History & Art History

One of our Western Civilization Postdoctoral Fellows, Dr. Nicole Hudgins, was recently awarded a CTAC grant from the Center for Teaching Excellence for her proposal, “Critical Thinking on the Web: Assessing the Value of the Internet to the Practice of History.” The project will expand upon Dr. Hudgins’ Western Civilization course assignment, which asks [...]

The department welcomes Ryan Swanson as our Finley postdoctoral fellow for 2008-09. Professor Swanson completed his Ph.D. at Georgetown University in June 2008. His dissertation, “Jim Crow on Deck: Baseball During America’s Reconstruction,” explores how racial segregation was implemented following the Civil War. He is teaching U.S. sports history this fall.

What does it mean to be Zulu today? Is this different from what it has meant in the past? A new book of analysis and insight, Zulu Identities: Being Zulu Past and Present, edited by Dr. Benedict Carton, along with John Laband and Jabulani Sithole, wrestles with these and many other questions to show [...]

Dr. Rosie Zagarri’s most recent book, Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic, has been published by University of Pennsylvania Press. Dr. Zagarri looks at the role of women in American politics during our nation’s first fifty years. In doing so, she examines an alternative explanation for the emergence of the first [...]

Dr. Christopher Hamner and the Center for History and New Media received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund the ongoing documentary editing project Papers of the War Department, 1783-1800. The project, a digital archive that restores the collection lost in the November 1800 fire that destroyed the War Office, was [...]

The books just keep coming. Last week Michael Chang’s book, A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680-1785 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), was released by Harvard University Press. The dust jacket and description are available, and anyone who might be interested, the front matter and introduction (PDF format) are [...]

The History & Art History Alumni Chapter invites all alumni to tour George Washington’s historic Mount Vernon! Mount Vernon has recently undergone a tremendous renovation and has a new museum and visitor’s center. The chapter will host special guest Dr. Peter Henriques, a retired Mason professor of history, and author of the recent book, George [...]

Mack Holt has been busy with several publications. In the book department he has the following either in bookstores or in the pipeline: Mack P. Holt ., ed., Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2006); Mack P. Holt, ed., Adaptations of Calvinism in Reformation Europe: Essays in Honour of Brian G. Armstrong [...]

Congratulations to Matt Romaniello (Russian) and Mary Gayne (early modern Europe), both Western Civilizaton post-doctoral fellows, who will be taking up tenure-track positions for next year. Matt will join the History Department at the University of Hawaii and Mary Gayne will be “down the road” at James Madison University.

Again, in the most recent issue of the AHA Perspectives, the Teaching American History team at the Center for History & New Media report on their problems and prospects of using primary sources in the secondary classroom.