Margaret Abruzzo is writing a book about changing conceptions of sin and wrongdoing—and what it meant to be a “good person”—in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American moral thought.
John Beeler spent academic year 2020-21 working on two of several book projects currently in hand, chiefly a social and cultural study of the Scots professional and gentry classes in the nineteenth century focused on Euphemia (“Effie”) Milne and her husband Alexander.
Julia Brock has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Program grant to assist in telling the story of Tuscaloosa’s historic Hurricane Creek.
Steven Bunker’s first book has been translated and published in Spanish by the largest publisher of academic books in the Spanish-speaking world, the Fondo de Cultura Económica of Mexico, with the title La creación de la cultura de consumo mexicana en la época de Porfirio Díaz.
Lawrence Cappello won the 2021 National Alumni Association’s Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Award and the UA Division of Student Life’s John L. Blackburn Advisor of the Year Award. He also gave a lecture commemorating the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 at Marymount Manhattan College on the history of American privacy rights in the face of government surveillance.
Teresa Cribelli co-organized “Dangerous Landscapes,” an exhibit that brings history and art together to raise awareness about Climate Change. She also co-edited Press, Power, and Culture in Imperial Brazil, a work that synthesizes recent scholarship on newspapers in nineteenth-century Brazil.
Lisa Lindquist Dorr continues to serve as Associate Dean for the Social Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is now in her eighth year of service in that position.
Kari Frederickson completed Deep South Dynasty: The Bankheads of Alabama, which was published by The University of Alabama Press in November 2021. She also participated in the PBS American Experience Documentary, The Blinding of Isaac Woodward, which aired nationally in March 2021.
John Giggie and Dr. Tyshawn Gardner of Stillman College launched West Side Scholars Academy, a middle-school summer program in social justice; and History of Us, a year-long Black history course at every city high school. Dr. Giggie published an essay on lynching with Emma Pepperman; and Dixie’s Great War, an essay collection, with Dr. Huebner.
Lesley J. Gordon published “ ‘Novices in Warfare’: Elmer E. Ellsworth and Militia Reform on the Eve of Civil War,” in the Journal of Civil War Era; book reviews in the Alabama Review & New England Quarterly; and she participated in an AHA virtual roundtable on “New Military History.”
Sharony Green completed a Mellon Newberry Library Fellowship for her research on Zora Neale Hurston’s postwar experiences in Honduras. Last spring, the Girl Scouts of North-Central Alabama also interviewed Dr. Green about Hurston, an Alabama native, for its Trailblazer channel.
Holly Grout continues work on her manuscript, Playing Cleopatra: Inventing Celebrity in Third Republic France. She chairs the Society of French Historical Studies Koren Prize committee, she serves as a placement editor for H-France reviews, and she was interviewed by the Deseret News regarding celebrity cancel culture in contemporary America.
Andrew Huebner spent the past year conducting research for his book, Black Man’s Burden: War, Empire, and the Road to Mutiny. He also has been working on two edited collections: The Cambridge History of War and Society, with Jennifer Keene; and Race and Gender at War, with Lesley Gordon.
Lucy Kaufman is finishing A People’s Reformation: Building the English Church in the Elizabethan Parish, forthcoming next year with MQUP. She presented her research at several international conferences last fall, is working on a chapter for the upcoming New Cambridge History of Britain, and just launched a new project on London’s East End.
Heather Kopelson published a chapter in As If She Were Free: A Collective Biography of Women and Emancipation in the Americas (Cambridge UP, October 2020) and has an essay titled “Women, Gender, Families, and States,” in the forthcoming Cambridge History of America and the World, Vol. 1.
Matthew Lockwood is currently working on his book, An Asylum for All Nations, which explores the history of refugees and exiles in Britain from Constantine to climate change, forthcoming with Harper Collins. He also chaired several international conference panels and did consulting work for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Di Luo presented a research paper at the Association for Asian Studies 2021 Annual Conference. She has been selected to participate in 2021 A&S Faculty and Staff Community Engagement Academy. She will work on a digital humanities project on the history of Asian community at UA and in Tuscaloosa.
James Mixson survived a pandemic, taught four classes of Zoom warriors, and published a volume of essays, Religious Life, Elites, and Medieval Culture (Lit, 2020), coedited with Gert Melville. He is also preparing a collection of primary sources for the Crusade of 1456, forthcoming from the University of Toronto Press.
Margaret Peacock completed (with Erik Peterson) a new book: A Deeper Sickness: Journal of America in the Pandemic Year (Beacon Press), due January 2022. They also finalized an accompanying Digital Humanities museum, which can be found at http://deepersickness.com. The site holds over 6,000 sources along with additional research, scholarly and creative exhibits, and contributions.
Erik L. Peterson completed a project with Dr. Margaret Peacock: A Deeper Sickness: Journal of America in the Pandemic Year (Beacon Press, 2022)—then constructed a digital archive (http://deepersickness.com), submitted two articles, co-chaired the UA GenEd Taskforce, watched The Chair, podcasted, and began a third book.
Juan José Ponce Vázquez published Islanders and Empire: Smuggling and Political Defiance and Hispaniola, 1580-1690 with Cambridge University Press in October 2020. Islanders won the 2021 Alfred B. Thomas Book Award by the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies. He’s also the 2021 CUNY’s Dominican Studies Institute Research Fellow. Dr. Ponce Vázquez was promoted from assistant professor to associate professor.
Daniel Riches had a visiting professorship at the Université de Paris – Paris Diderot and other European academic commitments cancelled due to COVID. He was able to complete several articles/essays and to work on co-editing two collected volumes while continuing to serve as Director of Graduate Studies in the department.
Harold Selesky continues to investigate the morphology of mobilization in Massachusetts during the era of the American Revolution.
Jenny Shaw worked on her book project, The Women of Rendezvous: Slavery and Family in the British Atlantic World, continued her work with the Taskforce Studying Race, Slavery, and Civil Rights at UA, and is writing a chapter on “Race” for the New Cambridge History of Britain series.
Sarah Steinbock-Pratt is currently working on a chapter on industrial education in the Philippines as well as her second book project, A Far-Flung Nation: Filipinos and the Construction of Gender, Race, and National Identity in the Pacific World. During the past year, she figured out online teaching, co-advised the Undergraduate Historical Society, and survived a pandemic.