Fame
Randall B. Woods, our John Cooper Distinguished Professor of History, rates the star treatment in the current Journal of Southern History, where his 2006 book, LBJ: Architect of American Ambition, is the occasion for a twenty-seven-page review essay. The august journal rarely deigns to treat any single book at such length, but Kent Germany, associate professor of history and African American studies at the University of South Carolina, views Woods’ work within the totality of published work on Lyndon Johnson. Not surprisingly to us--or to anyone who has studied with, or read, Woods-- LBJ: Architect of American Ambition comes out on top, with Germany praising “Woods’s skill as an interpreter, the book’s fresh analysis, convincing synthesis, and deep research.” “Taking on this task requires an ambitiousness of scope befitting its subject,” he says, “and Woods’s LBJ: Architect of American Ambition follows through admirably.”
Distinguished Chair Woods currently is a Visiting Scholar at Williams College in Massachusetts, where he is conducting research in and around New England for his forthcoming biography of John Quincy Adams, under contract with Oxford University Press.
Posted November 18, 2009
Go West
The Wall Street Journal's of November 13, 2009, contained a lengthy article on Professor Elliot West and his fellow contenders for the prestigious Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching.
Under the title of "America's Top College Professor," Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote of her recent trip to the University of Arkansas campus where she spoke to Professor West at length and also attended his lecture to the university community, "The West Before Lewis and Clark: Three Lives."
Ms. Riley seemed quite impressed with Professor West's command of the room and spent some time in the piece highlighting his teaching philosophy. She also detailed the work of the other nominees for the prize.
Posted November 13, 2009
Teach me tiger
It is with great pleasure that History announces the election of its own Professor Patrick G. Williams, shown in action at right, to the ranks of the University of Arkansas Teaching Academy. The Teaching Academy is a select organization of Arkansas faculty, established in 1988 by then chancellor Dan Ferritor, and devoted to promoting excellent instruction at the University by fostering an environment conducive to great instruction and recognizing and rewarding exceptional educators. Teaching Academy members are nominated by their peers for a consistent record of outstanding work in the classroom and inspiring students to move beyond the class to explore the discipline for themselves.
Prof. Williams joined the Department of History in 2000, received tenure in 2006, and is the Department’s expert in the field of Reconstruction era politics and race. He teaches graduate-level colloquia and upper-level courses on African-American Politics since Reconstruction, History of Political Parties since 1798, Arkansas and the Southwest, and other courses. Williams is active in directing graduate work, both at the M.A. level and the Ph.D. level. He has worked closely with secondary education majors in the field of Arkansas History, and he is one of the college’s most rigorous advisors of Honors theses. In recognition of his considerable work with students, Professor Williams received the Fulbright College Master Teacher Award (2005). He will be inducted into the Teaching Academy on November 18 with a banquet at Ella’s (strict dress code to be enforced - fringe optional).
Posted November 3, 2009
That's Life
As one of three finalists for Baylor University’s 2010 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, Professor Elliott West of the University of Arkansas's Department of History gave a lecture to a packed house in Giffels on November 2. West is an award-winning researcher and instructor for the University of Arkansas.
In his lecture, West argued that too often we think of the history of the American West as beginning with Lewis and Clark's famous expedition of 1804-1806. But, he pointed out, the "captains of discovery" were not setting history in motion. They were stepping into the West at a time of turbulent, transformative changes gathering momentum since the European arrival more than two and a half centuries earlier. West's lecture featured the stories of three persons--a Frenchman, an Osage Indian and a New Mexican. Their different experiences represented the several historical currents and suggested what it was like for the people riding them, during the six generations before Lewis and Clark.
West's lecture was part of the selection process for the Cherry prize. In addition to speaking at the University of Arkansas, West has been asked to present a series of lectures at Baylor.
The Cherry Prize carries a cash award of $200,000 for the finalist and $25,000 for their home department. As a finalist, West received $15,000 and the department $10,000. The winner will be announced in Spring of 2010. If West is chosen he will be expected to teach in residence at Baylor during either the fall or spring of the 2010-11 academic year.
Posted November 2, 2009
Forsaken
As part of the celebration of Hispanic heritage month, Alejandra Jaramillo, ABD in History from the University of Houston, spoke to history department faculty and students as well as other faculty and students of the community on colonial Tlaxcala, the relations between native elites and Spanish conquerors, and their interactions on political and economic issues.
In particular, Jaramillo focuses upon the court system and the forum it created for native noble elites to serve as either defendants of labor or exploiters of laborers in imitation of the Spanish. Her story is complicated by the presence of another subjugated group -- African slaves. Indigenous laborers used the courts as a tool to draw distinctions of free or slave to put forward their own arguments for rights.
Posted October 26, 2009
Sweet Charity
On October 20 University of Arkansas students and faculty were treated to a lecture by Professor James W. Brodman, University of Central Arkansas, on the theory and practice of charitable donation in the medieval period. Brodman spoke to a packed house on the issue of charity as outlined in his new book, Charity & Religion in Medieval Europe (2009). Brodman's analysis of charitable work and the active involvement it advocated challenges conventional views of medieval religion as an ascetical, contemplative tradition.
In his lecture, Brodman charted the evolution and development of the institutions created to serve the poor during the Middle Ages. These include local houses of charity established by bishops and their chapters, lay men and women, confraternities and public bodies as well as those associated with new pilgrim and charity orders that began to crystallize in the twelfth century.
Posted October 21, 2009
Cherry, Cherry
On Wednesday, October 14, Professor Elliot West, alumni distinguished professor of history, presented a lecture at Baylor University as part of the selection process for the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching.
According to Laura Patton, a reporter for the Baylor newspaper The Lariat, the department of history at Baylor is excited by the prospect of Professor West teaching in the department for a year as the Cherry prize winner. Dr. Jeffery Hamilton, Chair of Baylor's Department of History, said,"We would be absolutely delighted to have West in the department. We don't have a specialist in the American West, and we think students would be very interested in what he has to offer. We would be thrilled to have him."
Posted October 16, 2009
back in baby's arms
On Wednesday, October 7, graduates of the department of history and current instructors, Drs. Matt and Tammy Byron welcomed a little bundle of fun into their lives -- Sophia Seraphina Byron. Sophia weighed in at an impressive eight pounds eleven ounces and is already the tallest kid in the nursery at twenty-one inches. Father, mother and child are all doing well.
Matt and Tammy are teaching quite a few classes between the two of them this fall. Matt is taking up Tammy's classes while she recovers and can be seen lurching down the halls of Old Main from classroom to classroom. Take a moment to pass on your congratulations and help him make it to his next lecture.
Posted October 15, 2009
L'Internationale
Dean William A. Schwab has appointed the history department's Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon the inaugural holder of the Cleveland C. Burton Professorship in International Programs. Dean Schwab announced this at the College Faculty Meeting on Thursday, October 15 in Giffels, and presented Professor Grob-Fitzgibbon with an honorary medallion with an image of Fulbright College.
The Burton Professorship was established through the estate of Cleveland Burton to promote and extend the Fulbright legacy of international education. The holder of the professorship is charged with administering undergraduate fellowships in international studies, setting up exchange programs with institutions abroad, and building key relationships with universities around the globe. In this role, Grob-Fitzgibbon will work closely with the International Relations program, assuming a leadership position.
Posted October 14, 2009
Ghana: Discovering the Truth Behind Africa's Past
The African and African American Studies Program is excited to announce that it is currently planning the program’s first Study Abroad opportunity. This program is open to all interested students, and will take place during Summer 2010 from May 17 to June 23 with travel dates from June 3 to June 23. The estimated cost is $3300 plus airfare and University of Arkansas tuition.
Two and a half weeks will be spent in the classroom at the U of A, and the duration of the program takes place in the West African country of Ghana. During the 18 days in Ghana, we will travel throughout the country considered by many to be Africa’s “Rising Star.”
The emphasis of the program for 2010 is an examination of Ghana’s past and how its history is shaping the country’s future. We will discuss Ghana’s involvement in the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the country’s pivotal roles in the development of Pan-Africanism and the spread of African Independence Movements.
The course will also explore issues of development in the contemporary era and look at Ghana for examples of successes and missteps in post-colonial development. Students will receive 6 credit hours for two courses.
Highlights of the trip include visits to Cape Coast and Elmina Slave Castles, Mole National Park, kente cloth workshops, Kakum Rainforest National Park, the DuBois Centre, and Nkrumah Square.
Leadership for the program comes from the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
Posted October 13, 2009
Ebony and Ivory
Professor Charles Robinson has received a contract from the University of Tennessee Press for his book, Forsaking All Others: A Story of Interracial Love, Violence and Revenge in the Post-Reconstruction South. Forsaking All Others centers on an Arkansas interracial couple who married in the 1880s. In the book, Robinson illustrates the couple’s struggle to maintain their relationship despite the profound social and legal forces that worked to tear them apart.
Robinson’s other contract is with the University of Arkansas Press for the co-edited volume, Reflections in Black: An Oral History of the Desegregation of the University of Arkansas, 1940s-2000s, which documents the African American experience at the University of Arkansas from the early 1950s to the present. In Reflections in Black, Robinson and co-editor Lonnie Williams base their research on interviews they held with former black students, faculty and staff. These interviews provide personal insights into the evolution of the racial atmosphere at the University of Arkansas during the last sixty years.
Posted September 29, 2009
te deum
Professor Elizabeth Markham has just published the lead essay in an international collection entitled Medieval Sacred Chant: from Japan to Portugal (Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical, Universidade Nova de Lisboa). Prof. Markham’s piece, "Chinese Hymns in Japanese Buddhist Liturgy: Structure and Ornament", focuses on liturgical chant for Buddhist ritual in Japan, shoomyoo, a musical style documented since at least the first half of the eighth century and one serving as a foundation for chants still sung today.
Professor Markham’s essay originated in an international colloquium on sacred music held in Lisbon and Évora in June 2005. The meeting was organized by Cantus planus, the most prestigious circle of chant experts in the world. Markham’s work on medieval Buddhist music reflects the new, global agenda of Cantus planus: a commitment to broadening the scholarly horizons of chant beyond the borders of Europe.
Posted September 22, 2009
with sorrow
Mrs. Maxine Collins Reeser passed away on September 16, in Fayetteville. Mrs. Reeser was born in Fayetteville to Cal and Theda Baggett Collins. She married History’s own Robert E. Reeser (1919-1995), who was a member of this Department from 1946 until his retirement in 1986. Together, the Reesers established a scholarship for significant contribution to the study of classical History: the Robert E. Reeser Award. The Award honors the legacy of Prof. Reeser as a versatile scholar, whose masterful presentation of Greek and Roman History is still remembered by generations of students who studied with him at the University of Arkansas.
Our condolences go out to the family and friends of Maxine and Robert.
Posted September 21, 2009
Changes
Professor Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, spoke September 24 at the university as part of the University of Arkansas Hartman Hotz Lectures in Law and Liberal Arts on "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and Slavery." In addition to his prepared talk, Professor Foner met with graduate students of the department of history, interviewed with the local NPR affiliate, and met with the highschool students pictured at right.
Professor Foner, who has served as president of the Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, and Society of American Historians, is renowned for his work on the history of politics, ideology, and race in the United States. He has published numerous books including Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War, Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction, and Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, which won both the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes, as well as the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
In addition to his voluminous record of publication, Professor Foner has distinguished himself as an outstanding teacher winning awards at his university as well as regionally and lecturing abroad from Oxford and Cambridge to the University of Moscow. Professor Foner also has served on the editorial boards of Past and Present and The Nation and appeared on programs from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to All Things Considered.
Professor Foner, who recently published Lincoln: New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World spoke on the evolution of the sixteenth president's views on the place of African Americans within the polity.
Posted September 18, 2009
No Soap (In a Dirty War)
Professor Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon has just signed a book contract with Palgrave/MacMillan, a leading, international publisher in the field of British History. In his new book, Imperial Endgame: Britain's Dirty Wars and the End of Empire, Grob-Fitzgibbon explores British counterinsurgency efforts during decolonization in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Aden, and Dhofar in the years 1945-1960. He argues that during these years, the British government developed an intentional imperial strategy of separating insurgents from the general colonial population (where the insurgents could be engaged without injury to civilians) whilst winning the hearts and minds of the vast majority of colonial subjects by practicing good governance, establishing social programs, and revitalizing key infrastructure. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, the government's aim was to ensure that upon eventual independence, these colonies would willingly remain within the Commonwealth rather than turning to the Soviet Union, and British influence would thus be maintained in those territories that once made up the British Empire.
Posted September 18, 2009
Weave Me the Sunshine
Assistant Professor of History, Ohio University, and Honors graduate of this Department, Brian Schoen, has just published The Fragile Fabric of Union: Cotton, Federal Politics, and the Global Origins of the Civil War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). In The Fragile Fabric of Union, Schoen views the Deep South and its cotton industry from a global perspective, revisiting old assumptions and providing fresh insights into the region, the political history of the United States, and the causes of the Civil War. Former Bancroft-prize winning historian, Charles Postel, praises Schoen’s book as ‘fascinating and deeply research’, a study that ‘challenges enduring myths about the Cotton South and the roots of the Civil War.’ In his acknowledgements Schoen thanks U of AR historians and faculty, including David Sloan, David Edwards, Lynda Coon, Henry Tsai, Randall Woods, and Suzanne McCray.
Professor Schoen was an Honors scholar and Sturgis Fellow (1994-1997). He spent a year at Cambridge University, where he worked with Professor Betty Wood on the history of the American South, slavery, and the Caribbean. Schoen then went on to study with Peter Onuf and Edward Ayers at the University of Virginia, where he received his Ph.D. in early American History
Posted September 17, 2009
Talk, Talk, Talk
Professor Liang Cai gave an invited, plenary address to the 12th Annual Conference and International Symposium of Study of the History of the Qin and Han China, an international conference held in China in August on her current research on Confucians in China.
The title of her lecture was: “Recasting the Ruling Class: A Turning Point in the Western Han Dynasty." In it, Professor Cai further developed her ongoing work on the changing status of the Confucian group from the death of Emperor Wu to the rise of Emperor Zhou in the first century BCE. These ideas figure heavily in the manuscript she is preparing, Performing Historical Narrative: Sima Qian, Witchcraft, and Confucians in Western Han China (206BCE-8CE), which explores the transition in greater depth.
Posted September 14, 2009
Oliver's Army
Professor Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon has just published “Securing the Colonies for the Commonwealth: Counterinsurgency, Decolonization, and the Development of British Imperial Strategy in the Postwar Empire,” in the journal British Scholar [2/1 (September 2009): 12-39]. In the essay, Professor Grob-Fitzgibbon argues for a re-interpretation of the post-colonial experience and challenges prevailing assumptions in the historiography.
Advance word on “Securing the Colonies” from the American Historical Association is: "Grob-Fitzgibbon has offered a model of decolonization that will revolutionize historical thinking on the subject."
Posted September 14, 2009
Florida, My Florida
Doctoral Academy Fellow Michael Hammond successfully defended his dissertation, "Constructing a New Majority: Race and Religion in U.S. Politics from Roe to Reagan", on 29 August 2009. Dr. Hammond’s dissertation was directed by David Chappell, Rothbaum Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma and former member of this Department. His Committee consisted of Professor Beth Schweiger and Professor Patrick Williams. Dr. Hammond’s research focus is on the political culture of religious conservatives in 1960s and 1970s Washington, D.C. His examination of that culture is grounded in the history of American civil rights and race relations. As a former legislative aide to Senator Daniel R. Coats (1993-1995), Dr. Hammond has experienced firsthand the culture and politics of Capitol Hill.
Dr. Hammond has already published an essay in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly and has served as a research assistant for Prof. Chappell’s forthcoming book on Martin Luther King (Random House, 2009). Dr. Hammond won an O’Donnell Grant to conduct research at the George Bush Presidential Library, and in the spring 2009, he won the Fulbright College Yowell Teaching Prize.
Dr. Hammond has just started as an Assistant Professor of History at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida.
Posted September 11, 2009
Hail Britannia!
The Society for British Historians, a new organization organized by graduate students but open to both undergraduates and graduates had its first meeting on Monday, September 14.
Students involved in the society will meet monthly to discuss the newest books in British history as well as present and critique papers, organize conference panels and invite speakers to campus. Aside from a love of British history, students will share pizza at this get-acquainted event. Students interested in more information should contact Jeff Grooms (jgrooms@uark.edu).
Posted September 11, 2009
War (What is it good for?)
Geoff Jensen successfully defended his dissertation, “It Cut Both Ways: the Cold War and Civil Rights Reform within the Military, 1945-1968.” Jensen’s committee consisted of Profs. Randall Woods (Chair), Calvin White, and Daniel Sutherland.
In the dissertation, Dr. Jensen explores the many motivations behind the integration of the armed forces, especially how the specter of communism was used by liberal reformers and southern segregationists to fight for, or against, the integration of the military. He also evaluates the continuous racial reforms of the services (in areas such as housing, medicine, Veteran's benefits) as well as the use of the military as a weapon in Johnson's War on Poverty.
Posted August 12, 2009
Texas Is What Life Is All About
Jason Pierce (Ph.D., 2008; supervisor: Prof. Elliott West) seems unable to stay out of the good news column for the department -- and the web vozhd is all for that!
Professor Pierce, featured below in the news for his recent book contract with the University Press of Colorado for, Making the White Man's West: Whiteness and the Creation of the American West continues to be showered with good news and good reviews and recently won a tenure-track position in U.S. Western History, Native American History, and Environmental History at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas.
For more on Professor Pierce's new home, click here.
Posted August 10, 2009
Go Tell It On The Mountain
Professor Calvin White has just signed a contract with the University of Arkansas Press for his forthcoming book on the Black Holiness Movement. Congratulations, They Danced and Shouted Into Obscurity: A History of the Black Holiness Movement, 1880-1961.
They Danced and Shouted into Obscurity documents the history of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and examines its cultural impact upon people of African descent in the U. S. South. It also explores the ways in which Charles Harrison Mason (1866-1961), the son of third generation slaves and the founder of COGIC, embraced a Pentecostal faith that in many ways rejected a European world view while embracing African modes, lifestyles, and expressions. At the turn of the twentieth century, when other mainstream black denominations such as Baptists and Methodists cleansed religious ceremonies of practices deemed too African in nature, Mason and COGIC fought to retain these practices, placing the denomination at odds with a rising new black middle class. COGIC’s continued practice of beating the drums, dancing, shouting, and spirit possession embarrassed many middle class blacks. Educated blacks now viewed overt emotionalism as lewd and unnecessary, thus black Baptists and Methodists accused Mason and COGIC of not promoting racial uplift and respectability, making COGIC the pariah of black mainstream religions. Still, COGIC persevered. Congregations composed of rural, uneducated blacks in the South, who believed in divine healing, prophecies, and the exorcism of demons, laid the foundation for what has become the largest African American Pentecostal group in the world today.
Posted July 30, 2009
Supermodel (You better work)
All-around snappy dresser, teaching award winner, and honorary yenta, Dr. Derek Everett will be leaving Old Main this fall to take on work elsewhere. Everett, who completed his Ph.D. dissertation under the direction of Professor Elliot West and is currently being courted by some important presses, has accepted a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Metropolitan State College of Denver, Colorado.
While Professor Everett will be sorely missed -- especially by the numerous honors students he has taught in recent years -- we can only hope that he will be happy returning to his first love -- the Colorado state capital.
Posted July 15, 2009