SEPTEMBER 2021
moments in history
University of Maryland Department of History Newsletter
Department of History | Newsletter | Report Name
Photos by John T. Consoli/University of Maryland and Jacopo Villani, unless otherwise noted. Copyright University of Maryland Department of History, 2021.
Moments in history SEPTEMBER 2021 contents History has its eyes on you Achieving MEDIA MOMENTS Publishing & Presenting Practicing History Training Historians Learning History Random moments FUTURE MOMENTS
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Karin Rosemblatt has been awarded a grant of $400, 000 from the National Science Foundation to fund her exciting new project "Placing Latin America and the Caribbean in the History of Science, Technology, Environment, and Medicine." The "project provides a more comprehensive view of how science works by examining scientific innovation and application in Latin America and the Caribbean and the relation of science in the region to other sites." It will sponsor a website; hold workshops; and produce publications as new resources for teachers and researchers. and help train a new generation of graduate students "to conduct research on Latin America and the Caribbean and to incorporate the region into their courses." Congratulations Karin!
Department of History | Newsletter
Department of History
Karin Rosemblatt Awarded NSF Grant
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History has its eyes on you
ACHIEVING
On June 17, 2021 Rick Bell was elected to the Society of Fellows of the Massachusetts Historical Society, an honorary yet rare designation. In early July, the Baltimore City Historical Society announced that Rick's essay, "Border State, Border War: Fighting for Freedom and Slavery in Antebellum Maryland" received its 2020 Arnold Prize for the best essay on the history of Baltimore. The essay is forthcoming in a new collection, The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered (LSU Press November 2021). Congratulations to Chris Bonner whose book, Remaking the Republic: Black Politics and the Creation of American Citizenship (University of Pennsylvania Press, March 2020), has been awarded the James H. Broussard Best First Book Award 2021. The Award is given by the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. Sarah Cameron received a summer 2021 Title VIII Research award from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign to support her current research on the Aral Sea.
This fall McGill University will hold a series of online conferences to mark the fifteenth anniversary of Art Eckstein's Mediterranean Anarchy: Interstate War and the Rise of Rome (University of California Press, 2009). Shay Hazkani's recent book, Dear Palestine: a Social History of the 1948 War from Stanford University Press has been nominated for the 2021 Cundill History Prize. The Cundill Prize recognizes the book that embodies historical scholarship, originality, literary quality and broad appeal published in English. The Prize carries an award of $75,000 with $10,000 each for two runners up. A short list will be announced on September 23, 2021. The Cundill History Prize is administered by McGill University.. Read more about the award here.
Sonya Michel continues to pursue her career in art. She recently had pieces accepted for two juried exhibits at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition Gallery: "Re-Cycled" and "The Threads that Bind Us." Both exhibits open on Sunday, September 12 and run through October 17. The piece for the first is entitled "Re/Working," and for the second, "Weaving Paper." For more info and directions to the gallery click here. Michael Ross has agreed to serve as Associate Editor of the Journal of Supreme Court History. In summer 2021, Stefano Villani, as a fellow at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, TX working on a research project entitled "The Grand Tour in Reverse: The European Journeys of the Grand Prince Cosimo de’ Medici in 1668–69."
| Newsletter
In May 2021, Sarah Cameron was interviewed by two Kazakhstani TV channels, Studiia 7 and Qazaqstan, in connection with events to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Kazakh famine. She was also the keynote speaker for a virtual roundtable on the issue of the famine organized by the Kazakhstani Embassy and George Washington University in Washington, DC. Robyn Muncy appeared as a talking head in a documentary produced by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar titled "Fight the Power: The Movements that Changed America." It premiered on the History Channel on June 19, 2021.
MEDIA MOMENTS
PUBLISHING
Rick Bell's essay, "Border State, Border War: Fighting for Freedom and Slavery in Antebellum Maryland" is forthcoming in a new collection of essays titled The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered to be published November 2021 by LSU Press. James Gilbert is publishing his fourth novel: Murder at the Olympiad. This is the second book in a mystery series featuring Amanda Pennyworth as the amateur sleuth. The setting is the vacation city of Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. Amanda is the American Consul to that city and finds herself drawn into a dangerous adventure that reveals the underworld of that city as well as the cynical nature of American diplomacy. The publication date is October 20, 2021 and the book will be available at all the usual on-line order venues as well as on order from bookstores. Umberto Grassi, recently a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow in the UMD Department of History, has published Bathhouses and Riverbanks: Sodomy in a Renaissance Republic. Essays and Studies, 49 (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2021). Read more on the publisher's website here. Jeffrey Herf's book, Israel's Moment: International Support for and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945-1949 is scheduled for publication with Cambridge University Press between January and March 2022. Also this summer Jeffrey was asked to write a reply to an essay the historian Deborah Lipstadt, known for her pioneering work on Holocaust denial and appointed to be the "Antisemitism Envoy" of the U.S. State Department, published in the London based journal, The Jewish Quarterly. Her essay is titled "White Insurrection: Antisemitism in America." It examines the events of January 6, 2021 and the connection between racism toward peoples of color and antisemitism. Read the full essay here. Jeffrey's reply was published in August and it is available here. Lipstadt responded to Jeffrey's reply and you can read her response here. Jeffrey also published “German Communism, the Jews and Israel: From the Antifascism of World War II to the Undeclared Wars of the Cold War,” in Vladimir Tismaneanu, and Jordan Luber, eds., One Hundred Years of Communist Experiments (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2021). In H-Diplo, July 19-30, 2021 he reviewed Luca Falciola, “Transnational Relationships between the Italian Revolutionary Left and Palestinian Militants during the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies, No. 22 (Fall 2020), 3-71:. Read the review here. In Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, August 9, 2021 he reviewed Richard J. Evans, Hitler’s Conspiracies (Oxford University Press, 2020). Read the review here. John Lampe has published the Routledge Handbook of Balkan and and Southeast European History, co-edited with Ulf Brunnbauer (2020). See the publisher's website here. Mircea Rainu's book, Tata: The Global Corporation That Built Indian Capitalism, was published with Harvard University Press in July 2021. See the publisher's website here. The book was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal on July 14, 2021. Read the review here. David Sartorius published "Transitory Trust: Falsified Passports, Circulars, and Other Speculations in Nineteenth-Century Cuba" in a special issue of the Journal of Social History titled "Interpretive Challenges in the Archive: Rumor, Forgery, and Denunciation in Latin America and the Caribbean" 55, no. 1 (2021): 7-26. Julie Taddeo just signed a book contract with Rowman & Littlefield for an edited collection on Australian History on TV and Film, which will be her eighth book published while at the University of Maryland. Stefano Villani has published "'A Man of Intrigue but of No Virtue'. Jean-Baptiste Stouppe (1623–1692), a Libertine between Raison d’ État and Religion," in Church History and Religious Culture 101 (2021): 306–23. Read the full article is here. Peter Wien published an article titled “Exile as Liminality: Tracing Muslim Migrants in Fascist Europe,” in Claiming and Making Muslim Worlds, ed. Jeanine Elif Dağyeli, Claudia Ghrawi and Ulrike Freitag, ZMO Studien 40 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021). The article is available in open access here.
In summer 2021 Sarah Cameron gave two research talks related to her new book project, “The Aral Sea: Environment, Society, and State Power in Central Asia,” one at the College of Holy Cross and the other at the University of Wisconsin’s Central Eurasian Studies Summer Institute. Marlene Mayo presented "Pacific Friends: Tomiyama Toki, Esther B. Rhoads, and the Friends Girls School, Tokyo, 1920s-1960s," at the virtual conference in June of the Conference for Quaker Historians and Archivists 2021, hosted by Swarthmore College. Karin Rosemblatt gave a talk "Cuerpo, raza y dieta indígena en México y Estados Unidos, 1930-1950." (Bodies, Race, and Indigenous Diets in Mexico and the US, 1930-1950) at the Global Studies Initiative, Universidad de San Marcos, Lima, Peru, June 11, 2020. She also presented “Dam despots! Debating Technology and Power in Cold War Mexico,” at the Latin American Studies Association Annual Meeting, online, May 28, 2021. Karin spoke on “Cómo generalizar la diversidad: Lo numérico, lo enciclopédico y lo taxonómico en el pensamiento racial mexicano.” (How to generalize about diversity: numbers, encyclopedias y taxonomies in mexican racial thought" at the Symposium on Technologies for Reading Populations. FLACSO-Ecuador, June 26, 2021. She was the commentator for “Indigeneity, Development, and the State in 20th-Century Mexico and Peru.” to the Program in Latin American Studies, Princeton University, March 9, 2021. Julie Taddeo presented a paper on representations of rape in international period drama television for the Critical Studies in Television conference in August 2021. The paper is part of a book on rape culture on TV that she has written that will be published by Rowman & Littlefield in Spring 2022. She presented multiple talks this summer for the Smithsonian, OASIS, Context Conversations, Profs & Pints, and public libraries on topics ranging from Regency England to Victorian Scandal and Crime to the British Royal Family. Her talk on "Bridgerton, Romance, and History" helped raise $15,000 for the Frederick County Public libraries.
PRESENTING
"This is a pull quote to help the reader stay interested and focused."
Headings
Leandro Benmergui (PhD, 2012 Advisor: Daryle Williams) has achieved tenure as Assistant Professor of History at Purchase University New York. Jeremy Best (PhD, 2012) was awarded the First Book Award from Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Iowa State University. Shane Dillingham (PhD, 2012 Advisor: Mary Kay Vaughn) has his first book out with Stanford. University Press entitled Oxaca Resurgent: Indigeneity, Development, and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Mexico. He is Assistant Professor of Latin American History at Albright College in Reading, PA. See more on the publisher's website here. Allson S. Finkelstein (PhD, 2015 Advisor: Saverio Giovacchini) has published a new book, Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials: How American Women Commemorated the Great War, 1917–1945, with the University of Alabama Press. Finkelstein serves as Senior Historian at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlingtonk VA. See more from the publisher's website here. Harrison Guthorn (PhD, 2015 Advisor: Peter Wien) has published with The Gingko Library his book, Capital Development: Mandate Era Amman and the Construction of the Hashemite State, 1921-1946. Through the end of this year, get 25% off on the publisher's website here. Vince Houghton (PhD, 2014 Advisor: Jon Sumida) had a new Spycast podcast on August 31, 2021! as part of the National Cryptologic Museum's Cyber August. Houghton is a former director of the Museum located in Ft Meade, MD, Listen to the podcast here.
PRACTICING HISTORY
Mark A. Johnson (MA, 2011 Advisor: Clare Lyons) has published a book with the University Press of Mississippi entitled Rough Tactics: Black Performance in Political Spectacles, 1877–1932, The book probes the earliest Black efforts to overcome disfranchisement popular politics in the Jim Crow South. See more on the pubisher's website here. Jessica Marie Johnson's (PhD, 2012 Advisor: Ira Berlin) recent book, Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020) is a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize awarded annually by Yale University’s Gilder-Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. The winner will be named in February 2022. Read more here. Sam Miner (PhD, 2021 Advisor: Jeffrey Herf) published an article with the National WWII Museum entitled "The Reconstruction of Justice in Post-Nazi Western Germany." Miner is a Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Dayton, Dayton, OH. William Peniston (MA, 1987 Advisor: Gay Gullickson) is a graduate of the Department of History and ISchool degree program, HiLS, which offers a dual MA in History and Library Science. The iSchool Alumni Spotlight featured an article on his 40-year career as a librarian. Read the full article here.
Training historians
Jessica Mahoney (BA, 2021), past president of the History Undergraduate Association, is teaching US government, women's studies, and law at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, MD while pursuing a graduate degree in education at the University of Maryland.
Jessica Wicks-Allen, a PhD candidate in the Department of History specializing in African American history and advised by Leslie Rowland, has been awarded The American Philosophical Society's 2021 John Hope Franklin Dissertation Fellowship. The Fellowship is designed to support an outstanding doctoral student at an American university or an exceptional American doctoral student abroad who is completing the dissertation. The year-long fellowship will support the writing of Wicks-Allen's dissertation, " 'If I Am Free My Child Belongs to Me': Black Motherhood and Mothering in the Era of Emancipation." For a list of previous recipients of the John Hope Franklin Dissertation Fellowship, visit the APS website here.
Marjorie Antonio, currently working toward her BA in the Department of History has been chosen as a 2021-22 Philip Merrill Presidential Scholar. The Program honors UMD’s most successful seniors and their designated UMD faculty and K-12 teachers for their mentorship. UMD honors the Merrill Scholars and their mentors in a special ceremony and bring teachers and faculty together in a workshop that leads to stronger collaboration between UMD and K-12 schools. The Merrill Presidential Scholars Program builds a community of scholars, faculty members, and K-12 teachers who recognize and celebrate the importance of teaching and mentoring the next generation.
The History Undergraduate Association, advised by Julie Taddeo, held a social hour on Monday, September 13. It was a beautiful day to enjoy lemonade, cookies, and collegiality on the front steps of Francis Scott Key Hall.
LEARNING HISTORY
RANDOM MOMENTS
Kristina E. Poznan joins the History Department this falls as a Clinical Assistant Professor, working specifically with UMD's contributions to Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade. A scholar of U.S. migration history, Poznan earned her PhD in History in 2017 from the College of William & Mary, where she also completed her editorial training with the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture. She was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Public History at La Salle University in Philadelphia and New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. In addition to her work as the managing editor of Enslaved.org's Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation, she will provide internships and undergraduate and graudate training opportunities in digital history and methods.
Kevan Antonio Aguilar is a UMD President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History. He earned his PhD in Latin American History from the University of California, San Diego (2021). His research focuses on transnational social movements, race formation, immigration, and working-class culture in twentieth-century Mexico. At UMD he is working on his book manuscript, Revolutionary Encounters: Race, Ideology, and Exile in Mexico and Spain, which examines the proliferation of communitarian traditions between Mexico’s laboring classes and political refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War. He will also begin research on a second book-length project documenting the activities of Mexican anarchists in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands during the 1920s through the 1970s. His research has been recognized through the award of several fellowships Including the Ford Foundationthe Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals and volumes of essays.
The Department of History is also hosting an international scholar, John Liu. He is a PhD candidate at one of the premier institutions for the study of the US in China--Northeast Normal University working on a dissertation titled "The Emancipation of American Slaves During the Civil War from the Perspective of the Property Rights of Slaves, 1861-1865." He won a China-US Scholars Fellowship from the Institute of International Education in New York,. John had planned to be here in 202-21 but was delayed by the pandemic. He will be at UMD doing research from now until late May, 2022.
2021 Department of History Picnic Than
Thanks to Jacopo Villani for the photos,
FUTURE MOMENTS
What Lies Ahead
The Anna Julia Cooper Workshop in Black History The Anna Julia Cooper Workshop in Black History features scholars from various disciplines researching and writing on Black history in the US and the world. Cooper was the first African American woman to earn a PhD in History, taught and mentored scores of students in D.C., and made invaluable contributions to Black intellectual life. We use “Black” to embrace the expansiveness of African America and attend to the long tradition of black internationalism. With the conviction that “all knowledge is incremental and collective,” as David Levering Lewis once wrote, the Workshop aims to foster a supportive space for the engagement and production of innovative scholarship in African American history. As a works-in-progress series, we discuss pre-circulated, unpublished papers. The Cooper Workshop draws an interdisciplinary community from the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) area with expertise in a wide reach of the field. We host six sessions per academic year. Papers will be circulated seven days in advance of the workshop. For the 2021-22 academic year, the workshop will meet via Zoom on Fridays, 4:00-5:30 p.m., ET. To join the listserv, email T’Sey-Haye M. Preaster, coordinator, , or Quincy Mills, convener.
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SUMMER 2021
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