History Newsletter
October 2004
Fall History Lectures
The fall Capstone Lecturer was Ira Berlin, Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park. Berlin is the founder of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project, which produced the multi-volume Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation (1982, 1985, 1990, 1993). His most recent book, Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Harvard University Press, 2003) was the subject of his conversations with students in Professor Aaron Sheehan-Dean’s senior seminar on the Old South. His public lecture was entitled “American Slavery in History and Memory.” The photograph above shows him with Professor Sheehan-Dean, at left, and graduate student Tina Luers, right.
Mark your calendars for Wednesday, November 17, for another history lecture this fall. Professor David Courtwright will speak in the University Gallery at 7:30 pm on “Sky as Frontier: The History, Photography, and Strange Sociology of Early Aviation.” This illustrated lecture is based on his newly-published book, Sky as Frontier (the cover appears at left). Copies of the book will be available at the lecture for signing.
About History Students and Alumni
The winners of the 2003-2004 History Prize were honored at the spring Academic Convocation. James Holeman won the undergraduate award for his paper “Ibn Khaldun’s Philosophy of History: The Reinvention of the Early Muslim Community as the Basis of Social Reform.” Andrew Holt won the graduate prize for a paper on “‘Uncle Joe’ and Genocide in the Soviet Union: How the Roosevelt Administration Ignored the Deaths of Twenty Million to Form an Alliance Against Hitler.” Submissions will be due in late February or early March for the 2004-2005 prizes, covering papers written in spring, summer, and fall 2004 or spring 2005.
History major Rosie Kostandarithes was awarded a Phi Beta Kappa Alumni Association scholarship in spring 2004. The awards are based on academic merit.
Two history BA graduates are now well into writing their dissertations for the Ph.D. in history. Jonathyne Briggs is completing his doctorate at Emory University with a specialty in modern French history, and is teaching a section of Freshman Core at UNF this year. His dissertation will focus on French cultural history in the 1970s, as evident in the title of the paper he delivered in October at the Western Society for French History, “Anarchie en France: The Strange Demise of French Punk Rock.” Jason Johnsen continues to follow his passion for Irish history at University College, Cork, where his dissertation is concerns Ireland's response to the Great War.
History majors often go on to law school, and the ranks of Jacksonville attorneys have recently grown with the addition of Eric McKay to the firm of Smith, Hulsey, and Busey. McKay studied law at Tulane University after receiving his BA in history from UNF.
Study Abroad Opportunities
Dr. J. Michael Francis and Dr. Betsy Nies will lead a three-week Core Abroad trip to central and southern Spain during Summer A (May-June 2005). Spain is one of the most diverse and visually stunning nations in Europe, and Core Abroad students will visit many of Spain’s most impressive sites. The photo at left shows students on last year’s Spain trip. This year’s destinations include Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Salamanca, Trujillo, Cáceres, Seville, Córdoba and Granada, and many other small towns in Castile-León, Extremadura and Andalusia. Space is limited to 22 students. Participants will receive three credits in history at the 2000 or 3000 levels, and three credits in Literature (again, at the 2000 or 3000 level). Scholarships worth approximately $1500.00 per student are available. For more information, please contact Dr. Francis at 620-1857, or email jfrancis@unf.edu.
During summer B (June-July), Dr. Francis will lead the Eighth Annual Latin America Abroad trip. During the sixteen-day trip, participants will visit some of Peru’s most impressive Inca ruins, including Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu, Sacsahuaman and Pisac. There is also an optional flight over the Nazca Lines. Students will also visit Lima’s magnificent colonial sites, as well as the famous Gold Museum, and will spend four days in the Amazon Rainforest. The trip will be preceded by three weeks of coursework, and history credit is available at the 3000 and 5000 levels. Space is limited to 15 students. For more information, please contact Dr. Francis at 620-1857, or email jfrancis@unf.edu.
Still in the last planning stages is a third study abroad course for summer A, Remembering the World Wars, dealing with the history and memory of World Wars I and II. With Dr. Dale Clifford, students will visit four sites of memory: London, Verdun, the Somme, and the Normandy Beaches. We will also visit the Bayeux Tapestry, a much earlier example of the intersection between the history and the memory of war. For more information call Dr. Clifford at 620-1858, or email clifford@unf.edu.
Internship Opportunities
Undergraduate and graduate students interested in practicing history outside the classroom this spring or summer may want to explore an internship. In addition to opportunities with the Kingsley Plantation and the St. Augustine Lighthouse, you might want to consider working with the archives at the Amelia Island Museum, where history M.A. alumna Rhonda Norheim is Education and Program Coordinator. You might also explore the possibility of an internship at the the Museum of Science and History, where M.A. alumna Heather Hamel is Volunteer Coordinator. History interns there may work with planning historical demonstrations and programs, as well as researching items. Students who are interested in an internship should contact department chair Dr. Dale Clifford.
History Club, and Phi Alpha Theta
The department has both a History Club, open to all students with an interest in history, and a chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honorary society. Phi Alpha Theta facilitates interaction among undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in a variety of settings. Among the activities planned for the UNF chapter will be field trips to area historic sites and museums, movie nights, and discussions with faculty members for students interested in graduate school. The National Phi Alpha Theta hosts its own conference, at which students can present research, as well as hosting panels for interested students at professional academic conferences. Phi Alpha Theta also awards prizes for essays and scholarships for graduate study in history. There will be an organizational meeting Tuesday, November 9 from 6-7 in Building 12, Room 1221. Pizza and drinks will be provided. For more information about Phi Alpha Theta, contact Dr. Aaron Sheehan-Dean at asheehan@unf.edu, and for the history club, Dr. Michael Francis at jfrancis@unf.edu.
Seminars and New Courses for Spring 2005
The spring schedule is at the end of this newsletter, organized by time block. Registration for spring term begins on Tuesday, November 16. Remember to register promptly, as some courses fill very early in the registration process.
Spring Seminars
HIS 4936 AV/AMH 5934 AG Religion and Reform in Antebellum US, 12-2:45 Fridays, with Dr. Carolyn Williams. This class begins with an examination of the impact of the early 19th century First Great Awakening on both spiritual and secular arenas. Particular emphasis will be placed on the relationship between religion and the following social movements: temperance, abolition, women's rights, peace, and education. In addition to historical texts, literary works and films will be used.
EUH 4294 AE/5934 AS Golden Age of Russian Culture, 6-8:45 Wednesday, with Dr. Theo Prousis. The seminar critically examines the major events, issues, and ideas in the Golden Age of Russian Culture from 1800 to 1900. Students will read some of the classics of the period, including works by Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, and analyze these literary texts in their various contexts – biographical, social, cultural, intellectual, political. Students will write essays and research papers, as well as give class presentations, exploring particular themes and issues and their importance for the study of nineteenth-century Russian society, culture, and art.
EUH 4932 AE/5934 AR Saints and Sainthood, 6-8:45 Thursday, with Dr. Paul Halsall. Recent decades have seen a renewed interest in hagiography (texts about saints) by secular scholars. Fascinated by the perspectives on society at all levels offered through the decidedly odd lens of saints' lives (or vitae), historians and have used this mass literature of the middle ages to study not only religious cultures, but women's relationship to their bodies, local power networks, and the nature of mimetic narrative. As a result, a series of new questions have emerged -- far removed from the positivist questions of older religious scholars ("Did the saint really exist?" "How accurate is the data in the saint's life?"). Issues to consider now include the validity of quantification and prosopographical approaches versus the case-study/micro history method; how the history of sainthood should be periodized; and cross-cultural comparisons of saints in various religious traditions.
LAH 4932 AB/5934 AF Haitian Revolution, 3-5:45 Monday, with Dr. John Garrigus. Dr. Garrigus is Professor of History at Jacksonville University, and we are pleased that he has agreed to teach a seminar in his specialty for UNF. This seminar examines the world’s only successful slave rebellion, which occurred in Haiti between 1791 and 1804, when it was still the French colony of Saint-Domingue. The Haitian Revolution freed half-a-million people from bondage, created the first Latin American nation-state, and changed the lives of free and enslaved people from Brazil to Virginia. Seminar topic will include the brutal nature of Caribbean sugar slavery, the role of race and gender in pre-revolutionary society, the extraordinary life of Toussaint Louverture and the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the rest of the world.
Graduate Seminar:
EUH 6936 Conquistadors, meeting on Monday evenings with Dr. Michael Francis. This seminar will explore the complex nature of the Spanish conquests in the Americas. Course readings will focus on the patterns of the conquests (with a focus on the sixteenth century), and we will consider various interpretations of the role of the conquistadors. Through an extensive examination of primary and secondary sources, from Columbus and Cortés, to Michael Wood and Hollywood, students will also examine the unique relationship between popular myth and history.
Other new courses for spring:
ASH 3932 AK Gender and Sexuality in Asian History, 6-8:45 Tuesday, with Dr. Harry Rothschild. Stereotypes often depict the Asian woman as a weak, yielding and pliant victim in a patriarchal, traditional society. In China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia, these stereotypes did not always tally with reality. Women occasionally broke out of the domestic, inner sphere and became warriors, nuns, or poets – several even ascended to the pinnacle of political power and became rulers. This course will explore the distance between patriarchal model and reality in traditional Asia, and investigate changing gender roles and expectations during the wrenching transition to modernity. This course also examines such topics as sexuality, footbinding, and the homosexual tradition. We will probe the lives of Asian women from all walks of society – peasants, entrepreneurs, warriors, revolutionaries, pop singers, courtesans – with a critical eye on the impact that these women had on culture, aesthetics and society. We will also ask whether the legacy is one of empowerment or victimization.
HIS 3932 CW/5934 CF Digital History, offered 3-5:45 or 6-8:45 Wednesday, with Dr. Dan Schafer. This course requires Dr. Schafer’s approval for registration. Digital History research is intended for history majors, local and Florida history enthusiasts, librarians, archivists, and teachers. Students will select research topics and develop historical websites for placement on www.floridahistoryonline.com. Only a few research topics will be pursued in Spring 2005, when the main focus will be on the history of Fort George Island from the 1550s to the 1950s. For more information contact Dr. Schafer at 620-1868 or dschafer@unf.edu.
Floridahistoryonline.com is a digital archive of historical documents that places Florida history in a national and international perspective. Each year, students and faculty in the Department of History will create web pages that explore through documents the complex historical legacy of Florida. Interactive maps, primary source materials, time-lines, portraits, biographies, searchable data bases, scholarly analysis, interpretive narratives, lesson plans for teachers, and other tools of digital technology will be utilized. The website will be a resource for teachers and scholars, students at all grade levels and the general public, offering free access to transcribed historical documents. Contributions from students and scholars in other departments and institutions, and active partnerships with archives, libraries, and local historical societies are encouraged.
HIS 3932 CX Food and Trade, 10:50-12:05 TR with Dr. Aaron Sheehan-Dean. This course is part of a Common Boundary pairing, and students must also enroll for LIT 3930 AU 001, Food and Culture. Food and Trade will investigate the political, economic, and social relationships that surround the foods we eat. In particular, we will conduct case studies of four products – spices, sugar, chocolate, and coffee – that allow us to see how these items moved across oceans and cultures, changing from luxuries enjoyed by elites to everyday commodities. Students will read both popular books about the products (and do plenty of tasting along the way!) and more academic treatments of the contexts within which those goods have been produced. By building historical perspectives on the selected products, the course will encourage students to think critically about the global effects of current consumption and production practices.