From the January 2014 Desktop News | Dr. Margaret Abruzzo, associate professor in the Department of History, was recently awarded a $50,400 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Abruzzo will use the grant to spend the next year researching and writing her next book, tentatively titled, Good People and Bad Behavior: Changing Views of Sin, Evil, and Moral Responsibility in the 18th and 19th Centuries. The book will trace changes in how both Catholic and Protestant Americans thought […]
Tag: Department of History
Discovering Consumer Culture in Porfirian Mexico
What began as an undergraduate research topic for Dr. Steven Bunker, associate professor in the Department of History, has become a nearly 20-year journey investigating the consumer culture in Mexico during the rule of President Porfirio Diaz (1876–1910), known as the Porfiriato. Bunker’s efforts have resulted in the publication of his first book, Creating Mexican Consumer Culture in the Age of Porfirio Diaz, which has garnered two national awards. Bunker’s book earned the Thomas McGann Award for outstanding book published […]
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Chambers Contributes $100,000 to Establish History Professorship
Dr. Richard Chambers of Montgomery has contributed $100,000 with the intent to establish The Richard Leon Chambers Endowed Professorship. Additional funds have been pledged from his estate. The professorship will be endowed when it reaches the minimum level of $500,000 and will be used to employ a scholar who specializes in Middle Eastern culture and Islamic religious studies, specifically in the “modern era” of the post-7th Century studies that would include the Ottoman Empire and Turkish civilization. Chambers earned his […]
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Rothman’s Book Recognized with Two Awards
From the November 2013 Desktop News | Dr. Josh Rothman, a professor in the Department of History and the director of the Frances Summersell Center for the Study of the South, was recently honored with two awards for his book, Flush Times and Fever Dreams: A Story of Capitalism and Slavery in the Age of Jackson. The work won the Gulf South Historical Association’s Michael V.R. Thomason Book Award for the best book on the history of the Gulf South. The Gulf […]
Chambers to Lecture on Middle East
Noted historian and UA alum visits campus From the September 2013 Desktop News | Dr. Richard Chambers, a UA alumnus and noted historian of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey, will visit The University of Alabama this month to discuss the development of the field of Middle Eastern politics and what it takes to be a specialist in Middle Eastern studies. His lecture, “Middle Eastern Studies Then and Now: An Insider View,” will take place on September 26 at 4 p.m. […]
Rothman to Study BBQ
History Professor Earns Food Culture Grant From the September 2013 Desktop News | An $18,000 grant from the Southern Foodways Alliance(SFA) is allowing Dr. Joshua Rothman, professor in the Department of History and director of the Summersell Center for Study of the South, to take a scholarly look at one of the South’s finest cuisines: barbecue. His study will explore how barbecue in Alabama became a cultural phenomenon and how the regional cuisines therein developed over time. Rothman says that as a […]
College Names New Associate Deans
From the July 2013 Desktop News | Two faculty members have been appointed associate deans for the College. Dr. Lisa L. Dorr, associate professor in the Department of History, and Dr. Roger Sidje, associate professor in the Department of Mathematics, were appointed by Dr. Robert F. Olin, dean of the College. Dorr will administer the College’s social sciences division, and Sidje will manage diversity and multicultural programs. They will assume their new duties August 16. “Professors Dorr and Sidje bring to the […]
Violence Unchained
History professor’s new book tells true story of pre-Civil War violence Django Unchained’s recent Oscar success has again put a spotlight on the film’s controversial subject matter, which depicts slavery in the pre-Civil War South with a high level of graphic violence. History professor Dr. Joshua Rothman says that while the violence in the film was obviously designed to shock and entertain, it’s not an unfair depiction of the era. “The notion that a single person, white or black, could […]
Collaborative Work Yields Progress on Pardons for Scottsboro Boys
Sheila Washington, founder of the Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cultural Center, has asked Gov. Robert Bentley to clear the names of eight of the nine defendants known as the Scottsboro boys, who were wrongly convicted of raping two white women in 1931. Washington’s plea has garnered significant support from professors, lawyers, and legislators and is the bi-product of work from of a two-year community-based research project with students and faculty in the College. The project involved doing historical research for […]
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