Ken Burns-produced documentary “Henry David Thoreau” special screening April 8

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Picture of Henry David Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond. Image from Adobe stock.On Wednesday, April 8, the UConn Department of Earth Sciences, the Environmental Sciences Program, the Honors Program, the Humanities Institute, the Institute of the Environment and Energy, and the Office of Sustainability will host a special viewing of the new Ken Burns-produced documentary “Henry David Thoreau.” The viewing is open to all and will be followed by a discussion with producer Susan Shumaker, UConn Department of History Draper Professor Emeritus Robert Gross, and Department of Earth Sciences professor Robert Thorson, who served as experts for the documentary.

“The documentary repositions Thoreau, not as one of the dead white men of the old canon that we are shedding as we move forward, but reactivating him as a sensitive and self-aware scientist-writer,” Thorson says. “There’s no question that Thoreau lies at the foundation of two big ideas in America. One, through ‘Walden,’ is the root of the philosophical ascetic strand of the environmental movement, which is why Rachel Carson kept a copy on her nightstand for devotional reading.  The other, through ‘Civil Disobedience,’ is the root of nonviolent resistance to an unjust government. This essay, written about his night in jail, informed the approaches of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, who both read it when they were in jail. Many others were also inspired by it, from Leo Tolstoy to Emma Goldman, and many more.”

Please visit UConn Today‘s full article “Rebooting Thoreau for Modern Times: New PBS Documentary Features UConn Expertise.”

The Library Company of Philadelphia Honors Former Program of African American History Director Deirdre Cooper Owens

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Associate professor of history, Deidre Cooper OwensPlease join the Library Company of Philadelphia on April 17th for a conversation with Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens and Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson, moderated by Dr. Jim Downs

Since its inauguration, the Program in African American History has expanded its efforts to collect, preserve, and interpret Black women’s experiences across centuries, continents, and legal statuses. This event honors the tremendous strides Deirdre Cooper Owens led on this journey, in her legacy as a former Director of the Program, and through her lasting impact in the field of Black women’s history.
The event will be held Friday, April 17th, 2026 at 5:30 PM at the Library Company in Philadelphia. For more information and to register for tickets, please visit The Library Company’s site.

Manisha Sinha Cited in Article “Fugitive Sanctuaries” on Key Forces in Migrant Movement and Freedom

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The article, written by Ananya Roy for Jewish Currents, contextualizes the current immigration “enforcement” crisis among historical moments that shaped laws now serving as the backdrop for the criminalization of racialized migrant communities. One of the key moments which demonstrates the article’s emphasis on communities creating their own networks and momentum towards freedom rather than states or cities fostering and protecting this freedom as its own mission, is of course that of the Abolition Movement and the Underground Railroad. Sinha’s article “The Abolitionist Underground” is cited amongst other scholarly work evidencing how governments respond to freedom movements rather than being the agents enabling and protecting residents as many are taught to understand historical narratives around individual freedoms being codified.

Read Fugitive Sanctuaries by Ananya Roy

Read The Abolitionist Underground by Manisha Sinha

Bad Bunny and UConn History Graduate Program Alum Jorell Meléndez-Badillo’s Collaboration Brings Puerto Rican History to Listeners Around the World

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Jorell Meléndez-Badillo’s book, “Puerto Rico: A National History”, brought together the historian of Puerto Rican history and one of the island’s biggest stars to produce visualizer and music video text that would educate fans and spotlight crucial context for the 2025 DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS album’s songs.

Bad Bunny contacted professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo who now works at UW Madison when planning the album’s online music video releases. The album won Album of the Year, and some of the songs were performed at the Super Bowl LX halftime show featuring Bad Bunny bringing history to football fans and avid listeners alike for the most watched halftime show ever.

You can read an article by Professor Meléndez-Badillo on working with Bad Bunny here:

Essay: Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show will be a history lesson for the ages – Los Angeles Times

And read a UW-Madison article about the collaboration here:

Pop star Bad Bunny needed a Puerto Rican history scholar. UW–Madison had just the one. – UW–Madison News

Professor Brendan Kane on teaching, learning and researching Early Modern Gaelic in a digital age

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On November 5, 2025, Professor Brendan Kane presented a research seminar titled “Teaching, learning and researching Early Modern Gaelic in a digital age: Léamh.org and the practice of collaborative digital humanities.” The event was hosted at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, a college in the west of Scotland. The talk discussed ongoing efforts to teach people Early Modern Irish and Classical Gaelic, using the innovative Léamh.org, a web tool that uses games and other methods to assist users in learning grammar and reading digitized manuscripts. 

You can watch a recording of the talk here

Professor Deirdre Cooper-Owens and others collaborate to ensure that the grim roots of modern gynecology are not erased

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As the Smithsonian and other museums face challenges from the Trump administration about the content of exhibits that examine racial history in US history, Professor Deirdre Cooper-Owens is collaborating on educational efforts with activist and artist Michelle Browder to remember and honor the victims of medical abuse at the hands of James Marion Sims and other doctors since. Sims is broadly called the “father of modern gynecology”, but his victims- enslaved black women who historians had to work to recover the identities of, are now known only thanks to artists like Browder and dedicated research efforts by historians.

Dr. Cooper-Owens work on this front includes the 2017 book Medical Bondage, which delves into the long history of extensive exploitation and harm of black people and bodies in efforts to further medicine in US history. Browder’s artwork challenges the common narrative of a medical legacy built on unwilling procedures on enslaved women carried out by Sims through the construction and placement of pieces like “The Mothers of Gynecology” which represents Anarcha Westcott, Betsey, and Lucy, who Sims experimented on. The article emphasizes the importance of preserving and sharing these histories, and provides links to further reading about more incidents of experimentation and theft of bodily autonomy as well, noting infamous cases such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, and the story of Henrietta Lacks.

Full article here:

The Trump Administration Wants To Whitewash History. These Black Historians and Activists are Memorializing the Sins of an Infamous Gynecologist

Manisha Sinha in New York Times article “Are Trump’s Actions Unprecedented? We Asked Historians (Again).”

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In an article categorizing various actions by President Trump by “no clear precedent”, “has happened, but under different circumstances”, and “not uncommon”, Professor Sinha weighed in on his use of the military to attack and kill suspected drug smugglers, and his reduction of United Nations funding.

 

Full article here:

Are Trump’s Actions Unprecedented? We Asked Historians (Again). – The New York Times

NCPH and NPS “WWII and the Home Front” webinar to include UConn’s Clarissa Ceglio on January 23rd

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The online webinar series presented by the National Council on Public History and National Park Service is called “World War II and the Home Front” and will start January 22nd and end January 30th. Professor Ceglio is an Associate Professor of Digital Humanities at UConn and will present a talk that will include tips for those who want to delve into their local museum or historical society’s war history. She will trace how the notion of museums as “social instruments” led to experimentation in the 1930s and how once WWII began, progressive museum practitioners found that the line between purposive education and propaganda was not as clear or as easy to walk as they had thought. Her talk will be January 23rd, 2:00 pm EST, entitled “A Cultural Arsenal for Democracy: The World War II Work of US Museums.”

grey flyer with red lettering saying World War II and the Home Front

Registration is free, and can be found along with details about the other three presentations here:

WWII and the Home Front- National Council on Public History

 

The First Right: Self-Determination and the Transformation of International Order, 1941-2000

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Bradley Simpson, Author

Oxford University Press, 2025Blue and red painting with The First Right written in blue above and Bradley Simpson written in white below.

In The First Right, Brad Simpson narrates the global history of the idea of self-determination in international politics from the 1940s through the end of the twentieth century. He argues that there was no one version of self-determination, but a century-long contest between contending visions of sovereignty and rights. He shows that self-determination’s meaning has often emerged from the claims of movements and peoples on the margins of international society.  Over the course of the 20th Century Pacific Island territories, Indigenous peoples, regional and secessionist movements, and transnational solidarity groups, among others, offered expansive visions of economic, political, and cultural sovereignty ranging far beyond the movement for decolonization with which they are often associated. As they did so, these movements and groups helped to vernacularize self-determination as a language of social justice and rights for people around the world.

Manisha Sinha interviewed on ABC news segment on coming changes to free-fee days at National Parks

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Professor Sinha appeared to discuss the departure from precedent that free-fee days being cancelled for MLK Jr.’s birthday and Juneteenth represent in light of a new day added on Flag Day, which is not a federal holiday but is current President Trump’s birthday.

Full segment here: Juneteenth and MLK Day removed as free-fee days at national parks – ABC News