Author: Parker, Heather A

Elena Boushée (’17) Recipient of Summer Research Funding

Posted on June 15, 2016September 15, 2016 by Parker, Heather A

Distance view of Paris, featuring Eiffel Tower — By Wladyslaw (Taxiarchos228) – Own work, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia

Elena Boushée has been awarded funding to pursue research in France in support of her honors thesis, tentatively titled “The Path to Legalized Abortion in France: A History of Reproductive Rights in French Political, Cultural and Social Life from 1967-1975.”

From Elena:

“I plan to go to France in the summer of 2016 to research my senior honors thesis, which will focus on the events leading up to the 1975 legalization of abortion in France. Between the legalization of contraceptive methods in 1967 and the enactment of the Veil laws of 1975, the Mouvement de Libération des Femmes was born out of the May 1968 revolutions, and second-wave feminism in France began. This research will look at the ways in which these movements, in combination with the events that unfolded in the late 1960s and 1970s, shaped French understandings of women’s bodies’ and women’s participation in the public sphere, and how these attitudes and understandings led to the 1975 legislation. I will also be examining the significance of class on the enactment, enforcement, and eventual destruction of the pre-1975 laws restricting reproductive rights.

This research will consider a few events in particular, including the highly publicized and controversial court case in Bobigny, in the northeast suburbs of Paris, in 1972. The case garnered widespread attention as existentialist feminist Simone de Beauvoir took to the stand for the defense, claiming that she had had an abortion but had not been prosecuted because of her wealth and social status. I plan to investigate how abortion policy in France previous to 1975 disproportionately may have targeted underprivileged women whose voices did not hold political, economic or social sway.

To research this project fully, I need to go to Paris in order to access a number of collections uniquely available at the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand and the Bibliothèque Nationale. I also plan to go to the Université d’Angers, which has a renowned feminist archive. I plan to stay for one week, to photocopy and photograph these materials. These archives are not digitized and so the collections are not available in the United States. I spent the last full academic year (2014-2015) studying in Paris. I reached a high level of proficiency in the French language while abroad. This will allow me to conduct in-depth research in the French-language archival materials in Paris and Angers. This research project will be a valuable contribution to the humanities. It works at the intersection of a number of fields, including women’s history, the history of the body, the history of post-war France and the history of reproductive rights. I will examine how reproductive rights in France came to be so important not only politically, but also culturally and socially. I will explore the allegedly discriminatory abortion laws in France, and how these became a public concern with the “Manifeste de 343” and the trial at Bobigny. In order to create a more comprehensive understanding of how these and previous events such as the May 1968 revolutions lead to the legalization of abortion, I will study a variety of primary and secondary sources in order to understand the relationship between women’s bodies’ and French life and politics at the time.”

4/4-4/5, Ann Hughes, Spring 2016 Gender and History Series

Posted on March 23, 2016May 26, 2016 by Parker, Heather A

Please join us for the Spring 2016 Gender & History series!

Professor Ann Hughes (Keele University)

“Gender Trouble: Women, Men and Politics in the English Civil War”

Mon 4/4 – 4:30-6pm
Wood Hall Basement Lounge
Reception immediately following.

Tue 4/5 – 10-11:30am
Wood Hall Basement Lounge
Scholarly Seminar w/ Professor Hughes
Discussion will focus on a pre-circulated work-in-progress, “Gender, Scribal Culture and Nonconformity in Late Seventeenth-century England.”

About Professor Hughes:

I am a historian of early modern England with particular interests in the culture, religion and politics of the English civil war – or English Revolution as I would prefer to call it. In recent years my interests have included religious debate and polemic, print culture, gender and radicalism. In 2011, I completed a book, Gender and Politics in the English Revolution. I am now principally working on preaching during the revolution.

I am committed to interdisciplinary approaches and have gained much from working with the literary scholars Julie Sanders (Nottingham) on gender and royalism, and with Tom Corns (Bangor) and David Loewenstein (Madison) on the radical writer Gerrard Winstanley. Our edition of Winstanley’s Complete Works (the first ever) was published by Oxford University Press in December 2009.

“A Mongrel-American Social Science: International Relations” – 2/26

Posted on February 12, 2016May 26, 2016 by Parker, Heather A

Please join us for the Spring 2016 Foreign Policy Seminar, featuring

Robert Vitalis

Professor, University of Pennsylvania

About Professor Vitalis:

Vitalis received his Ph.D. in political science from MIT in 1989. His graduate work included a three-year residence in Cairo where he studied Arabic and researched the political strategies of Egyptian business firms. His first book, When Capitalists Collide: Business Conflict and the End of Empire in Egypt, was published in 1995. The Organization of American Historians awarded him the Bernath Prize in 1996 for his work on Egypt’s political economy.

He has continued to develop and expand the scope of his interests in historical comparative analysis in his second book, America’s Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier, which was published in October 2006 by Stanford University Press, and named a book of the year in the London Guardian.

Recent honors include fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson International Center (2009), the Rockefeller Foundation (2003), the International Center for Advanced Study, NYU (2002), and the American Council of Learned Societies (2002). He was a MacArthur Award nominee in 1998.

His new book project, White World Order, Black Power Politics: the Birth of American International Relations (Cornell University Press, 2015), moves away from the Middle East to explore the unwritten history of disciplinary international relations and to recover the African-American internationalist tradition.

Prof Matt McKenzie (AVPT) named to History Working Group – US Delegation ICES

Posted on December 16, 2015March 30, 2026 by Parker, Heather A

The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) is a global organization that develops science and advice to support the sustainable use of the oceans.

ICES is a network of more than 4000 scientists from over 350 marine institutes in 20 member countries and beyond. 1600 scientists participate in our activities annually.

Through strategic partnerships our work also extends into the Arctic, the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and the North Pacific Ocean.

ICES is committed to building a foundation of science around one key challenge: integrated ecosystem understanding of marine ecosystems. (From the ICES site)

Matt McKenzie, Associate Professor of History at Avery Point Campus, was named to the History Working Group of the United States Delegation to the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas, based in Copenhagen.

As an environmental historian with interests in coastline, maritime, and fisheries matters Matt will contribute to the Working Group’s task of — in his words — “developing meaningful ways to use historical information to inform contemporary marine resource analyses, management research, and policy development.”

Foreign Policy Seminar Series Celebrates 30 Years

Posted on December 4, 2015October 4, 2016 by Parker, Heather A

The Foreign Policy Seminar Series here at the University of Connecticut has established a long, successful history of more than 30 years.

“This series puts UConn on the map for foreign policy education, which is something nice to have other than basketball,” said Prof. Frank Costigliola, who has been running the series since 1997.

Authors, professors, diplomats, historians, and political scientists come from around the country to speak here in Storrs, mostly to graduate students and faculty.

“Through having all these distinguished speakers travel to us has made UConn a regional foreign relation hub,” said Costigliola, who attended the first seminar in 1985 while he was a professor at the University of Rhode Island.

The purpose of these seminars is for history graduate students to build connections with professional members in the field, but also provides book authors an opportunity for feedback from the attending audience.

“Intellectual life needs to always circulate with new perspectives on history, and I believe we have a successful formula for doing so – a quality experience that’s easy to understand and gets great feedback,” said Costigliola.

Thomas G. Patterson, Costigliola’s predecessor, first started the lecture series by bringing in Arnold A. Offner to speak on Vice President Hubert Humphrey and ever since then the series has continued to be successful.

For the 30^th anniversary in November, Costigliola invited Offner back to discuss Harry Truman’s foreign policy with the students, which went over very well.

Gwendolyn Hay, a history graduate student who regularly attends the seminars, greatly appreciates the opportunity to learn from such distinguished figures.

“Going to the lectures has been my favorite part of the graduate experience because there is so much to learn from these individuals,” said Hay.

12/3-12/4 – “A Woman Living with Contradictions: The Life and Photography of Dorothea Lange”

Posted on November 19, 2015May 26, 2016 by Parker, Heather A

Please join us for the Fall 2015 Gender & History Seminar series!

Linda Gordon (NYU)

“A Woman Living with Contradictions: The Life and Photography of Dorothea Lange”

Thu 12/3 – 4:30-6pm, Konover Auditorium (Dodd Research Center)
A reception will follow.

Fri 12/4 – Scholarly Seminar w/ Dr. Gordon:

“Free Space: The Settlement-House Movement”
10-11:30am, Wood Hall Basement Lounge

About Dr. Gordon:

Linda Gordon is a professor of history and a University Professor of the Humanities at New York University. Her early books focused on the historical roots of social policy issues, particularly as they concern gender and family issues. More recently, she has explored other ways of presenting history to a broad audience, publishing the microhistory The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction (Harvard University Press, 1999) and the biography Dorothea Lange: A Life beyond Limits (W.W. Norton, 2009), both of which won the Bancroft Prize. She is one of only three historians to have won this award twice.

10/9 – Huskies Forever: Discussion Panel, Alumni Roundtable

Posted on October 1, 2015March 30, 2026 by Parker, Heather A

Huskies Forever
Alumni Weekend –

History Department Events

Friday, October 9th

4 pm – 7:30 pm

Wood Hall Basement Lounge

To register for History’s event: https://secure.www.alumniconnections.com/olc/pub/UCN/event/showEventForm.jsp?form_id=191630,

third event down, titled “History Alumni Panels, Reunion, and Reception.”

Please note event is “Free” but registration is requested to determine catering.

Order of Events:

4:00 – 5:00 Panel Presentation, “History Memory, and Justice,” featuring:

Prof. Jelani Cobb, Associate Professor and Director of the Africana Studies Institute, Post Civil War African American History & 20th Century American Politics
Prof. Alexis Dudden, Professor, Modern Japan, Korea, & Imperialism
Prof. Bradley Simpson, Associate Professor, US Foreign Relations & Southeast Asian History

5:00 – 6:00 Reception and Social Time with Refreshments

6:00 – 7:00 History Alumni Career Roundtable, featuring:

Terry Mayne ’75, Vice President / General Manager of Equisys Inc
Philip Drouin ’77, Foreign Service Officer, Retired
Michael McLinden ’82, Practice Director, Connelly Health + Wellness
Lisa Cannella Stuart ’85, Non-Profit Development Operations
Dan Breen ’98, Associate Professor of English and Department Chair, Ithaca College

11/13 – Arnold Offner, Guest Speaker for 30th Anniversary of the Foreign Policy Seminar series

Posted on August 10, 2015May 26, 2016 by Parker, Heather A

Please join us for the 30th anniversary of the first Foreign Policy Seminar series!

Guest speaker: Arnold Offner (Lafayette College, Cornelia F. Hugel Professor of History, Emeritus) Professor Offner was the speaker at the first Foreign Policy Seminar series.

“The Great Betrayal: Humphrey, Johnson, and the 1968 Election”

Reception at 4:30pm, lecture at 5pm. A buffet dinner follows: $12 for students, $20 for all others. To sign up for dinner, please contact Professor Frank Costigliola (frank.costigliola@uconn.edu).

The event will be held in the Wood Hall Basement Lounge.

Professor Offner’s areas of expertise include the history of U.S. foreign policy, 20th century international relations, and American political history.

Professor Offner is the author of Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953, published in 2002; The Origins of the Second World War: American Foreign Policy and World Politics, 1917-1941, published in 1975; and American Appeasement: United States Foreign Policy and Germany, 1933-1938, which was published in 1969 and received the Phi Alpha Theta National Book Award.

Professor Offner is also the co-editor, with Theodore A. Wilson, of Victory in Europe 1945: From World War to Cold War, published in 2000. The past president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, he served on the editorial board of the society’s journal, Diplomatic History.

9/25 – Ryan Irwin, Guest Speaker for Foreign Policy Seminar Fall series

Posted on August 10, 2015May 26, 2016 by Parker, Heather A

Please join us for the first Foreign Policy Seminar of Fall 2015!

Guest speaker: Ryan Irwin (SUNY-Albany)

“Creating a Liberal World: Rethinking the Cold War’s Origins”

Reception at 4:30, lecture at 5pm. A buffet follows: $12 for students, $20 for all others. To sign up for dinner, please contact Professor Frank Costigliola (frank.costigliola@uconn.edu).

The event will be held in the Wood Hall Basement Lounge.

About Dr. Irwin: “My scholarship explores the historical relationship between globalization and decolonization. Although I write specifically about the changing mechanics and shifting perceptions of American global power, my interests cover comparative imperialism, international institutions, nonstate activism, and technological development.

My first book, Gordian Knot: Apartheid and the Unmaking of the Liberal World Order, investigated the way small, non-European nation-states altered the international system at the height of the Cold War. I’m working now on an intellectual history of the mid-1970s, as well as a political history about the growth and transformation of the nation-state during the mid-twentieth century.”