, II. In his dissertation, Dr. Cashion argued that the desegregation process at SMU was a more controlled and quiet process compared to other private and public universities in the South even though SMU was one of the first private universities in the south to desegregate, and began the process a decade before its companion institutions like Emory and Vanderbilt. Professors Calvin White and Patrick G. Williams also served on the committee.

Dr. Cashion plans to stay at his current positions working with both Northwest Arkansas Community College and the University of Arkansas Fort Smith.

Posted: Friday, April 19, 2013


James Gigantino Signs a Book Contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press

Professor James Gigantino has recently signed a contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press to publish his book, Freedom and Slavery in the Garden of America: African Americans and Abolition in New Jersey, 1775-1861, as part of its Early American Studies series that is published in partnership with the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Gigantino’s book explores slavery’s long life and slow death in New Jersey. He vividly shows how northerners clung tightly to slavery, participated in the domestic slave trade, and twisted the state’s abolition laws into helping them create new forms of bondage. His work questions much of what historians know about early America by problematizing the long-held notion of a “free north.” This allows him to challenge historical understandings of the formation of free black communities, the second abolition movement, and divisions among the states leading up to the Civil War. PENN Press’s faculty editorial board describes Professor Gigantino’s forthcoming book as “groundbreaking.”

Posted: Thursday, April 18, 2013


Professor Woods's Latest Reviewed this Past Friday in the "Wall Street Journal"

In a lengthy review of Shadow Warrior published in the Friday, April 12 edition of the Wall Street Journal, Professor of Politics and History at Emory University Harvey Klehr praises Randall Woods’s latest tome for its meticulous research and riveting representation of the controversial Vietnam-era director of the C.I.A. William Colby. You may find the entire review of Shadow Warrior at the link provided below:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323296504578398543839629674.html

Congratulations, Randall! U of AR HIST dominates ost-1945 U.S. diplomacy!


Laurence Hare Signs Contract with the University of Toronto Press

Professor Laurence Hare has recently signed a contract with the University of Toronto Press to publish his book, Excavating Nations: Archaeology, Museums, and the German-Danish Borderlands, as part of Toronto’s German and European Studies Series. Hare’s book explores the connections between archaeology and nationalism in the embattled borderlands of Schleswig-Holstein during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Beginning with the founding of the first museums in the 1830s and ending with the Nazi appropriation of regional antiquities, this work is the first to tell the whole story of the German and Danish scholars who claimed and contested common heritages for diverging nationalist ends. As Hare argues, the tense dynamic of cooperation and conflict in this region not only shaped the emergence of professional archaeology, but also made the borderlands a focal point in the creation of German and Scandinavian identities.

Posted: Monday, April 15, 2013


Historians Sweep Up More Prize Money

The Department of History is pleased to announce yet again another sweep of Fulbright College prize and fellowship money.

James Gigantino has won the 2013 Robert C. and Sandra Connor Endowed Faculty Fellowship to support the career advancement of faculty who provide the highest quality of teaching, research and service to the College

Daniel Sutherland has won the 2013 Nolan Faculty Award to support the career advancement of faculty who provide the highest quality teaching, research and service to the College

Patrick Williams has won the 2013 John E. King Award for Outstanding Service, both on account of his great commitment to teaching and mentoring as well as his work as Editor of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly

Congratulations, Patrick, Dan, and Jim!

Posted: Tuesday, April 09, 2013


Historians Win Two Honors College Interdisciplinary Colloquia Grants

The Department of History is pleased to announce that two of its faculty members, Professor Andrea Arrington and Professor Laurence Hare, have won Honors College Interdisciplinary Colloquia Grants. The two courses, “Health and Gender in Sub-Saharan Africa” and “Opera, Nations, and Empires,” will be taught by a team of faculty possessing expertise in various aspects of the colloquium. Below, you will find brief descriptions of each Honors colloquium as well as the names of the teaching-teams, all of whom are winners in the 2013 Interdisciplinary Honors Colloquia competition.

Health and Gender in Sub-Saharan Africa:
This course, to be taught with fellow University faculty, Andrea Arrington (History), Sabrina Billings (World Languages, Literature, and Cultures) and Kristen Jozkowski (Health, Human Performance, and Recreation), allows students the opportunity to think about concepts and practices of health and healing from an African perspective. A major focus of the course will be on how "public health" is defined, and who gets to define it, as we examine the role of the Western world in the discourse of global/African public health. Students will consider changing definitions and practices of health, hygiene, and medicine, starting with colonial expansion and the ways that Western models of health and hygiene were applied to Africans, and what Africans chose to accept and reject from those models. They will be asked to critically assess the extent to which a Western lens is applied when conceptualizing public health; to achieve this, we will introduce the varied and sometimes competing concepts of health that influence the state of public health policies, practices, and discourse in the West and in Africa. Gender will serve as a crucial analytical tool as we encourage our students to think about the ways that public health is gendered and how health and healing is differently defined and experienced by men and women. In addition to introducing students to health topics in Sub-Saharan Africa, the course also allows students the opportunity to learn about the five core area of the discipline of public health (social and behavioral science, epidemiology, environmental health, biostatistics, and health care administration).

Opera, Nations, and Empires:
This course, to be taught with fellow Fulbright faculty, Laurence Hare (History), Martin Nedbal (Music), and Jennifer Hoyer (World Languages and Literatures), will provide a cultural-historical overview of the changing concepts of the Western “Self” and the non-Western “Other” through an exploration of six German-language operas. The artists under study include Mozart, Weber, Strauss, Wagner, and Lehár. The course will focus on the ways in which artists and intellectuals conceptualized and portrayed Westerners as distinct from non-Western groups, how the depictions of the non-Western “Other” provided a foil for defining the Western identity, and how Western works about non-Western places, peoples, and cultures participated in Western imperialism and racism. At the same time, it will encourage students to place the works in their historical contexts, first through theoretical readings such as Edward Said’s Orientalism and Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, second through primary source materials related to the artists under study (e.g. letters, prose writings, etc.), and finally through considerations of broader currents in contemporary literature and art.

Congratulations, Andrea, Laurence, Sabrina, Kristen, Jennifer, and Martin!

Posted: Monday, April 08, 2013


Three History Professors Win Fulbright Awards

The Department of History is pleased to announce that three faculty members have won awards in the annual Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences prize competition:

Fulbright College Outstanding Advisor Award goes to Professor Calvin White
Fulbright College Master Teacher Award goes to Professor Michael Pierce
Fulbright College Master Researcher Award goes to Professor Jeannie Whayne

Profs. Whayne, Pierce, and White will received their awards at the spring meeting of the Fulbright College Faculty (Thursday, April 11, 3:30 pm, Giffels Auditorium).

Congratulations, Michael, Calvin, and Jeannie!

Posted: Tuesday, April 02, 2013


Professor Nikolay Antov Wins Seat in NEH Summer Institute

Continuing his record in winning the National Endowment for the Humanities favor, Professor Nikolay Antov has earned a place in an NEH Summer Institute, “Empires and Interactions across the Early Modern World, 1400-1800," which will be held at Saint Louis University, June 3-28, 2013. Historians Charles Parker (Saint Louis University) and Ahmet Karamustafa (University of Maryland, College Park) will direct “Empires and Interactions,” a seminar offering new theoretical approaches to world history by setting up encounters between societies as a framework for understanding historical developments. During the first week, the institute examines economies of scale and East Asian empires and cultural interaction as a strategy for apprehending the global past. Week two focuses on two major theaters of empire building in the early modern world: the Asian landmass and the Atlantic basin. Lectures and discussion cover the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire, and the Safavid Empires, followed by European empires in the Atlantic. Week three explores two corollaries of imperial expansion throughout the early modern world: missionary enterprise and biological exchanges. Lectures and discussion cover Islamicization and Christianization in the early modern world; the diffusion of plants, animals, and disease pathogens that affected food supply; reordered populations; and altered ecosystems. In the last week, lectures and discussion shift to the transmission of knowledge across cultural boundaries and the range of intellectual exchanges between Europeans and Asians in cartography, astronomy, and art.

Congratulations, Nikolay!

Posted: Thursday, April 04, 2013


Professor Nikolay Antov Wins a National Endowment for the Humanities Advanced Fellowship for Research in Turkey (ARIT-NEH)

The Department of History is proud to announce that historian of the Ottoman Empire, Nikolay Antov, has won the prestigious and highly competitive National Endowment for the Humanities Advanced Fellowship for Research in Turkey. Professor Antov will spend the 2013-2014 academic year in Turkey, where he will have access to the scholarly holdings of the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT), which maintains two research institutes in the country.  The ARIT Istanbul library concentrates on Byzantine and Ottoman Turkey and facilitates archival research in the city.  The ARIT Ankara focuses on art, archaeology, and ancient history in its library, and serves Turkish and American archaeologists through its programs.  Both centers have residential facilities for fellows and provide general assistance as well as introductions to colleagues, institutions, and authorities in Turkey.

During his year as a N.E.H. Fellow in Turkey, Professor Antov will research and write his book, "Imperial Expansion, Colonization, and Conversion to Islam in the Islamic World's `Wild West':  The Formation of the Muslim Community in Ottoman Deliorman (N.E. Balkans):  15th – 16th c." Antov's work on the "Wild West" of the Ottoman Empire, the Balkans, is compelling because his analysis focuses on the confrontation between imperial expansion—the process of Turcoman colonization—and the conversion to Islam of a borderlands region.  Importantly, Professor Antov interrogates sources for what they reveal about heterodox religious beliefs in Deliorman, such as those expressed by sufi mystics who established themselves as religious leaders in this frontier zone as well the piety of Turcoman pastoral nomads.  In terms of his source base, Antov deploys a variety of archival manuscripts, largely consisting of the official documents of the Ottoman state:  legal texts and tax records.  This past summer, Professor Antov spent three months working in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul, where he mined a new genre, sufi hagiography, to flesh out the more cultural aspects of his work on Islamic heterodoxy in Deliorman.  This new archival material will enable him to analyze how the cult of heterodox saints, both in written and architectural form, worked to create spiritual identities in this religiously contested region.

Congratulations, Nikolay!

Posted: Wednesday, March 27, 2013


Two History ABD Students Win the 2013 Hudson Doctoral Prize in the Humanities

Doctoral candidates Rebecca Howard and Matthew Parnell have won the 2013 James J. Hudson Doctoral Prize in the Humanities.  The Hudson Prize goes to outstanding students who have completed all requirements for the degree except the dissertation.  The Prize comes with an award of $1,500.

Rebecca Howard is finishing her dissertation, “Brothers of a Common Cause: Reckoning and Reconciliation in Post-Civil War Northwest Arkansas,” under the supervision of Professor Jeannie Whayne.  “Brothers of a Common Cause” explores how communities in Northwest Arkansas reconciled and rebuilt after the guerilla war that characterized the Civil War in the region.  The war was brutal, but though ill-will lingered, violence declined, communities rebuilt, and Unionists and Confederate families found themselves linked by marriage, business, and mutual protection surprisingly quickly once the war was over.  Ms. Howard has conducted research at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where she accessed—and continues to make brilliant use of—the Veterans Pension Applications Collection.  Mining the Pension Applications Collection has led Ms. Howard to an untold story of Union involvement of Ozark soldiers, both in terms of military engagement but also in terms of the social history of warfare in Northwest Arkansas.  Ms. Howard is also a Doctoral Academy Fellow and winner of various fellowships, including the Blair Graduate Fellowship, the Gordon McNeil Paper Prize, the James J. Hudson Prize in Military History, and the Mary Hudgins Research Award for students working in the field of Arkansas History.

Matthew Parnell is completing his dissertation, "Youth…Power…Egypt:  The Development of al-Shabab as a Sociopolitical Force in Egypt, 1882-1923," under the supervision of Professor Joel Gordon.  “Youth…Power…Egypt” examines the conflict between the British imperial government in Egypt and an emerging youth culture in urban spaces like Cairo and Alexandria.  Mr. Parnell reconstructs revolutionary "youth" (al-shabab) by analyzing an intriguing array of source material:  literary works, music, journalism, governmental documents, and political writings of the al-shabab's leaders.  His dissertation will unearth tensions between British rule and Egyptian identity, modernization and Islam, youth culture and anti-colonialism, popular culture and revolutionary impetus.  Parnell currently is in Cairo on a prestigious international fellowship given out by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE).  His work has also been supported by a Fulbright Fellowship to Egypt (2010-2011).  Mr. Parnell recently presented his research on Egyptian masculinity and youth culture in the early twentieth century at the top international meeting in the field:  Middle East Studies Association in Washington, D.C. (November 2012).

As the historians of Fulbright are well aware, our doctoral candidates are simply the best!

Congratulations, Matt and Becky! And Go, HIST, go!

Posted: Friday, March 15, 2013


New Online Tool for Students

A new online tool -- PhDs.org -- allows students to compare graduate schools across the nation according to graphs created from the 2010 National Research Council's data set on doctoral programs. Students can break down information on prospective graduate schools according to a number of different factors, and the Department of History at the University of Arkansas fares well.

 According to PhDs.org, UofA HIST ranks in the top 52 (a range of 23 to 52) in terms of research productivity, and is first among her benchmarks in terms of publications per faculty member. This rating reflects the fantastic productivity of the U of AR historians, who have published 23 monographs, 6 edited volumes, 2 textbooks, and 1 cd with scholarly text from 2005-2012.

Posted: Tuesday, March 12, 2013


Professor Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon headed to Cambridge University

History is pleased to announce that Professor Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon has won the 2013-2014 Wolfson College Fellowship at Cambridge University. At Cambridge, Prof. Grob-Fitzgibbon will research and write his fourth book: "Imperial Europeans, Post-Imperial Euroskeptics: Britain and the European Continent at the End of Empire." The Wolfson College Fellowship provides full research leave for the academic year and access to all the libraries and special collections of Cambridge University.

For information on Wolfson College itself, see: http://www.wolfson.cam.ac.uk/

Congratulations, Ben!

Posted: Monday, March 11, 2013


History Honors Society Spring Membership Drive

The Department of History is proud to announce its spring 2013 Phi Alpha Theta Membership Drive. Phi Alpha Theta, a History honors society with over 350,000 members, was founded at the University of Arkansas on March 17, 1921.

If you would like to join Phi Alpha Theta, please come to the HIST Department (MAIN 416) and bring your membership application form and a check for $40 made out to Phi Alpha Theta. The deadline is Monday, April 1, 2013.

For information on Phi Alpha Theta, see:

http://phialphatheta.org/

Posted: Friday, March 08, 2013


Arkansas Alumna Awarded Tenure and Promoted to Associate Professor of History at Coastal Carolina University

Arkansas Alumna Aneilya Barnes (Ph.D., 2007) has just been awarded tenure and will be promoted to the rank of Associate Professor of History at Coastal Carolina University.

Dr. Aneilya Barnes's research focuses on the Christianization of ancient Rome and the roles of women in the early Church, especially through the lens of Rome's sacred spaces and shifting landscape. She has authored several peer-reviewed articles on late-antique Roman architectural history, including her essay “Female Patronage and Episcopal Authority in Late Antiquity,” which is forthcoming in the edited volume Envisioning the Medieval Bishop (Brepols). She also has a textbook, Comparative Cultures: World Civilization to 1500, that is scheduled to be in print in the coming year. Additionally, she continues to work on her manuscript, Gender and Domestic Space in the First Christian Basilicas. Her upper-level courses include the history of early Christianity, imperial Rome, and the early Islamic world.

Posted: Friday, February 22, 2013


Call For Papers

Society of European Historians' 2nd Annual Undergraduate Research Workshop

"Defining Europe:  Boundaries, Cultures, and Identities."

The Society of European Historians is looking for submissions for its workshop on April 17th.  The goal of this workshop is to create a relaxed, constructive environment for undergraduate students to present research, on a topic of their choice, to a council of graduate and professional reviewers. Undergraduate students from any field are invited to submit proposals to participate in this workshop. Students may submit proposals for research papers or poster presentations. Selected participants will then present at the conference on Wednesday, April 17th beginning at 1:30.

Suggested topics might include, but are not limited to, the following items:

  • Internationalism in Europe and the Origins of Cosmopolitanism
  • Military Conquest and Alliances in the Defining of Europe
  • Becoming European: How Politics, Economics, and Culture Construct Identity
  • Is Western Civilization a European Tradition?
  • The Ambiguous Eastern Boundary
  • The EU: Defining Europe through Inclusion and Exclusion
  • Europe and the Euro: An Economic Answer?
  • Migration, Integration, and Cultural Tension in Europe

Proposals should be 150-250 words, outline the topic, and how it relates to the workshop's theme.  A successful proposal should also include sources, category (poster or paper), as well as personal contact information.  Proposals should be submitted electronically to:  seh@uark.edu by 5:00 pm on Friday, March 1st.

Important Dates:

  • March 1st:    Proposals Due
  • April 10th:    Projects Due
  • April 17th:    Presentations

If you have any questions, contact us at seh@uark.edu.

Posted: Friday, February 15, 2013


Please Welcome the Newest Historian

Congratulations go out to Michael and Amy McCoy. 

Allison Nicole McCoy

was born February 5, 2013, at 2:14 pm, weighing in at 10 lbs 12 oz. 
Mom and baby are doing well; daddy and big sister, Ava, are on cloud nine. 

Posted: Tuesday, February 05, 2013


History Wins Yet Another Fulbright College Dissertation Research Award

History is proud to announce yet another research prize. Doctoral candidate Aaron Moulton has won the 2013 Fulbright College Dissertation Research Award. Distinguished Professor Randall Woods is supervising Mr. Moulton's dissertation, which is entitled: "The Transnational 'Cold' War in Central America and the Caribbean: Revolutionary Exiles, Counterrevolutionary Exiles, Dictators, and the United States, 1944-1954." In the dissertation, Moulton tackles a fascinating episode in the history of the Cold War: the 1954 U.S.-sponsored coup in Guatemala. Instead of centering his analysis on the C.I.A. and President Truman, Moulton will reach into the Caribbean and mine its rich archival sources to present a more nuanced study of dictatorship and anti-dictatorship movements in the region as well as the intellectual culture of leftists and exiles who opposed—and undermined—the regimes of powerful autocrats.

Congratulations, Aaron!

Posted: Thursday, January 17, 2013


Historian Wins Fulbright College Summer Research Stipend

HIST continues its record of sweeping up all of the College’s prize money.  Labor historian Michael Pierce has won the 2013 Fulbright College Summer Research Stipend.  Professor Pierce will use the stipend to complete the archival phase of his new book project, The Arkansas Labor Movement.  In The Arkansas Labor Movement, Pierce argues that labor played a central role in creating a biracial political alliance in favor of civil rights.  His theory contradicts the prevailing historical wisdom which maintains that McCarthyism destroyed the biracial efforts of organized labor to push a Civil Rights agenda.  Therefore, any advances made between blacks and whites in the 1930s and 1940s were overwhelmed by the racial push-back of the 1950s.  Importantly, Professor Pierce is the first labor historian to visit these charged issues in decades, and his research is at center stage in current scholarly discussions about the nature of the civil rights movement, its causes, and its relationship to the working class and the labor movement.

Congratulations, Michael, and go HIST, go!

Posted: Wednesday, January 16, 2013


Graduate Student Work Recognized in Art Bulletin

The most recent issue of The Art Bulletin (university access required), a leading journal in the field of art history, features a lengthy review of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville Arkansas, with a passage on the "fascinating small exhibition" on the Arkansas Traveler that was co-curated by history doctoral student Louise M. Hancox. The exhibit itself was based upon the work of Hancox for her doctoral dissertation, which she is completing under the direction of Professor Beth Schweiger. Not only did Hancox write the exhibit labels, but she also selected and located the pieces used at Crystal Bridge to tell their own version of the tale of the Arkansas Traveler.  The Arkansas Traveler was based upon the humorous tales of Colonel Sanford Faulker about his journeys through Arkansas and interactions with her savvy inhabitants.  The story was immortalized in performance, song, painting, and other media, and as the exhibit co-curated by Hancox makes clear, the traveler held great resonance in the 1840s as it was incorporated into the political discussions surrounding the presidential election.  It went on to be a touchstone for larger discussions about southern identity.

Posted: Friday, January 04, 2013

 

History Welcomes Its Newest Historian

Dr. Calvin White and his wife Shatara are proud to announce the birth of their daughter

Monroe Adeline Catherine White

Born: Saturday, December 1, 2012
Time: 8:40 pm
Weight: 7 lbs 10 oz.
Length: 19 in.

Mom and baby are home and doing well; dad, while sleep deprived, seems to be doing ok, as well.

Posted: Wednesday, December 05, 2012


Two History Students Awarded SURF Grants

Two history students--Stuart Bailey and James Brown--have been awarded SURF grants from the Arkansas Department of Education. The SURF grants will help the students to engage in research for their honors theses in history.

Stuart Bailey, an honors student and double major in history and German, working with Dr. Laurence Hare on an honors thesis entitled, “The Road to Fahrvergnügen: Volkswagen and Car Culture in Postwar Germany.” In the thesis, Stuart traces the growth of the iconic international automaker and its innovations in design and advertising in order to shed new light on consumerism and “Americanization” in postwar Germany. Bailey will use his SURF grant to travel to Volkswagen’s North American headquarters in Chattanooga, TN, to learn about German corporate practice in the United States.

Professor Brogi is guiding James Brown's honor's thesis -- “Greece and Europe Since 1947: History and Identity.” Brown intends to visit the Lyndon B. Johnson, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman libraries with his SURF. His honor's thesis will examine the evolution of Greek identity during the Cold War, contrasting it with similar processes in greater Europe and placing particular emphasis on the role of anti-Americanism in the development of Greek xenophobia and a broader national consciousness. Brown is pursuing majors in History, International Relations, and Political Science.

Posted: Friday, November 30, 2012


Doctoral Candidate wins SHAFR Research Grant

Doctoral candidate Aaron Moulton has won the Samuel Flagg Bemis Dissertation Research Grant, awarded through the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). The Samuel Flagg Bemis Grant supports doctoral students whose dissertations cover aspects of U.S. foreign relations history. Mr. Moulton will use the grant to conduct research in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico.

SHAFR is the leading organization for historians of American foreign relations.  Mr. Moulton will receive the research grant at SHAFR’s luncheon held during the American Historical Association (AHA) Annual Meeting in New Orleans this January.

The grant is named after Samuel Flagg Bemis, one of the most prominent scholars of U.S. diplomatic history. Bemis’s 1943 work, The Latin American Policy of the United States, remains a foundational text on U.S.-Latin American relations.

Congratulations, Aaron!

Posted: Tuesday, November 27, 2012


Graduate Student Wins Presidential Library Grant

Aaron Moulton, ABD in history, has won the 2012 Harry S. Truman Library Institute Research Grant.  Moulton will use the grant to support archival work for his dissertation "The Transnational 'Cold' War in Central America and the Caribbean: Revolutionary Exiles, Counterrevolutionary Exiles, Dictators, and the United States, 1944-1954."  The dissertation, under the direction of Professors Randall Woods and Kathryn Sloan, presents an international history of the battles between transnational networks of revolutionaries, presidents, counterrevolutionaries, and dictators in the larger Caribbean Basin in the 1940s and 1950s.  Ultimately, he argues that dictators utilized counterrevolutionary exiles and U.S. resources to contain revolutionary exiles and presidents int heir own "backyard."  By the early 1950s, dictators and counterrevolutionary exiles targeted Guatemala, the sole remaining 'mecca' for revolutionary exiles seeking to eliminate the dictatorships of Rafael Trujillo and Anastasio Somoza.  Their attempts to remove Guatemala emerged form a regional conflict and goals independent of the US-USSR bipolar Cold War, serving as an important foundation for the infamous 1953-1954 US-sponsored coup.

Posted: Tuesday, November 13, 2012


U of AR Historian Proves Why History Matters in the New York Times

In the October 22, 2012, Opinion Pages of the New York Times, Arkansas historian Robert Finlay responds to the review of a book by Chrystia Freeland entitled The Self-Destruction of the 1 Percent. In her book, Freeland draws a parallel between the rulers of the Venetian Republic and the increasingly privileged 1 percent in the United States. Not content to let this pass, Finlay answers this presentist view of La Serenissima by countering that unlike the economic elite in this country, the Venetian nobles remained obsessively concerned with sustaining and placating those excluded from their ranks. If the 1 percent of the United States is not to self-destruct, Finlay argues, it would do well to follow the example of the Venetian elite.

For the entire letter to the Editor of the New York Times, click on the below link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/opinion/take-a-cue-from-venice.html?emc=eta1

Posted: Thursday, October 25, 2012


Professor Alessandro Brogi Wins Book Award for "Confronting America"

The Department of History is pleased to announce that Professor Alessandro Brogi has won the 2012 Smith Book Award given by the European Section of the Southern Historical Association (SHA). The SHA bestowed its top European prize on Professor Brogi’s latest tome: Confronting America: The Cold War between the United States and the Communists in France and Italy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011). The Smith Award recognizes the best book published in European history by a Southern press, a member of the SHA’s European Section, or a faculty member of a Southern College or University.

The Smith Award Selection Committee was unanimous in its decision to award the prize to Confronting America. Committee members hailed Brogi’s erudite monograph as a “tour de force that weaves together diplomatic history with intellectual trends in the U.S., France, and Italy to illuminate the complex relationship among high culture, mass culture, economic trends, and diplomacy in the various phases of the Cold War.” In the Committee’s assessment, Confronting America “transforms our understanding of the Cold War” and is also “highly readable and accessible, even for non-specialists, with a broad appeal for general readers.”

Professor Brogi will receive the Smith Book Award this November at the annual meeting of the SHA in Mobile, Alabama.

Posted: 10/17/2012


Four Fellows for SEC Academic Leadership Development Program Named by Provost

Four University of Arkansas faculty members have been named as Fellows of the Southeastern Conference Academic Leadership Development Program for 2012-2013. The four are: Michael Looper, professor and head of animal science department in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Science; Jeannie Hulen, associate professor of ceramics and chair of the art department in the Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences;, Calvin White, Jr., assistant professor of history and director of the African and African American Studies program in the Fulbright College; and Matthew Waller, professor of supply chain management and chair of supply chain management in the Sam M. Walton College of Business.

The program identifies and mentors the next generation of academic leaders SEC schools. Fellows participate in two regional workshops as well as in programs specific to each campus over the course of the academic year.

“The ALDP Fellows represent the strength, talent, and expertise of the faculty at the University of Arkansas,” said Sharon Gaber, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. “I could not be more pleased with the group and appreciate their interest in the leadership program. They are excellent representatives of the University and its academic leaders.”

The program is in its fifth year and was an early initiative of the leadership of the SEC academic consortium. When the academic consortium was absorbed into the SEC, the presidents and chancellors chose to continue the leadership development program within the SEC academic initiatives. The four individuals participating for the 2012-13 year are recently appointed to their roles as departmental chairs or academic program directors.

Michael Looper was appointed as head of the animal science department head in September 2011. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Arkansas and his doctorate from Oklahoma State University. Prior to his appointment, Looper was a research animal scientist for the United States Department of Agriculture. He served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Arkansas and the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith and as an assistant professor and extension research specialist at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

Jeannie Hulen was appointed as department chair of the art department in 2010. She joined department in 2002 and was promoted to associate professor in 2008. She earned a bachelor of fine arts from the Kansas City Art Institute and a master of fine arts in ceramics from Louisiana State University. Her curatorial projects have included organizing major symposia on the contemporary movements in the field of ceramics, serving as an invited art juror for eight exhibitions and art festivals. A member of the University of Arkansas Public Arts Oversight Committee, Hulen has also served as a resident artist at the Graduate Institute of Applied Arts at the Tainan National University in Tainan, Taiwan.

Calvin White, Jr. was appointed director of African and African American Studies in July 2011. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Central Arkansas and his doctorate from the University of Mississippi. He joined the history department as an assistant professor in 2007. White’s scholarship emphasizes Southern and African American religion and his first book, The Rise to Respectability: Race, Religion, and the Church of God in Christ, was published this year by the University of Arkansas Press. He has been nominated for the Imhoff Award for Outstanding Teaching and Student Mentorship and the Omni Center Award for Social Justice and Outreach. White serves on the university-wide Silas B. Hunt Legacy Selection Committee and the Martin Luther King Day Planning Committee. His departmental service includes service on the planning and fiscal committee and the executive committee. He served as a Gilder-Lehrman Fellow at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York.

Matthew Waller was appointed as the first chair of the newly created supply chain management department in July 2011. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Pennsylvania State University. Waller joined the management and logistics department at the U of A in 1995 after teaching for one year as a visiting assistant professor. He was promoted to full professor in 2007. Waller holds the Garrison Endowed Chair in Supply Chain Management and is co-editor of the Journal of Business Logistics. In 2008, he was the director of the Walton College of Business Executive MBA program in Shanghai, China. He has served as a management consultant to Hewlett-Packard, General Mills, Southwestern Energy, and J.B. Hunt. His opinion pieces have appeared in The Financial Times and in the Wall Street Journal Asia. Waller was the founder and first president of the Northwest Arkansas Roundtable of the Council of Supply Chain Management professionals. Besides serving as a faculty senator, Waller has served on numerous departmental committees.

The Fellows all received strong recommendations from their deans and were selected through a nomination process among faculty who are serving in administrative roles in their departments. The Fellows will attend workshops, along with colleagues from across the Southeastern Conference, at the University of Tennessee in October and at the University of Florida in February.

Kathy Van Laningham, vice provost for planning, serves as the liaison to the Academic Leadership Development Program for the University of Arkansas. She was elected to serve a two-year term as chair of the liaison group beginning this year.

Posted: 10/17/2012


Willard B. Gatewood, Jr. Residence Hall Dedication

Historians were pleased to celebrate one of their own on Monday October 1, with the dedication of the Willard B. Gatewood, Jr. Reisdence Hall. At a lovely ceremony attended by Gatewood's family, friends, fellow administrators, and many of his colleagues from the history department, Chancellor Gearhart honored Gatewood for his work as Chancellor at the University of Arkansas, his founding of the University of Arkansas Press, and his triumphing of the Sturgis Fellowships for undergraduates. Professor Lynda Coon spoke of his many accomplishments as a scholar, award-winning teacher, and history's first endowed chair including his term as President of the Southern Historical Association, his many books, his 25 doctoral students, and over 30 MAs. Gatewood's widow, son, grandchildren, and daughter attended the event. Gatewood's daughter, Ellis Elliott, concluded the ceremony with the moving observation that it was entirely fitting that her father, who was so treasured by the students and graduate students of the university, should be remembered with a residence hall dedicated to student living and learning.

Posted: 10/1/2012