Category: News


Department Attends SHA Convention, Holds Reception Honoring George Rable.

  The Department of History hosted a reception honoring Dr. George C. Rable at the 2017 Southern Historical Association Convention in Dallas, Texas. Rable, the longtime Summersell Chair of Southern History in the department, retired last year. Colleagues, former graduate students, and friends gathered to congratulate Rable on his well-deserved retirement. At the reception, Megan Bever and Laura Mammina announced that a collection of essays honoring Rable is in the works with LSU Press. The collection, edited by Bever, Mammina, […]

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Welcome to the Department, Dr. Kaufman!

The Department of History is glad to formally welcome Dr. Lucy Kaufman, who joined our faculty this fall, to the ten Hoor family. From childhood through high school, Dr. Kaufman’s father would tell her and her sister “three-minute history lessons” on the way to school in the morning, and it was because of this that  she “fell in love with the great stories in history,” she says. Dr. Kaufman was a Renaissance Studies major as an undergraduate at Yale, but […]

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The University of Alabama Marks the 500th Anniversary of the Martin Luther’s 95 Theses.

  On October 30, 2017, The University of Alabama commemorated the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s nailing of the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31st, 1517, which began the Protestant Reformation. The event featured professors from the Department of History, Modern Languages and Classics, and Music, as well as performances by the University Singers and Faythe Freese, Professor of Organ. Additionally, there was a collection of rare books from the University’s and […]

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Thank You for Supporting “1867 in North America: Crisis on a Continent.”

On November 1 2017, the History Department hosted “1867 in North America: Crisis on a Continent.” Drs. Steven Bunker, Lesley J. Gordon, and Harold Selesky participated in this discussion of the sesquicentennial of the threefold political crisis that affected the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Dr. Gordon discussed issues surrounding Reconstruction, Dr. Selesky spoke about the confederation of Canada, and Dr. Bunker talked on the fall of the Second Empire of Mexico. The event drew parallels between trends in all […]

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Students in Dr. Giggie’s Southern Memory: Lynching in Alabama Course Visit EJI Offices.

Students in Dr. Giggie’s HY 400 – Southern Memory: Lynching in Alabama course visited the Equal Justice Institute in Montgomery, Alabama on October 18th as part of their work to better understand and encourage awareness of racial violence during the post-Reconstruction era in Alabama. The students, who are researching ten African-Americans lynched in Pickens County between 1883 and 1933, presented their findings to the officials at EJI. The students have been working in a variety of sources – newspapers, journals, […]

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Department Tailgates for Annual Thrashing of Tennessee

On October 28th, the History Department came together to tailgate before the Alabama-Tennessee game. Though our graduate students with degrees from the University of Tennessee were thoroughly harassed, students and professors had a wonderful time playing cornhole, eating Brunswick stew, and celebrating another gameday. Thank you to everyone who helped with setting up, brought food, and enjoyed the day with us!

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1867 in North America: Crisis on a Continent

1867 was a tumultuous year for the nations of North America. The United States, only recently in the throes of a Civil War, was faced with the task of reintegrating the Confederate States and constructing legal protections for newly-emancipated freedmen and women. At the same time, Canada was also being knit more closely together, formed into a nation composed of Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Finally, after an ill-fated invasion by Napoleon II, Mexico regained its independence in […]

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Dr. Andrew Paxman to Speak on “A Southerner South of the Border: How William Jenkins Became Mexico’s Richest Industrialist,” Wednesday, Oct. 18, at 4 PM in the Summersell Room

Dr. Andrew Paxman, research professor at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico, will speak at 4 pm, Wednesday, October 18, at 4 pm, in the Summersell Room. Paxman’s talk is entitled “A Southerner South of the Border: How William Jenkins Became Mexico’s Richest Industrialist,” and is based upon his new book, Jenkins of Mexico: How a Southern Farm Boy Became a Mexican Magnate (OUP 2017). Paxman’s book traces the life of Jenkins from his Tennessee roots to his […]

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Holly Pinheiro, Jr. to Speak on Race, Gender, and Citizenship During the Civil War Era on Tuesday, Oct. 17

University of Iowa doctoral candidate and current Alabama A&M University faculty member Holly Pinheiro, Jr., will deliver a talk entitled, “Men of Color! To Arms!: Race, Gender, and Citizenship During the Civil War Era,” on Tuesday, October 17, at Noon, in room 251 ten Hoor Hall (the Summersell Room). Pinheiro’s research examines the lives of fifty northern black soldiers and their families before, during, and after the Civil War. Those wishing to attend should send an RSVP to Dawn Wiley […]

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The University of Alabama to Observe the Quincentennial of the Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation 1517-2017: 500 Years of Faith, History, and the Arts Monday October 30, 2017 Moody Music Building Concert Hall The University of Alabama Reception and Book Exhibit 5:00 p.m. Program 6:00 p.m. Scholarly presentations and performances by University of Alabama faculty, as well as a curated book exhibit, to commemorate the Protestant Reformation. Sponsored by The University of Alabama College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Music, University Libraries Special Collections, and the Hudson Strode Program in […]

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Our New Department Newsletter, Historically Speaking, Now Available!

We are pleased to announce that issue number one of Historically Speaking is now in print and on its way to faculty, students, alumni, and friends of the Department of History at The University of Alabama. Our intention is to produce and send print copies of the newsletter each fall and another, electronic version, each spring. An electronic version of the current issue is available at for those who can’t wait for the postman to deliver the hard copy version! […]

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GHA Holds Conference on Power and Struggle

This past weekend, graduate students in the Department of History held the ninth annual Conference on Power and Struggle. Dr. Kate Brown of the University of Maryland delivered the keynote address at the opening banquet on Friday, speaking about the afterlives of Chernobyl. On Saturday, there were four sessions with two panels each, covering a broad array of topics and geographical foci. Participants, who came from all over the United States, presented interesting and innovative research, and contributed to lively […]

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Mississippi State University Professor Jason Morgan Ward to Speak Thursday, Oct. 12, at 5 PM

The Summersell Center of the Study of the South and The University of Alabama Department of History will host Professor Jason Morgan Ward of Mississippi State University on Thursday, October 12, 2017, at 5 o’clock in room 30 ten Hoor Hall. Ward is the author of Hanging Bridge: Racial Violence and America’s Civil Rights Century (2016) and Defending White Democracy: The Making of the Segregationist Movement and the Remaking of Racial Politics, 1936-1965 (2011). Ward’s talk is entitled, “Lifting the Veil: […]

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UA Students enrolled in a Southern memory course tell the stories of Tuscaloosa County lynching victims.

This article appeared originally on The University of Alabama’s Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility’s website. by Erin Mosley and Jamon Smith Dr. John Giggie describes the eras most Americans refer to as Reconstruction, the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties as periods of racial terror for a significant portion of the country’s population. “At a time when the United States was in fact growing and prospering, many African-Americans feared for their lives,” says Giggie, associate professor of history and […]

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Professor Matthew Karp Discusses Slaveholders and Foreign Policy

On September 20th, Dr. Matthew Karp of Princeton University delivered a lecture in ten Hoor Hall, entitled “Slave Power: How Southern Slaveholders Mastered U.S. Foreign Policy.” In addition to providing an overview of his book, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy, Karp discussed how slaveholders in the Antebellum South viewed themselves and their domestic and foreign policy interests. Karp highlighted the anachronisms that frequently color our understanding of the South and Southerners leading up […]

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