Month: November 2019

History Dept. Participates in Dialogue on Race & Community

On November 19, members of the History Department joined the broader UConn community to further the discussion of how to improve the University’s support of racial justice. The Dialogue on Race and Community – a two hour gathering that included a moderated dialogue, the sharing of personal stories, and small group discussions – hoped “that such listening can lead to understanding, and from understanding can come actions that make UConn a more just, equitable, and inclusive community.”

Dialogue on Race and Community

The event was hosted by Glenn Mitoma, Neag/Director of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, and co-moderated by Dominique Battle-Lawson, Neag, and Brendan Kane/History, Director of the Dodd Center’s Democracy and Dialogues Initiative. For more information about the event, click here. A statement from Director Mitoma can be found here.

 

Prof. Kent Newmyer Honored at UConn Law Nov. 8

On Friday, November 8 at the UConn School of Law, a panel discussion will take place to honor and celebrate the career of Professor R. Kent Newmyer.  The celebration will include a panel discussion with Prof. Mary Bilder from Boston College Law School and Prof. Jed Shugerman from Fordham Law School. The theme will be “Story’s Children: The Rule of Law in an Age of Political Disruption – From Jacksonian to America to Our Times”. The event will take place from 11-12:30 pm in the Reading Room of Starr Hall.

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Newmyer has been a Professor of Law and History at the UConn School of Law since 1997 where he taught a wide range of graduate and undergraduate courses in American history, specializing in the political, constitutional and legal history of the early national period. Prior to teaching at the law school, he taught American History at UConn from 1960-1977. He has received two awards for teaching and in 1988 was named a Distinguished Alumni Professor for excellence in teaching and scholarship, the highest faculty honor bestowed by the University.

As an author, Professor Newmyer is best known for Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story: Statesman of the Old Republic (1985) and John Marshall and the Heroic Age of the Supreme Court (2001). A second edition of his short volume on The Supreme Court Under Marshall and Taney was published in 2006. Professor Newmyer’s books have been reviewed in various history journals and law reviews, as well as in The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the New Republic. He has appeared on C-Span’s “Booknotes,” and most recently was a commentator in a National Public Television documentary (produced by Channel 13 in New York City) on the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Newmyer’s latest book is The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr: Law, Politics and the Character Wars of the New Nation (Cambridge University Press, 2012). His article on the Burr trial appears in the May/June 2013 issue of Humanities: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

A Japanese Flag, 2020 Olympics, and Prof. Dudden’s Op-Ed

Professor Alexis Dudden, University of ConnecticutProfessor Alexis Dudden, Professor of Modern Japan, Korea, and International History, recently published an op-ed in The Guardian. Titled “Japan’s rising sun has a history of horror. It must be banned at the Tokyo Olympics,” Dudden argues that the Japanese rising sun flag takes part in a “collective effort to cleanse the history of imperial Japan’s aggression” during WW2 and thus also causes “intentional harm” to those who suffered under Japanese rule. Dudden highlights South Korea as a specific example and writes that it is “unsurprising that the South Korean government is first to raise objections to the flag” being waved at the 2020 Olympics.

Prof. Fiona Vernal Featured on “Time to Eat the Dogs” Podcast

Fiona Vernal, Assistant Professor of History at the University of ConnecticutAssociate Professor Fiona Vernal recently was interviewed by the Time to Eat Dogs podcast in an episode titled “The City Built by Travel.” Following the creation of her exhibit, “From Human Rights to Civil Rights: African American, Puerto Rican, and West Indian Housing Struggles in Hartford County Connecticut, 1940-2019″ at the Hartford Public Library, Prof. Vernal discusses the various travel experiences of Hartford’s communities. 

Prof. Healey Interviewed by SECOLAS Podcast

Mark Healey, Associate Professor of History at the University of ConnecticutOn October 31, Associate Professor and Department Head Mark Healey was interviewed by Historias, the official podcast for the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS). Listed as Episode 64 and titled “Mark Healey and Ernesto Semán on Argentina’s presidential election,” the participants discussed the evolution of Argentina political culture and the emergence of today’s radicalized center-right political movement. To listen, click here.