Chair's Corner

 ―  Teresa Meade
 meadet@union.edu 

The history department is happy to welcome a new colleague this fall:  Shailaja Paik, who completed her Ph.D. at the University of Warwick, in England.  Professor Paik is offering courses in South Asian civilization, history, and religion this fall, and next winter will be teaching a Sophomore Research Seminar on “Caste and Gender in South Asia” along with a survey on modern South Asian history.  The department is delighted to have the addition of this important area of the world as a research and teaching focus.

 The other new and exciting development in the department has been the inauguration of our Public History Program, under the direction of Professor Melinda Lawson.  She has been laying the groundwork for the Civil Rights Mini-term which will be launched in Nov-Dec. 2009.  The department already has a public history mini-term to South Africa thus a mini-term covering the important sites of the US civil rights movement, including Charleston, Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham, and New Orleans, is an exciting addition. 

In late February 2009 the history department, the Africana Studies program, and the President’s Office will host the Capital District Underground Railroad History Conference here at Union College.  (See page 3 for more details).

Requirements for the Major

Twelve courses including a five-course core; at least one course on the period before 1700; at least one course each in US and European history; at least one course from the following areas: Africa/Middle East, Asia, Latin America; two-300 level courses, a seminar, and a two-term senior project.
Students will choose a five-course core in Africa/Middle East, Asia, Europe, Latin America, or US, or in a thematic concentration. Examples of thematic concentrations include "Africana," "Women and Gender," "Revolution," "Empires," etc.  In close cooperation with their advisors, history majors will select the courses for a thematic concentration and submit their proposal to the Department Chair for written approval no later than the start of Winter Term of the Junior year.  
Seminars are normally limited to 15 students and are designed to teach research skills.  The 300-level courses are specifically designed for history majors and include bibliographical and historiographical components.  Seminars and 300-level courses may be used to meet the core requirements. 
Senior projects normally must pertain to a topic in the core, but cannot count toward courses in the core.  Students must complete a seminar before beginning the thesis.  Classics 121 and 125 may be counted toward the history major, but not toward a core.
Requirements for the Interdepartmental Major: Eight courses, including the core requirement or thematic concentration for majors, the seminar, one 300-level course, and the senior thesis. Students must complete a seminar before beginning the thesis. Interdepartmental majors may count one term of the senior thesis toward the field requirements.
Requirements for the Minor: Six history courses, including at least one 300-level course; at least three of the six must belong to one of the following core areas:  Africa/Middle East, Asia, Europe, Latin America, or US.

Faculty News

Ken Aslakson:  On October 11th I will be presenting a paper "From the Ballroom to the Courtroom, Misconceptions about Free Women of Color in Early New Orleans" at the Southern Historical Association conference in New Orleans.  Then on November 8th I will be presenting a paper "The Precariousness of Freedom: The Oxendine Family in Port Gibson, Mississippi" at the Urban History Association conference in Houston. 

Melinda Lawson:  Over the course of the year I will be working to set up an interdisciplinary Public History Minor. In addition to courses we currently offer – including the South Africa public history mini-term and “The Museum: Theory and Practice,” the curriculum will include a foundation course, a Civil Rights mini-term that will tour the South visiting the sites of major Civil Rights actions, and an internship program. In the future we hope to add a digital museum course. This minor will be available to history majors as well to non-majors.

This year, in conjunction with the Office of Campus Diversity, the History Department’s new Public History program is hosting the eighth annual Underground Railroad History Conference. This is a major event, held February 27th and 28th at Campus Park Hall. The theme of the conference is “The Underground Railroad, Its Legacies, and Our Communities.” We are very excited about this event and urge all history students to attend. (Attendance for students will be free!)

Joyce Madancy:  The fall is just arriving, and I’m in the midst of my SRS Opium East and West, which is going well.  Students are reading about changing attitudes toward opiates in China, England, the US, and India, and will be doing research in a number of primary source collections.  Make sure to stop by the Olin Rotunda at lunchtime on Tuesday, Nov. 11 to see poster presentations from my class and SRS’s on Japanese Internment (taught by Prof. Morris, History) ,  African-American Protest Movements (taught by Prof. Lawson, History), and Technology, Mind and Media (taught by Prof. Patrik, Philosophy).   These sophomore research projects have been impressive in the past, and the event should be both informative and fun!

In the winter, I am looking forward to teaching a new course called “The Samurai: Lives, Loves and Legacies” (History 285).  We’ll be analyzing the rise and fall of the samurai class, reading about the samurai  `code,’ studying  samurai films (and viewing several classics and films that should be classics), and exploring the enduring appeal of the samurai inside and outside Japan.   I hope to see many of you in the class! 

Teresa Meade:  This fall I was elected president-elect of the New England Council of Latin American Studies (NECLAS). This is the organization of professors who teach about Latin America in colleges and universities of the Northeast.  In my role as president, I will be hosting the 2009 conference here at Union College.  In past years this conference has been at Bowdoin, Middlebury, Holy Cross, Mt. Holyoke, and, in 2008, at Brown University.  We are very happy to bring it to Union next October.

 I am finishing several academic projects, including a new edition of my book A Brief History of Brazil and finishing up another book, A Concise History of Latin America.  I’m looking forward to completing those books, and also taking a group of students to Buenos Aires, Argentina as a part of a mini-term program for Women and Gender Studies, during the winter break.

Andrew Morris: I had a busy summer and fall. I was working on my book manuscript until right before fall classes started, and got it safely off to the publishers. It is titled The Limits of Voluntarism: Charity and Welfare from the New Deal through the Great Society, published by Cambridge University Press, and due out at the end of November. One of my favorite parts of the book is the picture I chose for the cover, so make sure to check it out online.

I also presented a conference paper in late October at the Social Science History Association’s annual meeting in Miami. This paper focused on the transformation of charitable fundraising during the 1930s and 1940s, and the ways in which charities piggybacked on to the extension of the federal government’s taxing power by taking advantage of the possibility of deducting charitable donations from people’s paychecks in the same way that income taxes began to be deducted.

Finally, I am gearing up to start my next major research project, which will focus on the history of disaster relief in the U.S. during the twentieth century. I was fortunate to have a couple student researchers working with me this summer on assembling an initial bibliography and delving into some published primary sources. I will be at the National Archives over winter break doing some preliminary research that I will pull together for a conference paper that I’m scheduled to give next May.

Shailaja Paik:  I have recently signed a book contract with Routledge. This book tentatively titled, “Caste, Gender and Education in India: Narratives of Dalit Women,” is basically a scholarly monograph based on my dissertation that examines the nexus of caste, class, gender and state pedagogical practices. Apart from this I have been working on research papers. One paper is submitted to the journal Contemporary South Asia, the other paper is forthcoming with Indian Journal of Gender Studies.

Mark Walker:  I am spending the fall term as a Mellon Exchange professor at Skidmore, and enjoying both the differences with and similarities to Union. A collection of essays on German science during National Socialism I edited together with two German colleagues will appear soon with Cambridge University Press, including a chapter by me on the latest news of the “German Atomic Bomb."

Robert Wells:  This summer I put the finishing touches on a book to be published next fall with the University of Illinois Press, entitled Life Flows on in Endless Song: Folk Songs and American History.  This is an outgrowth of History 217, which I will teach again this spring. 

I did some reading in preparation for changing my SRS this winter to a study of witch craft in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692.  I wrote a book review for the Journal of Interdisciplinary History of a book entitled House of Mourning, on the massacre in Utah in 1857 by the Mormons of about 120 migrants to California.  The book was a study by a forensic anthropologist of bone fragments unearthed in a construction project in 1999.  During the December break I will be working on an encyclopedia article on population in the American colonies in the 17th century.

Founders' Day Speaker

The UGR conference will take place on the weekend following Founders’ Day (February 26) where Pulitzer Prize winning author and major historian of the Civil War, James M. McPherson, will receive an honorary degree. Professor McPherson is known for his books, Battle Cry of Freedom, 1989 winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History, as well as, The Struggle for Equality, and For Cause and Comrades, which received the Lincoln Prize in 1998.  In 2002 he published both a scholarly book, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam 1862, and a history of the Civil War for children, Fields of Fury. Professor McPherson is a past president of the American Historical Association, a well-known speaker, and a frequent commentator in the media. 

Professor McPherson has played an important role as a public advocate of serious historic preservation and commemoration.  A staunch defender of historic preservation of Civil War battlegrounds, he worked with other historians to defeat a Disney Corporation attempt to turn the Manassas Battlefield in Virginia into a Disney theme park.  In 1999 he attracted public attention when he criticized then presidential candidate George W. Bush’s financial support of the Museum of the Confederacy and its Lone Star Ball fundraising event.  In a radio interview McPherson pointed out that many members of groups such as the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and those that support the flying of the Confederate flag in public buildings, have tended to want to celebrate the Confederacy’s white supremacist agenda. Members of some neo-Confederate organizations were outraged, but McPherson remained clear in his argument that historic documentation and understanding of the Confederacy is entirely appropriate, but it cannot be confused with “celebration” of the Confederacy’s goals.  He stated that such celebration is a “rather thinly veiled support for white supremacy.”

The history department is very happy to welcome Professor McPherson to the College in late February.  His role as a historian, public intellectual and popular speaker bode well for a successful 2009 Founders Day event.  We urge all our students to attend.

Alumni News

Lindsey Gish, 2004

I am still here at Michigan State going into my 4th year in the history's Ph.D. program.

I am writing because I wanted to share some very good news.  I was awarded a Fulbright Hays DDRA fellowship to study in Senegal from May 2009 to March 2010.  My current dissertation topic/title is "Atlantic Markets and West African Sisters" which looks at the connection between female West African foodstuff/ produce traders in Saint Louis, Senegal and New Orleans, Louisiana between 1750-1865.

In addition to sharing this news, I wanted to send my professors a thank you.  I have been out of Union 4 years now, but every day I know that Union and professors like you prepared me for my graduate school career. I am grateful every day for the time you dedicated and still dedicate to teaching, helping, supporting and encouraging your students. I know your influence contributed this result and I wanted to say Thank You.

Petition Courses

• HST 363/WGS 341:  Women in British History. 
• HST 312/WGS 312:  Women’s Rights
• HST 412:  Sem:  Origins of the Constitution
• HST 471:  Sem:  Individual in Latin America 
                    GenEd: CDLA, LCC

300 and 400 Level Courses for 2008-2009

                 Winter 09 

• HST 312:  Women’s Rights
• HST 363:  Women in Britain History
• HST 411:  Sem:  Origins of the Constitution
• HST 472:  Sem:  Individual in Latin America

                    Spring 09

• HST 302:  Comparing Muslim Cultures
• HST 331:  US in Film
• HST 353:  Modern European Ideas
• HST 413:  Sem: American Disasters
• HST 482:  Sem:  Caste and Caste Conflict in Contemporary India

New Courses Winter 2009

HST 136:  Middle East to 1800 (Winter; Tadros).  (Also Religious Studies 136). This course is designed to enrich the students’ historical awareness of a region that for millennia has served as a crossroads of cultural and economic exchange.  Throughout our period of study, this region of southwest Asia and northern Africa was home to a multiplicity of religions, languages, ethnicities, and human activities.  Relative to other settled areas, this heterogeneous conglomeration was unique to the Middle East.  This course, encompassing more than a thousand years of history, aims to familiarize students with the various cultural (including social, economic, and political) developments of the region from the sixth century to the eighteenth century, and, is intended to serve as a catalyst for further study of Middle Eastern history.

To enhance the students’ study of this region, we will use various media, including the internet, in our approach.  On the HST136 Blackboard site, students will find images, audio/video files, articles, and links to a wide variety of sources that will augment the texts and class lectures.  Furthermore, the last class day of each two-week segment will serve as a discussion forum in which we will review (utilizing your Comment Paper, see below) the segment’s topics or themes.  Of course, students should not wait for the discussion forums to ask questions and make statements, your constructive input during any class is encouraged.
 MWF 3:05 pm – 4:10 pm

HST 184:  Making of Modern India (Winter; Paik).  This course will examine the history of South Asia since 1880. We will concentrate on the impact of colonialism on the Indian subcontinent and on the formation of the modern South Asian States of India and Pakistan. The culture of  colonialism, the nature of the colonial state and the emergence of nationalism are themes which are explored. Thematically, this course explores the making of the modern Indian subcontinent in the course of interaction with colonial ‘modernity’ and the birth of organized nationalist movements. Chronologically, we will survey the history of the Indian subcontinent from the inception of colonial rule in the late eighteenth century to the establishment of the independent nation states of India and Pakistan in the middle of the twentieth century. The course hopes to provide a good understanding of modern South Asian history as basis for more advanced study, and as training in historical methods. Students will be asked to consider a range of historical controversies, demonstrating the perpetual disagreements of historians, but also the need to understand historical techniques and to develop skills of historical judgments. Since this is a survey course there are no prerequisites.
 T,Th 1:55 pm – 3:40 pm

HST 285:  The Samurai: Lives, Loves, and Legacies (Winter; Madancy).  This course explores the evolution of the samurai as a caste, their military and family lives, their passions, and their symbolic meaning to Japanese and to others.  We will be reading first-hand accounts written by samurai men and women, viewing a number of well-known and lesser-known samurai films, and looking at how the realities of samurai life compare with the many meanings the samurai have acquired over the centuries.  GenEd; CDEA, LCC
 T,Th 10:55 am – 12:40 pm

Winter 2009 Course Offerings

AFRICA/MIDDLE EAST

HST 108:  Africa Since 1800 (Winter; Peterson).
GenEd:  CDAA, LCC
 T,Th 1:55 pm – 3:40 pm

 HST 136:  Middle East to 1800 (Winter; Tadros).  See New Course listing for details.
 MWF 3:05 pm – 4:10 pm

ASIA

HST 184:  Making of Modern India (Winter; Paik).  See New Course listing for details.
 T,Th 1:55 pm – 3:40 pm
 
HST 285:  The Samurai (Winter; Madancy). See New Course listing for details.  GenEd:  CDEA, LCC, WAC
T,Th 10:55 am – 12:40 am

EUROPE

HST 149:  Second World War (Winter; Berk).
 MWF 9:15 am – 10:20 am

HST 154: Russia in the Imperial Age (Winter; Berk).
 MWF 11:45 am – 12:50 pm

HST 243:  Ottoman Empire (Winter; Tadros).
 MWF 10:30 am – 11:35 am

HST 244:  History of Christianity (Winter; Bedford).
 MWF 1:50 pm – 2:55 pm

HST 363:  Women in British History (Also Women’s and Gender Studies 341) (Winter; Cramsie).
 MW 3:05 pm – 4:45 pm

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

HST 471:  Sem: Individual in Latin America (Winter; Meade).  GenEd:  CDLA, LCC, WAC
 T,Th 9:00 am – 10:45 am

UNITED STATES

HST 102:  History of US since the Civil War (Winter; Morris).
 MWF 11:45 am – 12:50 pm

HST 123:  Cold War (Winter; Morris).
 MWF 8:00 am – 9:05 am

HST 125:  Coming Apart?:  America in the Sixties (Also Women’s and Gender Studies 153) (Winter; Feffer).
 MW 3:05 pm – 4:45 pm

HST 128:  American Jewish History (Berk; Winter).
 MWF 10:30 am – 11:35 am

HST 131:  African American I.  (Winter; Aslakson). GenEd:  Am-C, CDAA, LCC
 MWF 1:50 pm – 2:55 pm

HST 312:  History of Women’s Rights in the United States (Also Women’s and Gender Studies 312) (Winter; Foroughi).
 T,Th 9:00 am – 10:45 am

HST 412:  Sem:  Origins of the Constitution (Winter; Wells). WAC
 MW 3:05 pm – 4:45 pm

SPECIAL TOPICS

HST 490-493:  Independent Study (Fall, Winter, Spring)
HST 498-499:  Senior Project in History (Fall, Winter, Spring