Five-College Faculty Seminar in History

The Five-College History Seminar meets once a month during the semester to discuss the work-in-progress of Valley historians. In 2005-06, the Seminar is being chaired by Christian Appy; contact Chris (appy@history.umass.edu) if you would like to present your work in progress. If you would like to be added to the mailing list, visit https://list.umass.edu/mailman/listinfo/hist-seminar.

Dear Five College History Seminar Colleagues, This is a great opportunity to meet or reconnect with colleagues in the Valley and discuss new work. As usual, we will convene at Amherst College's Valentine Hall (the Lewis-Sebring Dining Commons). We will begin at 5:30 with wine and informal conversation. Around 6:00 we will have dinner. The dinners cost $16.95 for faculty and $8.50 for graduate students. At 7:00 we begin our discussion of the featured essay (available at least one week in advance. If you plan to attend, please contact Jean Ball (Office Manager for the UMass History Department) at jball@history.umass.edu or 413-545-2378 by noon on the MONDAY before the seminar. She will reserve a dinner for you. Without advance notice Valentine cannot be expected to cook the correct amount of food!

The papers will be available online at least two weeks before the dinner on this web page. They are available in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format. The next seminar paper is: Mary Wilson, UMASS Syria Under French Mandate."

Click here to download this paper.

2007-08 schedule

September 20: Joel Wolfe, UMASS, “From Technocrats to Democrats: Automobility and Citizenship in Brazil”
Oct 11: Benjamin Braude, Boston College, currently a Research Associate in the Department of Religion at Smith College, “How Racism Arose in Europe and Why it Did Not in the Near East”
Nov 8: Andrew Donson, UMASS, “War Pedagogy: German Schooling and the ‘Spirit of 1914’”
Dec 13: Jennifer Heuer, UMASS, "The One Drop Rule in Reverse? Interracial Marriages in Napoleonic and Restoration France"
Feb 14: Mark Hamin, UMASS, Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, “Sex in the City: Social Research, Urban Technological Change, and New Forms of Intimate Life in the Interwar Period”
March 13: Jose Hernandez, UMASS, “Historicizing Contemporary Deportation Raids, 1836-2007: From Disloyalty to Illegality”
April 10: Christian Appy, UMASS, “Race and Football in the Classic City: High School Integration in Athens, Georgia—-1970”
May 8: Mary Wilson, UMASS "Syria Under French Mandate: Are High Commissioners and Prime Ministers a Necessary Part of the Story?"

Social Hour at our April 2003 meeting. Left to
right: Frank Couvares, Veronica Wilson,
and Leo Maley. Photo: Brian Ogilvie

About the Seminar

The seminar meets at Lewis-Sebring Dining Commons, Valentine Hall, Amherst College (here is a map). We begin with an open wine bar at 5:30 followed by dinner at 6:00 and discussion of the paper at 7:00. Participants who do not wish to have dinner are welcome to arrive at 7:00 for the discussion! Presenters will begin the discussion with very brief comments about the broader context of their work, but most of our time will focus on an exchange of ideas about the paper.

The seminar is supported by a generous grant from Five Colleges, Inc.

About the dinners

Please remember to reserve your dinner by NOON on Monday of each seminar week by contacting the History office at UMass (413-545-2378 or history@history.umass.edu ). Please indicate any dietary restrictions; we will try to accommodate them. If you order dinner and do not cancel by noon on the Monday preceding the seminar, you may be charged: we have to place the dinner order with Amherst College on Monday afternoon, we are billed for the dinners we order regardless of whether they are eaten, and we have a small budget!

2005-06 presentations:

September 15: Thomas Hilbink, “The Profession, the Grassroots & the Elite: Cause Lawyering for Civil Rights and Freedom in the Direct Action Era”
October 12: John Higginson, “The Bullet and the Chicotte are the Children of Bula Matadi: The Problem of Violence and Popular Intervention during the Transition from the Congo Free State to the Belgian Congo,1895-1913”
November 10: Brian Bunk, “Grandsons of the Cid: Masculinity, Sexual Violence,and the Destruction of the Family in Spain, 1934-36”
December 8: Dan Horowitz, “Pleasure and Symbolic Exchange: Commercial Culture in the U.S. in the 1950s”
February 9: Richard Chu, “The Tsinoys in Filipino Cinema: Reconfiguring Gender/Ethnic Identities Among the Chinese in the Philippines Today”
March 9: Dan Gordon, “The Genesis of American Emergency Law: Herbert Wechsler and the Second World War”
April 13: Joyce Berkman, “Performing Censorship in Oral History”
May 11: Rob Weir, “What's So Exceptional About Exceptionalism: Comparative Themes in Late 19th Century New Zealand/U.S. Social History”

2004-05 presentations:

September 22: Charles Payne, Duke, "Extreme Democracy and Extreme Repression:
Lessons from Chicago School Reform"
October 21: Carl Nightingale, UMass, " Color Lines at Madras and New York, 1650-
1750: Cities and the Global Dynamics of 'Race Making'"
November 18: Kevin Sweeney, Amherst, "Guns along the River: The Possession and
Use of Firearms in the Connecticut Valley, 1640-1790"
December 9: Richard Lim, Smith, "The Talk of the Town: Public Spectacles and
Sociability in Late Antiquity"
February 10: Durba Ghosh, Mt. Holyoke, "Gentlemanly Terrorism: Political Violence
and Anti-colonial Resistance in Twentieth-Century India"
March 10: Patrick Young, Amherst, "Of Place and Power: Tourist Productions of
French Algeria, 1900-1930"
April 14: Lowell Gudmundson, Mt. Holyoke, "What Difference Did Color Make?:
Blacks in the 'White Towns' of Western Nicaragua in the 1880s"
May 12: Mary Wilson, UMass, "A Chapter from a History of Syria for Non-
Specialists"

2003-04 presentations

September 25: Abdussamad H. Ahmad (Addis Ababa University/Five College African Scholars Program), “Italian Colonial Ambitions in Ethiopia and U.S. Response 1923-1936.”
October 16: Anne Broadbridge (UMass), “Apostasy Trials in Eighth/Fourteenth Century Egypt and Syria: A Case Study."
November 13: Laura Lovett (UMass), "Family Ideals and the First National Welfare Act: Gendering the Campaign for Land Reclamation in the United States."
December 4: Brian W. Ogilvie (UMass), "Collection, Conviction, and Contemplation; or, Picturing Coins in Early Modern Books, ca. 1550-1700."
February 19: Frank Couvares (Amherst), "The Menace: Catholics, Anti-Catholics and Free Speech in the Early 20th Century."
March 11: Agustin Lao-Montes (Sociology, UMass), "The 1898 Spanish-Cuban-American-Filipino War: Contending Occidentalisms and Clashing Hegemonic Projects."
April 8: Patricia Appelbaum (Independent Scholar), "Piety and the Uses of History: The Protestant Appropriation of St. Francis."
May 6: Book Discussion: Patrick Manning, Navigating World History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).

2002-03 presentations

September 12: John Higginson (UMass), "Stabilizing Capital, 'Generalizing' Labor: American Engineers and the Exploitation of the Deep Level Gold Mines of the South African Rand, 1902-1907."
October 17: Fiona Griffiths (Smith), "The 'dignity of women' at the monastery of Marbach: Abelard and the Guta-Sintram Codex."
November 14: Rama Mantena (Smith), "Vernacular Futures: Language and History in Colonial Andhra, 1820-1880."
December 5: Robert Schwartz (Mt. Holyoke), "Railways and Environmental Change in Victorian England: An Application of Historical GIS."
February 13: Margaret Hunt (Amherst), "Women, the Navy and the British Fiscal-Military State, 1660-1720."
March 13: Savita Nair (Mt. Holyoke), "Rethinking Privilege and Power: South Asians in British East Africa."
April 10: Veronica Wilson (UMass), "'Now You Are Alone': The Cold War Myths of Hede Massing and Whittaker Chambers."
May 8: Discussion of Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy.