Public Talk: German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie 3 November 2015

The UAH History Department and the UAH Humanities Center announce a public lecture by Dr. Monique Laney on her book German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie: Making Sense of the Nazi Past during the Civil Rights Era (Yale University Press, 2015) on Tuesday 3 November at 7:30pm in Roberts Recital Hall at UAH.  Dr. Laney tells stories of relationships of the German rocket engineers and their families with various races and ethnic groups in Huntsville and of how the groups remember the past.  More Information at 256-824-6310 or history@uah.edu.  

AIA Talk: Mirror, Mirror: Reflections of Femininity in Ancient Greece 1 October 2015

Dr. Mireille M. Lee
Vanderbilt University

Wilson Hall Theatre, UAH campus
7:30 pm Thursday 1 October 2015

Upcoming AIA Event: "New World Wines and Archaeology"

Knowledge is a wonderful thing. So is a glass of delicious wine. Why not have the best of both worlds? On Saturday evening, April 18, there will be a tasting of Argentine and Chilean wines, as well as a lecture delivered by Ben Hoksbergen, Archaeologist at Redstone Arsenal. His lecture, "Potlucks and Platform Pipes: The Role of Feasting in the Prehistoric Tennessee Valley," will look at the social functions of gathering to eat. Hoksbergen writes, "For the prehistoric inhabitants of the Tennessee Valley, feasting was not merely a chance to gorge themselves on delicious food - it was an opportunity to cement social bonds, renew alliances with other groups, meet potential mates, learn about the world beyond their kin group, and maintain peaceful coexistence with their neighbors. Recent excavations in north Alabama are revealing how important feasting was in prehistory, and are showing what can happen when those rituals of social cohesion begin to break down." A silent auction will also take place at the event.

The event is open to the public, and will be located at the home of Ann and John Kvach at 4834 Cove Creek Dr., Huntsville (Brownsboro), Alabama from 6-8 PM.

For tickets, please contact Dr. Lillian Joyce at JoyceL@uah.edu, or call 256.824.6114. Ticket sales support the public archaeology lecture series of the North Alabama Society of the Archaeological Institute of America. Prices are as follows:

Individual: $25
Couple: $40
Retirees: $15

It will be a wonderful evening, and we hope to see you there!

Upcoming Lecture: "The Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Afrikaner Nationalism to Mandela"

The Department is surely busy with lectures right now. Along with the Phi Alpha Theta Faculty Lecture Series, Kevin Kraak, who served as a composer-in-residence last semester at UAH, will be delivering a lecture titled "The Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Afrikaner Nationalism to Mandela."

The lecture will be held this Friday, February 7, from 1:00 to 2:30 PM in Roberts Hall 419. As with our Faculty Lecture Series, this one is free and open to the public.

We hope to see you there! Feel free to bring a guest with you!

Phi Alpha Theta Faculty Lecture Series

Phi Alpha Theta is holding its second annual Faculty Lecture Series with the Department of History. There have already been two lectures this season. The first, titled "Have a Coke and a Smile: The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan," was presented by Dr. James Isbell. The second came from Dr. Nicole Pacino, titled "What Public Health Programs Can Teach Us About U.S.-Latin American Relations: The Case of 1950s Bolivia."

There are still two left. They are as follows:

February 6, 2014, 7:00 PM: Dr. Andrei Gandila, "Ancient Coins as a Historical Source"

February 13, 2014, 7:00 PM: Dr. Evan Ragland, "Da Vinci's Bodies and Machines"

Both lectures are located in Roberts Hall 419. They are free to attend, and we hope to see you there.

Info Session for "Legacies of the Third Reich: Munich, Nuremberg, Berlin" (taught by Dr. Molly Johnson in Huntsville and Germany): Friday October 25, 1:00 p.m.

On Friday October 25 at 1:00 p.m. in Roberts Hall 423, Dr. Molly Johnson will hold an informational session for students interested in taking History 399 / Global Studies 199, "Legacies of the Third Reich: Munich, Nuremberg, Berlin."

This course will meet once a week during the spring semester in Huntsville. Then, from May 4-17, 2013, students will travel to Germany to explore historical and memorial sites in Munich, Nuremberg, and Berlin.

Dr. Johnson will also arrange for 400, 500, and 600-level history credit options for interested students.

The info session will feature a PowerPoint showing all the sites students will visit in Germany, as well as key information about travel, cost and financing, work expectations, etc. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers, and we will also have some snacks on hand.

If you are interested in the class but cannot attend the info session, please email Dr. Johnson at molly.johnson@uah.edu.

Spread the word!

Two Lectures by Eminent Historian Dr. Linda Gordon (New York University) on Thursday October 24

Dr. Linda Gordon of New York University, one of the nation's foremost experts on women's history and social policy, is coming to UAH this week as a Humanities Center Short-Term Eminent Scholar.

She will give two public lectures.

KEYNOTE LECTURE
THURSDAY OCT. 24
"Birth Control and Abortion: Why Still so Controversial? An Historical View"
Wilson Hall Theater (room 001)
7:30p.m.

HONORS COLLEGE LECTURE
THURSDAY OCT. 24
"Visual Democracy: How Dorothea Lange Used Photography to Promote Equality"
Shelby Center 107
11:10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.


Dr. Gordon’s keynote lecture is drawn from her 1976 book, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: The History of Birth Control in America (revised and republished as The Moral Property of Women in 2002), which remains the definitive history of birth control politics in the United States. Her Honors lecture is based on her most recent book, Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits (2009), which won the Bancroft Prize for best book in US history and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography.

Dr. Gordon has also published three other major academic monographs, Heroes of their Own Lives: The History and Politics of Family Violence (1988), Pitied But not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare (1994), and The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction (1999), each of which won a major book award.

Please come and bring a friend!

AIA Talk: Ancient Languages 23 September 7:30 PM

Dr. Kevin McGeough has graduate degrees from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania and teaches at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. He has done fieldwork in Israel, Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt and is a specialist in ancient economies and languages.

In his evening talk, Dr. McGeough will introduce the languages of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, describe the history of the alphabet, explore how ancient scripts were deciphered, demonstrate some of the peculiar features of ancient writing, and examine some of the different approaches world cultures have taken to expressing their ideas in written words. 

The next day he will discuss how the conventions used by ancient Near Eastern artists remained stable across shifting political and social situations. Dr. McGeough will explain how to “read” the basics of ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian visual culture.

Puzzling Out Ancient Languages or How an Evil Bird becomes a Word and A Horizontal Wedge becomes a Fish

WHERE:  Wilson Hall Theatre, UAH campus

WHEN:  7:30 PM Monday 23 September

"Reading" Ancient Near Eastern Art

WHERE:  Wilson Hall 168, UAH Campus

WHEN:  12:45 PM 24 September

Campus Cemetery Stroll Sponsored by UAHuntsville's Center for Public History, Friday November 16, 5:30pm

On Friday, November 16th at 5:30 p.m. UAH’s Center for Public History will host a campus cemetery stroll with noted local historian Jacque Reeves.

Come join us and learn more about UAH’s very own historical burial ground that includes a Revolutionary War soldier who fought with George Washington at Valley Forge.

UAH Public History students will also highlight their work in the community and on campus as well as showcase UAH's newest program of study.

Visitors can park in front of the University Center and should be at Union Grove Gallery by 5:30 p.m.

Free food and drinks will be provided by the Public History Club!

Please come and bring a friend!

AIA Talk: First Floridians 15 November 2012

Thursday, November 15

Dr. James Adovasio, Mercyhurst College

“The Invisible Sex: Some Thoughts on the Role of Women in Prehistory”

12:45 PM, Wilson Hall 168

Since the discoveries of stone artifacts associated with the remains of extinct fauna in mid 19^th century France, a variety of often negative stereotypes have persisted about the roles of women in the past. A fundamental failure to recognize and evaluate evidence contradictory to these stereotypes in addition to the stressing of stone tools and the hunting of megafauna by mature males has created a faulty interpretation of life in this period. If mentioned at all, women as well as the old and the young of both sexes are characterized solely as minor players. Careful assessment of the available information from both the Old and the New World indicates that the andro-litho-centric view of the past with its “men in furs sticking sharp spears into large animals” image is fatally flawed. In this talk, evidence for a very different behavioral scenario is presented.

“The First Floridians: Early Humans on the Submerged Gulf Coast of Florida”

7:30 PM, Chan Auditorium

In his second talk Dr. Adovasio will discuss the geo-archaeological exploration of the inner-continental shelf in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico where a tremendous amount of side-scan sonar and sub bottom profile data, including nearly 2000 targets of interest, has been generated. Highlights of the 2008-2009 field seasons include the documentation of two lengthy paleo river systems. These sites are replete with Paleo-Indian sites and it is assumed that the paleo-channel is, likewise, flanked by early occupations. The results of this research will substantially enhance our understanding of the utilization of coastal environments in the late Pleistocene and, more broadly, the early colonization of the New World

October 23 Public Lecture on Manhood at the New England Witch Trials, by Dr. Richard Godbeer, University of Miami

The history department at UAHuntsville is pleased to announce the fall History Forum.

On October 23, 2012, Dr. Richard Godbeer from the University of Miami will share his latest research on New England witch trials and manhood in the 17th century.

Dr. Godbeer's public lecture is entitled “‘Your wife will be your biggest accuser’: Reinforcing Codes of Manhood at New England Witch Trials.”

The lecture will be at 7:00 p.m. in 419 Roberts Hall on the University Alabama in Huntsville campus.

Dr. Godbeer has made outstanding contributions in religious and gender studies. His 1994 work Devil’s Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England was published in 1994 by Cambridge University Press and won the Annual Book Prize of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association. In his 2005 Oxford University monograph entitled Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692, he broke down New England stereotypes while detailing the Stamford, Connecticut, witchcraft hysteria.

In 2004, Dr. Godbeer again overturned conventional wisdom, this time about the sexual values and customs of colonial Americans in his The Sexual Revolution in Early America, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This work was a Selection of the History Book Club.

More recently, Dr. Godbeer compelled readers to re-think early American gender roles and sexuality, showing how sentimental, even physically expressive, relationships between eighteenth century men provided a basis for nation building in The Overflowing of Friendship: Love Between Men and the Creation of the American Republic also published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

At the moment, Dr. Godbeer is working on a biography of Henry and Elizabeth Drinker, a prominent eighteenth-century Philadelphia Quaker couple.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Phi Alpha Theta Fall Faculty Lecture Series

The Tau Omega chapter of the international history honorary Phi Alpha Theta announces the Fall Faculty Lecture Series.

Kicking off the series is Professor Evan Ragland, with a lecture on "Making Trials in Early Modern Medicine" on October 10, 2012, at 7pm.

Next in the line up is Dr. Kira Robison, discussing "The Creature Within: Defining the Fiend in Medieval Anatomy," on October 17, 2012, at 7pm.

The following week, Dr. Anna Alexander will explore "It Rained Fireballs: The Petroleum Disaster in Mexico City," on October 24, 2012, at 7pm.

Concluding the series is Dr. Christine Sears, discussing "All Humble Mariners: Sailors and Democratic Discourse in the Early Republic," on October 31, 2012, at 7pm.

All lectures are held in Roberts Hall room 419 and are free and open to the public.

Please come and bring a friend!

National Archaeology Day Events 20 October 2012

National Archaeology Day

Saturday, October 20

Artifact Identification and Amnesty Event: 1:00-5:00 PM

Wilson Hall Theatre Foyer

                       

“Archaeology in Huntsville's Backyard: Prehistoric Cultures of the Middle Tennessee Valley” 7:00 PM

Ben Hoksbergen, Cultural Resource Manager/Installation Archaeologist, Redstone Arsenal

Wilson Hall Theatre

Have you found an object you think might be an artifact? Do you know you have an artifact but want to know more about it? Have you picked up artifacts on public land and want to ease your conscience? Professional archaeologists will be on hand at the National Archaeology Day event to identify artifacts you bring in and tell you more about them. They can also help you record archaeological sites you've found. Archaeologists from the Army and TVA will also be accepting artifacts from the public that were collected on federal land. It's illegal to collect artifacts on federal land or from federal waterways, but for this day only, anyone who turns in artifacts from federal land will be safe from prosecution and will be secure in knowing that the artifacts they collected will be available for professional study and public exhibit. Archaeologists from TVA will also be hosting children's activities, and there will be plenty of educational displays and literature to browse. Co-sponsored by the AIA, Redstone Arsenal, TVA, the Alabama National Guard, the Alabama Archaeological Society, and Tennessee Valley Archaeological Research.

For our evening talk, Ben Hoksbergen will discuss the Middle Tennessee River Valley of north Alabama, which has some of the richest archaeological resources in North America. Evidence of dense prehistoric occupation in the area goes back at least 13,300 years. Archaeologists have been systematically investigating sites in the valley over the last century and have uncovered a wealth of information about the people who populated the landscape before the arrival of Columbus. Hoksbergen will explore this rich cultural history, summarize what we've learned so far, and outline the mysteries that have yet to be solved.

Phi Alpha Theta Brown Bag Series

The Tau Omega chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the international history honorary, is sponsoring a Brown Bag Lunch Series in Spring 2012. Meetings are on Wednesdays from noon until 1pm in Roberts Hall 422.

Here are the scheduled presenters and topics:

March 7: "Whitaker House: Following the Road to Restoration of an Antebellum Home in Lincoln County, Tennessee" (by Jillian Rael)

March 14: "Information Overload as a Unifying Trend in Early Modern Natural Philosophy" (by Joshua Riddle)

April 4: "Alexander Hamilton and the Transformation of the American Economy" (by Matthew Menarchek)

April 11: "Grover Cleveland and the Restoration of the Kingdom of Hawaii: a Foreign Policy Failure" (by Janis Dye)

Bring your lunch and hear from some graduates and graduate students of the UAH History Department. Time is allotted for questions after each presentation.

Classics Week Lectures by Dr. Norman B. Sandridge set for Friday March 30

UAH's Society for Ancient Languages is bringing Dr. Norman B. Sandridge of Howard University to campus for the 2012 Classics Week.

Dr. Sandridge will give two public lectures, both on Friday, March 30, and both in Roberts Hall 419.

11:30 AM
"Managing the Envy of Leaders and Followers in Xenophon's Education of Cyrus"

7:00 PM
"Where Do Ideals of Leadership Come From? The Case of Philanthropia in Xenophon's Cyrus the Great"

Please come to one or both lectures and bring a friend!

AIA Talk: Underwater Maya 1 March 2012

Dr. Heather McKillop, the Doris Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Studies at Louisiana State University will give two talks on underwater archaeology of Maya sites in Belize.  Dr. McKillop is author of several books, including The Ancient Maya:  New Perspectives and In Search of Maya Sea Traders. 

In her midday talk she observes that since wood normally decays in the tropical landscape of the Maya area, the stunning preservation of wooden posts and artifacts in a peat bog below the seafloor in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize, provides new information about Classic Maya buildings and life-ways. Dr. McKillop established the Digital Imaging and Visualization in Archaeology (DIVA) Lab at Louisiana State University. In the spring of 2011 her team set up a remote lab in their jungle field camp in Belize, where they did 3D scans of artifacts and returned them for storage at the underwater sites. In this presentation, she highlights use of a 3D laser scanner and 3D printer. She notes that digital images are critical to preserving a record of deteriorating artifacts, and digital images and 3D prints that create plastic replicas of the artifact, are also important for teaching, displays, study, and an effort for the local people to protect the underwater Maya sites by investing in them through tourism.

Describing the topic of her evening talk, Dr. McKillop relates, “While walking in a shallow lagoon in southern Belize in search of 'briquetage'—broken pots used to boil brine over fires to make salt—we made an accidental discovery that has transformed our knowledge of the ancient Maya. We found wooden posts and artifacts—including the only reported ancient Maya canoe paddle—perfectly preserved in a peat bog below the sea floor...In this presentation, I summarize the discovery and mapping of some 4000 wooden posts between 2005 and 2009, as well as the ongoing field research excavating 'Ancient Maya Wooden Architecture and the Salt Industry.'”

What: “Underwater Maya: 3D Digital Imaging and Site Preservation”

When:  March 1 (Thursday) 2012

Where:  12:45 p.m. Wilson Hall 168, UAHuntsville

What:  “Underwater Maya: Discovery, Mapping and Excavating in a Peat Bog Below the Sea Floor, Belize”

When:  7:30 p.m. March 1 (Thursday) 2012

Where:  Wilson Hall Theatre, UAHuntsville

Please come and bring a friend!

Talk & Film: Beside the Troubled Waters: A Black Doctor Remembers 7 November

UAHuntsville Professor of History Emeritus Jack Ellis and Dr. Sonnie Hereford will present a brief film and a discussion of their recently published book, -Beside the Troubled Waters: A Black Doctor Remembers Life, Medicine, and Civil Rights in an Alabama Town- Dr. Ellis, former dean of the College of Liberal Arts, conducted extensive interviews with Dr. Hereford in preparation for the book, which is a memoir of Dr. Hereford's experiences in Huntsville as a physician and a civil rights activist.

As always, the event is free and open to the public.  Please bring a friend!

7:00PM, November 7
Wilson Hall, Room 001

AIA Talk: Uncorking the Past 10 November 2011

Dr. Patrick McGovern, author of Uncorking the Past:  The quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages, is going to talk about the history of beer, wine, and extreme fermented beverages.  Dr. McGovern, a biomolecular archaeologist, will be giving a beautifully illustrated synopsis of the findings in his book.Copies of the book will be available for purchase and the author's signature.

As always, the event is free and open to the public.  Please bring a friend!

Chan Auditorium, Administrative Science Building, UAH Campus

7:30 PM Thursday November 10

Lectures on the History of Childbirth with Medical Historian Dr. Judith Walzer Leavitt

Dr. Judith Walzer Leavitt, an internationally recognized pioneer of research on medical history and women’s history, will deliver two public lectures at UAH on the history of childbirth. Leavitt’s visit to UAH is sponsored by the UAH Women’s Studies Program with support from the UAH Humanities Center Eminent Scholars Program.

The first lecture, “Women and the Medicalization of Childbirth in American History,” will be September 20, 7:30 p.m., in Chan Auditorium of the Business Administration Building.

The second lecture, “Make Room for Daddy: Men’s Roles in Childbirth in Twentieth Century America,” will be September 22, 11:10 a.m., in the multipurpose room of Frank Franz Hall as part of UAH’s Honors Forum.

Both lectures are free and open to the public.

Leavitt hails from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she is Rupple Bascom and Ruth Bleier Professor Emerita of Medical History & Bioethics, History of Science, and Gender and Women’s Studies. She has published numerous articles and book chapters, delivered dozens of lectures in the United States and abroad, and authored or edited eight books on public health and women’s health in social, economic, and political contexts. Her UAH lectures are based on her two books Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950 (Oxford University Press, 1986) and Make Room for Daddy: The Journey from the Waiting Room to the Delivery Room (University of North Carolina Press, 2009). She holds a B.S. degree in Social Sciences from Antioch College (1963) and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History from the University of Chicago (1966 and 1975).

For additional information on Leavitt, please see her webpage, which also includes a link to her CV.

Leavitt’s current research, which continues to examine gender and public health through the twentieth century, includes two projects, one which looks at home health care during the antibiotic transition and the second which carries forward her childbirth studies.

Contact:

Dr. Molly Johnson

Director of Women’s Studies

256.824.2566

molly.johnson@uah.edu

Holocaust Survivor and Scholar Dr. William Samelson to Speak at Yom Ha Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Event on Sunday May 1

On Sunday, May 1, 2011, the Jewish Federation of Huntsville and North Alabama will sponsor Yom Ha Shoah - the day for Holocaust remembrance. The event will be held at Temple B'nai Shalom (Clinton and Lincoln Streets), beginning at 3:00 pm. The event is free and open to the public.

The purpose of Yom Ha Shoah is to assure that the world never forgets the Holocaust. Like all memory of World War II, there are fewer and fewer actual witnesses to actual events of the era. In the case of the Holocaust there are those voices who continue to deny that six million persons were its victims.

The JFHNA event will feature Holocaust survivor and scholar Dr. William Samelson. Dr. Samelson was born in Poland. He lived there until the age of 11 when he was interned in various Nazi labor and concentration camps throughout Poland and Germany. He became a member of the partisans at the age of thirteen. Captured by the Nazis, he was taken to Buchenwald Concentration Camp where he spent three and a half years. He was liberated by the US Army in 1945, and emigrated to the US in 1948.

Dr Samelson holds a PhD from the University of Texas, Austin, and has taught at Kent State University, the University of Illinois at Urbana, and the University of Texas in Austin. He is Visiting Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Texas in San Antonio and Trinity University. Dr Samelson has written extensively about the Holocaust and lectured widely on a variety of topics relating to it. Among his many publications are: “All Lie in Wait”, “One Bridge to Life”, “Warning and Hope” and a series of six volumes of English as a Second Language texts, which have undergone numerous editions.



In addition to Dr. Samelson's talk, six candles will be lit in a ceremony similar to one followed at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Israel. Music composed by Modecai Gebirtig will be performed by Gonca Huff and Frank Contreras. Some of the music will be sung in Yiddish, the language spoken during the era.

A reception will follow the program and Dr. Samelson will be available for further discussion.

With questions, please contact Ed Gollop at 256 881 2477.