Author: Stockford, Lillian

Manisha Sinha is Speaker for Joanna Dunlap Cowden Memorial Lecture

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This Thursday, Professor Manisha Sinha will be presenting her talk, “The Fall of the Second American Republic” as speaker for the Joanna Dunlap Cowden Memorial Lecture. The event will take place at California State University Chico at 5:30 pm. The talk will draw from her book, The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920.

The memorial lecture was established in 2001 to honor the legacy and work of Professor Joanna Dunlap Cowden, a history professor who taught at California State University Chico for 25 years. Professor Cowden’s work focused on United States antebellum and Civil War history.

Deirdre Cooper Owens Named Scholar In Residence at Occidental College

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Professor Deirdre Cooper Owens has been named the Stafford Ellison Wright Black Alumni Scholar-in-Residence at Occidental College in Los Angeles California. This awaAssociate professor of history, Deidre Cooper Owensrd is funded by the Stafford Ellison Wright Endowment, created by the Black Alumni Organization in honor of the college’s first black graduates, Dr. Janet Stafford, George F. Ellison, and Barbara Bowman Wright. Through this program, Occidental College is able to invite, “distinguished Black scholars, artists, elected officials, and others to spend time in residence at Occidental each year.“

Dr. Cooper Owens will be in residence between February 18th and 19th, 2025, visiting talking with students, as well as holding a healing circle on February 19th. On the 18th at 7pm, she will also present, “Slavery, Gynecology and Black Placental Resistance: Why Black Mothers Matter“, a free public lecture.

 

 

To read more about this impressive achievement: Occidental College

Jeffrey Ogbar Interviewed by KPFA

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On the 1st of February, Professor Jeffrey Ogbar was interviewed by KPFA 94.1, a radio station based in California. The episode, titled “Carry the Light: Atlanta: America’s Black Capital”, delves into “the history of the trials, tribulations, survival and triumphs of Atlanta’s Black citizens” and a discussion of these topics within the book America’s Black Captial.  Professor Ogbar talks with Davey D, the founder of Hard Knock Radio and a Hip Hop Historian. This episode is part of a series of interviews by KPFA to celebrate and recognize Black history and culture.

In 2023, Dr. Jeffery Ogbar published America’s Black Capital: How African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy, which “chronicles how a center of Black excellence emerged amid virulent expressions of white nationalism, as African Americans pushed back against Confederate ideology to create an extraordinary locus of achievement”.

To listen to the interview: Carry the Light: Atlanta: America’s Black Capital

To listen to the other episodes in this series: Carry the Light

 

 

Manisha Sinha’s Book Named as One of Best Feminist Books of 2024

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MS. Magazine has named Manisha Sinha‘s book The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920 as one of the top feminist books of 2024.

Karla Strand, a gender and women’s studies librarian, reviews Sinha’s book as: “With this groundbreaking volume, renowned historian Manisha Sinha offers a critical reexamination of the Reconstruction era. By extending the time frame and including other important events such as imperialism, conquest of Indigenous peoples and women’s suffrage, Sinha presents a new understanding of the consequences of its defeat.”

To read more of this article, and to learn more about the other books named: Ms. Magazine’s Top Feminist Books of 2024

Sergio Luzzatto Interviewed About New Book and Awarded Frulia Storia Award

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In 2024, Professor Sergio Luzzatto published his book, Primo Levi e i suoi compagni. In this book, “Sergio Luzzatto returns to examine the figure of Primo Levi and reconstruBook cover of Professor Sergio Luzzatto's book "Primo Levi e i suoi compagni"ct the story behind his writing, following the path that from leads the characters of Survival in Auschwitz to the real identity of his deportation companions, the European Jews forced “to the bottom” with him,”.

To read interviews about Primo Levi e i suoi compagni:

Corriere della Sera

El Pais

In September of 2024, Luzzatto was also awarded the Frulia Storia Award for his work, “Dolore e furore: Una storia delle Brigatte rosse“. The Award is awarded to an Italian nonfiction book for, “originality, scientific rigor and diffusion potential beyond the circle of professionals.”. The book must go through two rounds of judging, first by a jury of authors and scholars, and then by a jury of 300 readers.

To read more about this impressive achievement:

Messaggero Veneto

Primo Levi e i suoi compagni

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Sergio Luzzatto, Author

 

Donzelli Editore, 2024

Book cover of Professor Sergio Luzzatto's book "Primo Levi e i suoi compagni"

Description:

You who live safe/ In your warm houses … Meditate that this came about:/ I commend these words to you”: with unforgettable verses, of Dantesque proportions, Survival in Auschwitzopens, a text that has become over time the definitive book on Auschwitz, on the horror of the twentieth century. But what does Primo Levi mean when he says “you”? What, when he says “I”? And what, when he says “we”? The way in which the author, a master of the Italian language, has strategically employed – and bent – ​​personal pronouns nests the tangle of good and evil, of innocence and shame in the Shoah: the idea, at once, of belonging and of distance, but also the pain of guilt, and the responsibility that derives from it. Starting from these questions, Sergio Luzzatto returns to examine the figure of Primo Levi and reconstruct the story behind his writing, following the path that from leads the characters of Survival in Auschwitzto the real identity of his deportation companions, the European Jews forced “to the bottom” with him. Who were the members of the chemical Kommando of Auschwitz-Monowitz? And who were, in particular, the companions represented by Levi as negative or even abject characters, Luciferian incarnations of evil? Perhaps Primo Levi would have become a writer even if he had not been deported to Auschwitz. Certainly he would have been a different writer, if the history of the twentieth century had not marked the life of the young chemist forever through the experience of that black hole. That is why his books today must be reread today with the tools of historians: to unravel the threads of a continuous – and problematic – fabric, between historical fact and literary transfiguration.

 

Podcast Interview With Brendan Kane and Emmet de Barra

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Screenshot of Leamh Website Home pageProfessor Brendan Kane and former MA student Emmet de Barra, now a PhD student in Irish at Trinity College Dublin, recently gave a podcast interview on the Celtic Students Podcast about their work on the innovative and fun website to Learn Early Modern Irish Léamh.org.

Listen in for a interesting discussion of Celtic languages, grammar games, collaborative work, and the perhaps surprising utility of the digital humanities as a tool for language revival.

 

Manisha Sinha Keynotes International Conference

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On December 12th, Professor Manisha Sinha keynoted an international conference, Professor Manisha Sinha, with colleagues, on a bridge over a river.“Contesting Black Citizenship from the American Revolution to the Present” at the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies, University of Leiden at Middelburg, Netherlands. The two-day conference featured multiple sessions with papers by scholars in the field from the United States and the Netherlands.

Professor Sinha’s keynote speech focused “on the rise and fall of the second American republic, covering a period of 60 years, starting with Lincoln’s election, and ending with the ratification of the nineteenth amendment”.

This is the second international conference keynoted by Professor Sinha this year. In June 2024, she keynoted another international conference on Emancipation at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark with scholars from Europe and the United States.

To read more about the events of the conference and the work of the scholars’, the Roosevelt Institute.

Summer China and the West, Study Abroad Opportunity

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In summer 2025, UConn’s Experiential Global Learning program in partnership with the UConn History Department will be offering AAAS/HIST 2866, “China and the West”. This exciting 3-credit study abroad course travels to Beijing, Shanghai, and Xi’an, and will offer students the opportunity to visit world famous heritage sites such as The Great Wall of China, Terracotta warriors, Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City. This course will cultivate an increased understanding of Sino-Western shared history and perceptions about each other. In addition to field trips, students will strengthen their critical thinking and writing skills through reading, discussions, assignments, and research.

For further information, please see the attached poster, and the following links to the online brochure and information session on December 17 at 4:00 p.m:

Online brochure

Online Information Session on Dec 17, 4:00 pm:

https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=m721f75f7eda8e4eb620cc7198294a6b7