Department of History
The Department of History is pleased to announce three new tenure-track positions to begin in the 2010-2011 academic year: Early American History, Pre-Modern Islamic History, and Modern European History. The University of Arkansas is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Applications will be accepted without regard to age, ethnicity, gender or national origin.
History is the study of the past — both the official records of crowned rulers and sovereign states, as well as the vernacular accounts of those who have often been rendered, by presumption and sometimes violence, voiceless. It is the study, across time and place, of narratives and counter-narratives captured and preserved in a variety of “textual” sources — written, oral, and visual media; spontaneous actions, structured performances, and ritual enactments; sites and spaces, profane and sacred objects. It is the study of mass movements and isolated action, commodities and fads, production and reception, enslavement and liberation, sexuality and gender, art and obscenity, faith and heresy, empire and revolution, genocide and humanism, discovery and delusion, conformity and transgression, reading, writing, and telling.
The faculty of the Department of History range widely across the discipline, in a variety of geographies and cultures, from the ancient to the post-modern world, with teaching and research emphases in political, social, diplomatic, cultural, intellectual, and environmental history. If the past is a “foreign country,” it is also a window onto the present, and sometimes a cautionary tale for the future.
History Department faculty members have won a wide array of prestigious grants and fellowships to pursue research in this country and abroad. These include awards from the Fulbright Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, Social Science Research Council, National Humanities Center, the Institute for Advanced Study, Nobel Institute, the Carter G Woodson Institute, and the Newberry and Huntington libraries. Members of the present and emeritus faculty have been awarded Fulbright College and University research and teaching awards, including Master Researcher and Master Teacher, Alumni Distinguished Awards for teaching and research, and the Nadine Baum Faculty Teaching Award.
Our graduate students have received highly competitive fellowships (including awards from Fulbright and Mellon foundations, the American Center for Oriental Research, the Medieval Academy, and the US State Department), to support research and language study in the Middle East and Europe, and to visit the Vatican archives, presidential libraries, national, state and local archives, and special collections at private and public institutions. Our students continue to earn Fulbright College and all-University honors, including Yowell Teaching Awards, recognizing their achievements as outstanding instructors and promising scholars.