Introducing Dr. Alexandra Montero Peters

We’re delighted to welcome Dr. Alexandra Montero Peters as our new Assistant Professor of Medieval History! Dr. Montero Peters specializes in the history of the medieval Mediterranean, specifically the cultural and intellectual exchange between Muslims and Christians of Iberia, North Africa, and the Near East. 

Ever since I was little, I have had a passion for the Middle Ages. I read every book I could buy or rent on King Arthur, and when it came time to go to college, I only applied to institutions that had a Medieval Studies major. However, before I began my degree, I had no concept of a Middle Ages beyond England, and as a heritage Spanish speaker—my maternal family is all from Ecuador—I didn’t realize that the cultural histories and language skills I had learned at home with family would change the trajectory of my academic interests to a different country and focus. In a fateful meeting with a professor of medieval history at my alma mater, UChicago, I discovered the world of medieval Iberia, sometimes called Spain of the three religions, and realized that I already had a key tool to dive headfirst into research: Spanish. It was a world that captivated me with its complex and fraught past of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian exchange, its rich artistic and literary traditions, and its overlapping history with Latin America. I could learn through the mirror of the past something about interfaith relations, a theme that felt urgent and timely, while at the same time growing in my own understanding of who I was and the past that had affected my own family across many generations.

Not long after diving into medieval Iberia as an undergraduate, I discovered a second passion on the dusty shelves of my library’s vast stacks. Filed next to my books in Spanish about Iberian history were rows and rows of Arabic tomes. This made perfect sense given the over 700 years of Islamic power in medieval Iberia. However, it sparked in me a curiosity to know more about how the books of the past—medieval manuscripts—reflected the close proximity of Christian and Islamic intellectual centers. What role, I asked, did interfaith relations play in how intellectuals of the period asked and answered some of the most pressing questions of their day, on everything from the power of freewill to the ways planets moved in the heavens above? How do manuscripts record for us their overlapping worlds, both literal and literary? Needless to say, this question led me to take years of Arabic, travel the world to study illuminated manuscripts in person, and it planted the seed for my current research on everything from medieval chess to race before modernity.

I am so excited to find myself at Texas State University, and I cannot wait for students to see the entwined histories of medieval and early modern Iberia with that of their own backyard. I will invite students to the fascinating world of medieval Iberia and many other cultures in my spring course on “Reframing Medieval Power.” As a big fan of staging historical simulations for students to tap into the past in meaningful, memorable ways, I’m doubly excited that this course features a multi-day, costumed, role-playing event where students embody real medieval people. They will scheme, negotiate, and perhaps even betray others as they vie for power, and I can’t wait to watch the drama unfold!

In my spare time and beyond the medieval, I am an avid nature photographer and a foodie, and I’m eager to learn from my new friends and students here where the best spots are for both hobbies. I also love to read new fiction, and before moving to the Texan heat, I also loved to run outside. We’ll see about that here!

Categories: Faculty, People, Research, Spotlights

Dr. Helgeson on His Summer History Adventures

While in Cooperstown for our son’s baseball tournament, we of course visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame. I’d been before, but hadn’t noticed Andy Warhol’s 1977 painting of one of my favorite pitchers, Tom Seaver.

We also went to the New York Farmers Museum, where we saw the state merry go round. This was not the first time I’d seen the ride’s hand-carved animals. When I was in middle school on Long Island in the mid-1980s, the merry go round’s founder Gerald Holzman visited our history class and told us all about the project, using this beaver as an exhibit of the intricate designs involved. The tour guide the museum, Patrick MacGregor, remembers our Museum Studies professor, Kate Betz, from her time as an intern there!

We then rode power-assist bikes on the rails of the Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley Railroad. And we got an impromptu private tour of the Leatherstocking Railway Historical Society and its trains—including a well-preserved 1923 commuter train that was based in Hoboken, New Jersey.     

Categories: Undergraduate Students

Dr. McKiernan-Gonzalez on Cross-Regional Labor Organizing

In June 2023, I spent most of three weeks in two Stanford University Special Collection libraries, the Lane Medical History Center and the Special Collections and University Archives in the Green Library in Stanford. My general interest is Latinos, health care and social justice, so I decided to spend some extended time in the Ernesto Galarza papers.  What I found in the folders and papers linked to the National Farm Laborers Union troubled my regionally-bound assumptions regarding the source and inspiration of labor organizing.   The first hint that I might be remiss in my assumption that Latino farm labor organizing happened alongside the Pacific migration circuits connecting the western states of Nayarit, Jalisco and Michoacan to the U.S. Pacific Rim encompassing California, Oregon and Washington. You can see the importance of the U.S. and Mexico in the many of the photographs.  Ernesto Galarza himself makes this very clear in his autobiography, Barrio Boy, where he narrates his upbringing in rural Nayarit and his migration to the U.S. in the 1920s.[1]

I was a little remiss in my assumption regarding what side of the Pacific, and which migration.  NFLU organizer Hank Hasiwar told Donald Grubbs that he got involved in farm labor after his “armed service in Japan. There he had gained first hand knowledge of the land redistribution and peasant ownership program instituted by known reformer General Douglas Macarthur, whose Japanese Radicalism the NFLU hoped to transplant into the soil of California’s San Joaquin Valley.”[2] This is not the first time democracy movements at the edge of the U.S. empire helped shape reform movements in the United States, but the impact of seeing land transfer from landowners to peasants and migrant workers under U.S. occupation demonstrated that land reform “si se puede,” at least to that New Deal informed GI.  As much as the Great Depression drove Black, White and Mexican Southern families to California, World War II enabled the migration of young American men to Japan, where they learned that societies could be reshaped, giving voice to peasant families in what been an imperial monarchy.

WWII may have brought Galarza and Hasiwar together. The Ernesto Galarza Papers Collection also made it clear that the NFLU – both Galarza and Hasiwar – were in close contact with their parent organization, the Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union.  Galarza regularly reported to HL Mitchell; Congress regularly called HL Mitchell to task for the labor actions NFLU affiliates started taking in post-WWII rural California, most notably the secondary boycotts against the Di Giorgio Farm Corporation. It is here, in the folder titled “Spiders in the House,” TV Program KNBC Los Angeles Mounted Photos,” that materials from a 1940s publicity campaign by the Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union appeared. The jutting chin, the short-sleeves, the blurry clouds in the background, the angle from below and the undeniably charismatic model for the photograph titled “New Farmworker in the South” pointed to both the national aspiration and cross-regional impact of rural organizing in the Appalachians and the Tennessee River Valley.[3]  Historian Jeffrey Helgeson pointed out how this 1940s photo’s staging evoked painter, African American activist and labor exile  Charles White’s depiction of Black Southern life.[4] This even carried through to the Di Giorgio strike where – even though the NFLU stood for Mexican American and Asian American Civil rights, 90% of the 800 striking workers were white and with southern roots, making it hard for the NFLU claiming to strike a blow for civil rights in California. The “new Southern farmworker” may have represented the hope for the STFU and the NFLU.  Their success at negotiating as farmworkers contributed to the ensuing backlash from the California chapter of “Rancher Nation,” the Associated Farmers of California and their lawyer, Richard Milhouse Nixon.[5]

Maybe many of these workers had also been part of the occupation of Japan and maybe they too knew of the possibility of radical transformation alongside federal involvement. The NFLU and the STFU organized rural workers and rural communities, and they drew on as many organizing traditions to be successful, be they imperial and revolutionary, Mexican or Appalachian, rural and industrial. The success of the secondary boycott against Di Giorgio Produce in California contributed to a senate hearing on secondary boycotts’ which probably influenced those anti-boycott provisions in the Taft-Hartley Act. Farm workers and labor organizers like Hazimwar suffered the brunt of shifting national objectives, from imposing land transfers in Japan to imposing labor controls in the rural United States.

All this is to say – using photographs of meetings in Tijuana, Salinas and Memphis – is that an archive helps reveal the particular ways the world can be deeply entangled, and that labor organizing in central California drew from traditions in the United States, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan and even radical conservatives in the U.S. Arny central command.[6] It helps to read widely to recognize the cross-regional entanglements; it helps to have extended time to chew on the miscellanea in various folders across the archive, to read against your assumptions shaping your reading of the collection. I mean, I came to the Galarza archive to see whether specific medical issues facing farmworkers had been part of the organizing brief for NFLU labor organizers.  Instead, I learned of the broad cross-regional milieus shaping federal agricultural policy in the Western United States.

[1] Ed Frayne Photography, Salinas, California. “Farm Labor Union Meeting,” Collection 224, Ernesto Galarza papers, Box 65, Series V, Folder 8, Folder Title, Farm Labor Union Meeting, Salinas, California, circa 1948.

[2] Donald Grubbs, “The National Farm Labor Union in California: background to Cesar Chavez,” typescript, Folder 2Title Braceros, Living and Working Conditions, 1949-1957, Series V, Box 65, Collection 224 Ernesto Galarza papers. John Dower, noted historian of the relationship between Japan and the United States, emphasized the democratizing impact U.S. constitutional reforms had on working-class and rural Japan; I am confident few people have examined the democratizing impact these Japan-specific reforms may have had on U.S. soldiers.  John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (NY: W.W. Norton, 1999)

[3] Southern Tenant Farmworkers Union, ”New Farm Worker of the South, n.d.” Box 65 Folder 10 “Southern Tenant Farmers Union, living and working conditions in the South, ca. 1940s,”

[4] Vanessa Cross, “African American Artist Charles W. White Jr.” American Artist Blogspot, http://american-biography.blogspot.com/2011/02/african-american-artist-charles-w-white.html Adapted from Vanessa Cross, “Charles White: the Art of a Chicago Son Beautifies Experiences of Common Black Folk,” Afrique June 1996.

[5] Ernesto Galarza, Spiders in the House and Workers on the Field (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970)

[6] Lori Flores, Grounds for Dreaming: Mexican Americans, Mexican immigrants and the California Farmworkers Movement (New haven: Yale University Press, 2018); Christian Paiz,The Strikers of Coachella: A rank-and-file history of the UFW movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2022). See also the first draft of this history in Ernesto Galarza, Spiders in the House and Workers in the Field (Notre dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970)

 

Categories: Undergraduate Students

From TXST to NPR: Conversations with Executive Producer Erika Aguilar

Image of flyer with dates and times (included in text of blog entry)

Please join as we welcome Erika Aguilar, Executive Producer of NPR’s Morning Edition and Up First. A graduate of Texas State, majoring in History and Journalism, Aguilar leads the team that delivers the news that many of us listen to on our morning commutes. Aguilar will be visiting Texas State as part of the History in the Making Series and Mass Communication Week.

THURSDAY, 6 Oct. 2022

Reception, 5:30 PM
Taylor-Murphy Hall Courtyard (Food to be served)

Keynote/Q&A, 7 PM
Alkek Library Teaching Theater

FRIDAY, 7 Oct. 2022

Student Breakfast 10 AM Honors College Coffee Forum Lampasas

TV and Radio News Panel, 1:45 PM to 3 PM
Old Main 230

 

Sponsored by the Texas State Department of History, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the Texas Center for Public History, the Center for the Study of the Southwest, KTSW, the College of Liberal Arts, the Honors College, the Office of the Provost, and The Berkshire Conference on the History of Women. If you require an accommodation due to a disability, contact Dr. Louie Dean Valencia at 512.245.2103 or at lvalencia@txstate.edu. Requests should be made at least 72 hours in advance of the program start time to ensure availability.

Categories: Alumni, Center for Texas Public History, Events, History at Texas State, News, Spotlights, Undergraduate Students

Public History Grad Students Preserve the History of Austin’s First Documented Gay Bar, the Manhattan Club, with a State-Funded Historical Marker

In February 2022, the Texas Historical Commission (THC) approved an application prepared by public history graduate students Amber Leigh Hullum and Railey Tassin to fully fund an Official State Historical Marker for the Manhattan Club. The Manhattan Club was one of Austin’s first queer-friendly public spaces located in the back of a Jewish Deli at 911 Congress. The Club operated from 1957 to 1969.

CBS Austin interviewed Hullum and Tassin about their research on the Manhattan Club. You can read some of Hullum and Tassin’s scholarship on the Manhattan Club in the Handbook of Texas, an online encyclopedia of state history.

Hullum and Tassin successfully nominated the Manhattan Club for the THC’s Undertold Marker Program. The THC selects a handful of sites each year that commemorate “undertold stories” and fully funds the manufacture and installation of Official State Historical Markers. The Manhattan Club was the only site in Travis County selected in 2022 and one of 15 sites selected for this program statewide. The Manhattan Club is also the first site commemorating LGBTQ+ history to receive an Official State Historical Marker as part of this program.

This successful marker project began in a public history graduate course at Texas State taught by Dr. Ruby Oram. She asked Hullum and Tassin to explain why they chose to research the Manhattan Club and the significance of the site receiving a state historical marker.

Dr. Oram: How did you first find out about the Manhattan Club?

Hullum and Tassin: We were in Dr. Oram’s Local and Community History class and one of our projects was to write up a narrative for a possible historical marker with an “undertold story.” Neither of us had ever seen a historical marker with an LGBTQ+ topic, and we knew that we wanted to try and find something– anything– that could help fill that void. We teamed up to work on the project together and then began looking for any leads to follow. We first started with good old Google and stumbled upon a list of Austin’s gay bars and clubs and the years that they had opened. On the list was an establishment called Manhattan Club, which had opened more than 50 years ago. Thus started our trip down the rabbit hole.

Dr. Oram: Why did you choose the Manhattan Club for this project?

Hullum and Tassin: People often think that history is nothing but names and dates with no connection to the present. For most Texans, we are taught that history is a bunch of old white men that did some great things (aka boring). But really, history is people. It’s all of us. It’s the everyday. It’s women, and people of color, and disabled people, and gay people, and immigrants– the list goes on. We chose a site that many people can relate to. The Manhattan Club was a gathering place, a place of community. It was a safe place for LBTQ+ people to come together during an era when it was dangerous to be openly queer. We wanted to tell that story through the Manhattan Club. People want to see themselves in history, so hopefully through this historical marker we can help pull out that mirror.

Dr. Oram: Why is it significant that the Manhattan Club receive a state historical marker?

Hullum and Tassin: Historical markers are one of the most accessible forms of public history, serving as a physical representation of significant moments, people, and places. Identifying the location of the Manhattan Club with a marker will make LGBTQ+ history more visible within the public landscape of Austin. It is especially significant due to its placement on Congress Avenue, only one block south of the Texas Capitol building. Additionally, as the first undertold historical marker commemorating queer history, it will hopefully set a precedent for future research and recognition.

Dr. Oram: What’s next? Any plans for the marker unveiling?

Hullum and Tassin: As of right now, we are taking the final steps to confirm the marker’s location, in collaboration with the Travis County Historical Commission. Once the marker inscription is finalized by the Texas Historical Commission, the marker will be ordered and installed. We are hoping to work with the City of Austin and other organizations to put on an unveiling event (date TBA) for everyone to come together and celebrate Austin’s LGBTQ+ past and present.

 

Image: Austin History Center

Categories: Center for Texas Public History, Graduate Students, History at Texas State, Research, Spotlights

An Interview with Dr. Sara Damiano on her new book, ‘To Her Credit: Women, Finance, and the Law in Eighteenth-Century New England’

We took a minute to catch up with Dr. Sara Damiano on her new book, To Her Credit: Women, Finance, and the Law in Eighteenth-Century New England (Johns Hopkins University Press). Dr. Damiano’s book “uncovers free women’s centrality to the interrelated worlds of eighteenth-century finance and law. Focusing on everyday life in Boston, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode Island—two of the busiest port cities of this period—Damiano argues that colonial women’s skilled labor actively facilitated the growth of Atlantic ports and their legal systems. Mining vast troves of court records, Damiano reveals that married and unmarried women of all social classes forged new paths through the complexities of credit and debt, stabilizing credit networks amid demographic and economic turmoil. In turn, urban women mobilized sophisticated skills and strategies as borrowers, lenders, litigants, and witnesses.”

 

Congratulations! How does it feel to have your first book published?

Dr. Damiano: It feels great! I began using court records to study eighteenth-century women when I was an undergraduate, and continued that work for my PhD dissertation—so this book is the culmination of a very long process. I’m excited that my research can now more readily shape scholarly conversations about women’s relationship to economic and legal development in early British North America.

What is the general argument of your book and how do you see is speaking to other works in your field?

Dr. Damiano: To Her Credit argues that free white women’s financial and legal work was essential to economic and legal development in eighteenth-century New England. I focus on the region’s two largest port cities, Boston, MA and Newport, RI. In these place, men’s work often took them to sea, sometimes never to return, and women outnumbered men. Everyday practices therefore demanded that women become skilled users of credit and debt.

My work sits at the intersection of several subfields, including women’s and gender history, legal history, and the history of capitalism. By reconstructing everyday practices, we can more fully recognize women’s contributions eighteenth century financial networks and legal institutions. We can also see that specific roles—such as creditor, debtor, or witness—endowed women with situational forms of authority or vulnerability that broad frameworks like patriarchy and marriage law can obscure.

Can you tell our readers a bit about your research process, and the trajectory of the project more generally?

Dr. Damiano: While my research uses many different kinds of manuscript and printed sources, I relied most heavily on county court records. In the absence of modern financial institutions like banks and collection agencies, the courts were a very important arena in which New Englanders enforced financial obligations. Of the hundreds of cases heard at each court term, more than 80 percent concerned debts. In other words, unlike today, going to court was a commonplace, routine activity. I used court records in three ways. First, I examined records from thousands of cases in order to quantify and compare women’s and men’s activities. Second, I reconstructed stories of individual women who waged extended legal battles. Third, I aggregated small details from routine cases in order to create a composite picture of women’s everyday practices. I wrote more about this third method in a recent blog post for JHU Press.

Is there a particular vignette that sticks out to you that you’d like to share from your book?

Dr. Damiano: As New England’s legal system developed during the eighteenth century, courts and laws increasingly favored creditors over debtors. As I explain in my book, this benefitted many women. White urban women were important lenders within their communities. Two-thirds of female litigants in debt suits were plaintiffs and creditors, and they overwhelmingly won their cases.

But, this same system disadvantaged female debtors, especially those who made legal errors or were saddled with extensive debt. One of these woman was Ann Maylem, the Newport, Rhode Island widow of an insolvent rum distiller. She spent six years battling her late husband’s former business partners, and took her cases to Rhode Island’s highest courts. In the course of her efforts, she also took the rare step of publishing a broadside (an eighteenth-century poster) outlining her side of the case. Her story contains elements of both persistence and tragedy. Read Chapter 5 of my book to learn more!

Where do you hope future projects will take you?

Dr. Damiano: I remain fascinated by eighteenth-century court records and the ways in which they provide windows onto the lives of marginalized individuals, especially women. In the course of researching To Her Credit, I’ve become interested with urban residents’ interactions with minor law enforcement officials—figures including sheriffs, constables, jailkeepers, and watchmen. For my next project, I’m planning on investigating the power dynamics at play during such interactions, and the skills that free and enslaved men and women used to protect their persons and property.

Categories: Undergraduate Students

International Film Festival and Symposium on Consent

 

Screenings: 4-14 April 2022

Symposium: Friday, 15 April 2022  9-5 in Centennial Hall G02

 

Sponsors: University Lecturers Committee, Honors College, College of Liberal Arts, Departments of World Languages and Literatures, Anthropology, Geography, History, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Centers for Diversity and Gender Studies, International Studies, and the Center for the Study of the Southwest. 

Albertine Cinémathèque is a program of FACE Foundation and Villa Albertine in partnership with the French Embassy in the United States and with the support of the CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée) and the Fonds Culturel Franco-Américain. 

Week 1 

“Age of Consent & Abuse” / 3 films / Monday April 4 / 6-8 pm 

1) Online: Little Boy, by Roland Klick, 1968, German 

When the parents of a suburban, middle-class family go to a party, they leave Achim and his baby sister under the supervision of Monika, the neighbor’s daughter. Soon after the parents are gone, Monika ditches babysitting to go out with her boyfriend, and Achim murders the baby by means of suffocation. Roland Klick’s debut feature is a film that uses cinema as a means to comment on German society. Much of the film is spent in the aftermath of the crime with the parents and neighbors trying to figure out who is responsible with both Monika and Achim denying any involvement or taking any responsibility for their actions. 

Suggested and run by Dr. Lisa Haegele, Assistant Professor of German, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/after-film Q&A 

2) On Campus (Centennial Hall G02): Slalom, by Charlène Favier, 2020, French 

This Cannes-selected #MeToo drama from debut filmmaker Charlène Favier follows the relationship between a teenage ski prodigy and her predatory instructor, played by Dardenne brothers’ collaborator Jérémie Renier. In a breakthrough role, Noée Abita plays 15-year-old Lyz, a high school student in the French Alps who has been accepted to an elite ski club known for producing some of the country’s top professional athletes. 

Run by Dr. Jennifer Forrest, Professor of French, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/after-film Q&A 

3) In Community(Stellar Coffee co.): Little Girl, by Sébastien Lifshitz, 2020, French 

Petite Fille is the portrait of 7-year-old Sasha, who has always known that she is a girl. Sasha’s family has recently accepted her gender identity, embracing their daughter for who she truly is while working to confront outdated norms and find affirmation in a small community of rural France. 

Run by Dr. Carole Martin, Professor of French, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/after-film Q&A

“Tales of Consent &Dissent” / 3 films/Wednesday April 6/ 6-8 pm

1) Online:Hyenas, by Djibril Diop Mambéty, 1992, Senegalese 

Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambéty sets an intriguing tale that speaks to the African continent’s complex place in the global order: his protagonist comes back to her hometown with a proposal to give its citizens an extraordinary amount of money, if they accept to kill their future mayor, who, she reveals, impregnated and abandoned her when she was a teenager. The vexed citizens initially reject her offer, but as the town’s debt accumulates in the face of a flood of consumer goods, the abuser begins to fear for his life. 

Run by Babacar Tall, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/after-film Q&A

2) On Campus (Centennial Hall G02): Nights of Cabiria, by Federico Fellini, 1957, Italian 

Cabiria works as a prostitute, becoming entangled in a series of relationships that eschew “consent”, before falling in love and accepting to get married to Oscar, yet another embezzler who intends to kill her and steal her money.   Like other neo-realistic films, Le Notti di Cabiria is aimed toward the development of a theme. Its interest is not so much the conflicts that occur in the life of the heroine as the deep, underlying implications that the pattern of her life shows. 

Suggestedand run by Dr. Jessica Pliley, Associate Professor of the History of Women, Genders, and Sexualities, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/after-film Q&A

3) In Community (San Marcos Public Library): Sisters of the Gion, by Kenji Mizoguchi, 1936, Japanese Two geisha sisters lead a hard life in Kyoto’s Gion district. When one of them feels obliged to help a ruined businessman, the other sister cooks up various schemes to get rid of him. Whereas one sister embodies a very traditional discretion in expressing her emotions, the other flouts codes and morals. 

Suggested and run by Dr. Maria-Luisa Gomez Ramirez, Senior Lecturer of French, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/after-film Q&A

Thursday Nuit Blanche / April 7 

From “Tales of Consent & Dissent” to “Consent in Post-Modern/Post-Colonial Societies” 

7 films (3 double features + 1 community screening) 

1) Online Double Feature 1 (French): 

a) Beauty and the Beast, by Jean Cocteau, 1946 

A defining influence on filmmakers as different as Ingmar Bergman and François Truffaut, this adaptation of the classic fairy tale by iconoclastic novelist, playwright, artist, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau is a deeply ambiguous work about the foundational role of consent. 

b) Portrait of a Lady on Fire, by Céline Sciamma, 2019 

In the late eighteenth-century, Marianne, a female painter, travels to an island off the coast of Brittany to paint a portrait of Héloïse, a young woman whose mother has recently taken her out of a convent to marry her to an Italian nobleman whom she has never met. But Héloïse refuses to sit for a portrait she knows will be offered to her prospective husband. 

Run by Scarlett Cado, with surveys but no discussion/6-10 pm 

2) Online Double Feature 2 (German and South-Korean): 

a) The Edukators, by Hans Weingartner, 2004 

Young, anti-capitalist Berlin activists involved in a love triangle, invade upper-class houses, rearrange the furniture, and leave notes identifying themselves. Weingartner, a former activist, wrote the film based on his experiences and chose to use nonviolent characters. His work has now become a cult production of the “German New Wave”, and it has inspired real-life actions. 

b) Parasite, by Bong Joon-ho, 2019 

The film portrays the history of a family of two parents and two teenagers that lives in extreme poverty. They are trying to find a way to better their lives, while ending up lying and deceiving rich people. The issue it raises is: how far can human beings take their scams to become better versions of themselves, and how come they lived in such poverty? 

Run by Dr. Malgorzata Citko-DuPlantis, Lecturer of Japanese, with surveys but no discussion/6-10 pm 

3) On Campus Double Feature in Centennial Hall G02 (American and Mauritanian): 

a) The Story of a Three-Day Pass, by Melvin Van Peebles, 1967 

Channeling the exuberance of the French New Wave, Van Peebles creates an exploration of the psychology of an interracial relationship as well as a commentary on France’s contradictory attitudes about race that laid the foundation for the blaxploitation cinematic revolution he would unleash just a few years later with Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. 

b) Soleil Ô, by Med Hondo, 1970 The late Mauritanian-French writer-director-producer Med Hondo was a trailblazer in making independent films that featured the lives of African immigrants in Europe and denounced all forms of oppression. His first feature Soleil Ô, self-financed and shot over three years in the aftermath of May 68, follows the fortunes of an African immigrant in Paris whose initial excitement about the capital of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” turns into a withering verdict on the effects of colonial history. Run by Carole Martin, with surveys but no discussion/6-10 pm 

4) In Community(Stellar Coffee co.): Caramel, by Nadine Labaki, 2007, Lebanese

Labaki, a Lebanese writer, director, and actress depicts the life of five Lebanese women who work in a beauty salon in Beirut, Lebanon. They struggle between their desire to live free and their obligation to tradition, religion, and family rules. The contradictions and the issues they have to deal with in their life are woven in an intriguing manner that illustrates both compliance and resistance to societal norms. 

Suggested and run by Noha Mohama-Akkari, Instructor of Arabic, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/after-film Q&A/6-8 pm 

Week 2 

“Consent & Family Affairs” / 3 films / Monday April 11 / 6-8 pm 

1) Online: 35 Shots of Rum, by Claire Denis, 2009, French 

35 Rhums portrays a family of two’s extreme closeness (between a widowed father, Lionel, and his university-student daughter, Joséphine) while suggesting its potential for suffocation. 

Run by Dr. Moira DiMauro-Jackson, Senior Lecturer of French and Instructor of Italian, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/after-film Q&A 

2) On Campus (Centennial Hall G02): Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom, by Pedro Almodóvar, 1980, Spanish 

Pepi is raped by the policeman who catches her growing marijuana in her apartment. She seeks revenge by getting his masochist wife to leave him. 

Suggested and run by Dr. Louie Valencia, Assistant Professor of History, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/after-film Q&A 

3) In Community(Stellar Coffee co.): By the Grace of God, by François Ozon, 2019, French 

This dramatization of the events that exposed the most significant sex abuse scandal to date in the French Catholic church focuses on what happens to victims once they speak their truth. It is an important contribution to awareness of the global problem of sexual abuse in the Church and the general conversation in the era of #MeToo. 

Run by Dr. Miranda Sachs, Assistant Professor of History, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/after-film Q&A 

“Consent in Post-Modern/Post-Colonial Societies” / 3 films / Wednesday April 13 / 6-8 pm 

1) Online: Pan’s Labyrinth, by Guillermo del Toro, 2006, Mexican 

This is a film that deals with the Spanish Civil War, Francoist period, and the struggle against an overpowering state, in which identity and self-determination are challenged. Yet El laberinto del fauno’s imaginary world presents a radical and rewarding model to examine consent under totalitarian regimes. 

Run by Carole Martin, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/short after-film Q&A 

2) On Campus (Centennial Hall G02): The Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord, 1974, French 

Six years after the publication of his Situationist classic La Société du Spectacle, Guy Debord released this essay-film adaptation, using the technique of “détournement” (think pre-digital remixing). He overlays a dizzying array of still and film images with text from the book to provide a sharp commentary on a world dominated by image and power. 

Run by Dr. Ron Haas, Honors College Director of Research and Writing, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/ after-film Q&A 

3) In Community(San Marcos Public Library): Night of the Kings, by Philippe Lacôte, 2020, Ivorian 

A young man is sent to “La Maca,” a prison in the middle of the Ivorian forest ruled by its inmates. As tradition goes, with the rising of the red moon, he is designated by the Boss to be the new “Roman”—or “Scheherazade”—and must tell a story for his life to be spared. He begins to narrate the life of the legendary outlaw named “Zama King” to the other prisoners. 

Run by Kenny Anagbogu, with short intro/pre-symposium survey/short after-film Q&A 

Thursday Nuit Blanche / April 14 / 6-8 pm 

2 pre-symposium screenings 

Online Double Feature: 

a) Becky’s Journey, by Sine Plambech, 2015 

Becky’s Journey provides rare insight into the hopes and fears of high-risk migration and human trafficking from a woman’s perspective. It documents Becky’s attempts to travel across the Mediterranean and tells the story of the many migrants that never reach Europe’s shores. 

b) The Rape of Recy Taylor, by Nancy Buirski, 2017 

Mrs. Recy Taylor was gang raped by six white boys in 1944 Alabama. Unbroken, she spoke up and fought for justice with help from Rosa Parks and legions of women. 

Run by Maria-Luisa Gomez Ramirez, with surveys but no discussion 

Friday Symposium / April 15 / Centennial Hall G02 

AM/9:30-10:50—Opening guest lectures with short intro and Q&A moderated by Dr. Jessica Pliley 

Dr. Sine Plambech, Danish Institute for International Studies, on filming Becky’s Journey 

Ms. Piper Nelson, The SAFE Alliance, Austin, Texas, “Stopping the Cycle of Violence in Central Texas” 

11 AM-1:50 PM–Students meet in survey-generated discussion groups (4 running concurrently from 11-12:20 and 4 from 12-30-1:50) with 8 moderators (Kenny Anagbogu, Moira DiMauro-Jackson, Maria-Luisa Gomez Ramirez, Lisa Haegele, Mona Mansard, Carole Martin, Noha Mohama-Akkari, and Babacar Tall) 

PM/2-3:20—Afternoon guest lectures with short intro and Q&A moderated by Dr. Louie Valencia 

Dr. Ourida Mostefai, Brown University, on consent in Beauty and the Beast 

Dr. Danielle McGuire, “Recy Taylor and the Roots of the Civil Rights Movement” 

PM/3:30-5–Roundtable with guests, moderated by Dr. Carole Martin, and Q&A with organizers, Drs. DiMauro-Jackson, Forrest, Gomez Ramirez, Haas, Haegele, Sachs, and Ms. Mohama-Akkari, Texas State students, and public. 

Categories: Center for the Study of the Southwest, Events, Faculty, History at Texas State, People, Undergraduate Students

An Interview with Dr. Anadelia Romo on her new book, ‘Selling Black Brazil: Race, Nation, and Visual Culture in Salvador, Bahia’

Dr. Ana Romo holding book

We took a minute to catch up with Dr. Anadelia Romo on her new book, Selling Black Brazil: Race, Nation, and Visual Culture in Salvador, Bahia (University of Texas Press). Dr. Romo’s book shows how “Brazil shifted from a nation intent on whitening its population to one billing itself as a racial democracy.” Selling Black Brazil shows “that this shift centered in Salvador, Bahia, where throughout the 1950s, modernist artists and intellectuals forged critical alliances with Afro-Brazilian religious communities of Candomblé to promote their culture and their city.” In the book, Dr. Romo “reveals, concealed deep racial inequalities. Illustrating how these visual archetypes laid the foundation for Salvador’s modern racial landscape, this book unveils the ways ethnic and racial populations have been both included and excluded not only in Brazil but in Latin America as a whole.”

 

Congratulations! How does it feel to have your book published?

Dr. Romo: Thanks, I’m so relieved to have the book out in the real world and out of my head! This is my second book, and it was definitely more fun to write than the first. The second book felt different because I ended up working with art and visual culture, something that was new and exciting to me. And I also made a real effort with this recent work to write in a way that would be readable. I’ve gotten frustrated with history scholarship recently and wanted to make this book more accessible to students and a wider public. Trying to make the writing vivid and clear was its own challenge, but I’m really happy with the results and I hope that all that care comes through to readers.

What is the general argument of your book and how do you see is speaking to other works in your field?

Dr. Romo: My book has a few larger arguments and some smaller more specific arguments. My larger point is that Blackness has occupied an uncomfortable position in the visual culture of Latin America, and we can learn a lot by exploring that. One of the things we can look at is how Blackness gets treated in visual representations of the nation. These representations reveal how Blackness has been largely written out of the nation in the Americas (and I include the U.S. here) despite the important contributions and presence of so many from the African diaspora. My book looks at one of the most important centers of the diaspora, the city of Salvador, Bahia, and probes how and why Blackness came to be visually central for representations of the region, and for Brazil overall. Part of my larger point with this project is asking what is gained and lost in these symbolic representations. I argue that while depictions of Blackness came to be central for Bahia, these representations were often limited and stereotyped, and that visual inclusions did not, unfortunately, map onto larger political inclusions.

Can you tell our readers a bit about your research process, and the trajectory of the project more generally?

Dr. Romo: My research process for this book was unusual because I got to use a source base that many historians had ignored before—tourist guides. My first book had looked at changing ideas of race in Bahia and stopped in the decade of the 1950s. In the process I had noticed a strange number of tourist guides written by really big cultural figures in Salvador. So I became interested in why this happened, and why it began to really peak in the 1950s. And I also thought that these tourist guides, written by those within Bahia, proved a pretty ideal barometer for measuring racial attitudes in the city. Once I started to look more closely at them, I discovered that most of them were illustrated, again by some very high-profile artists and figures. Although I had not started the project with a focus on visual culture, as I read the guides it rapidly became clear that the illustrations of these guides were just as important, if not more, than the written texts themselves. And that caused me to really reassess the project. In the end I think the focus on this visual culture is really is one of its greatest strengths.

What were some of the major challenges you encountered while doing your research?

Dr. Romo: Some of the challenges I faced in this project were tracking down the tourist guides and also trying to get permissions to include such great art in the book. I have about ninety images in the book, and each image presented its own puzzle in order for me to find a high-quality reproduction and to get permissions to reproduce. Art historians are used to this, but I was not, and it was its own separate project! Trying to track down some of the tourist guides was also sometimes tough. Because these guides were considered to be outdated quickly, and because they were not typical historical documents, some of them were not widely preserved. Anyone who works on modern Bahia knows the difficulty of tracking things down in the many archives there. I had a lot of help from archivists and colleagues, but it was sometimes an adventure.

Where do you hope future projects will take you?

Dr. Romo: My future project for the long term involves a study of anthropology in Brazil, and especially the rise of the community study, a form of research originally pioneered by Robert Redfield in Mexico. I’m interested in how these ideas moved across the Americas and why Brazil proved so pivotal for anthropology in the Americas as a whole. I’d started this project already when I got “sidetracked” by the tourist guides, so I’m looking forward to getting back to it.

Categories: Faculty, History at Texas State, News, People, Publications, Research

In memoriam Dr. Elizabeth Makowski (1951-2021)

Photo of Liz Makowski
  • Funeral Mass at 12:30pm on Friday, September 17th at Our Lady of Wisdom University Parish, 100 Concho St, San Marcos, TX 78666.
  • Vigil Rosary/Memorial Service at 7:00pm on Thursday, September 16th at Our Lady of Wisdom University Parish, 100 Concho St, San Marcos, TX 78666.

Remembering Liz Makowski

With the passing of Dr. Elizabeth Makowski on September 7, 2021, the Department of History at Texas State University lost a valued colleague and friend, a superb scholar, and an inspiring teacher beloved by her students.  Liz made a strong impression on the history faculty from the first day of her on-campus job interview.  She delivered her job talk in Dennis Dunn’s living room while holding her young daughter Maggie, who was less than 6 months old at the time and still nursing.  We were all impressed with Liz’s devotion to her daughter and her sang-froid as she calmly and expertly delivered her job talk.  Liz’s on-campus interview is the only one on record that required a trip to the store to buy diapers.  After Liz joined the department, a number of faculty members enjoyed Maggie’s visits to their offices when she accompanied her mother to the university.  Just as in her job talk, Liz remained unflappable over the course of her career whatever happy occasion, crisis, or misfortune might develop, a trait that resulted in an impressive scholarly output and a consistently excellent reputation as a great teacher.

As a scholar, Liz focused exclusively on medieval nuns and their various challenges.  Her first book, Canon Law and Cloistered Women: Periculoso and Its Commentators, 1298-1545 (1997) dealt with the papal directive that nuns remain cloistered and unable to leave the convents. In her review in Church History (Dec. 1998, 774-76), Helen Hills (University of Manchester) explains that Makowski’s book is “the first thorough study” of this important directive and its influence on the female monastic establishments.  Hills describes the book as a close study of canon law which reveals much about “the relationships between religious practice, institutional organization, belief systems, and gender.”  Hills points out that one of Liz’s achievements is revealing how Periculoso created greater distance between monks and nuns, since monks were not subject to the same rules.  Another strong feature of the study was its attempt to determine how completely the directive was followed which resulted in Liz’s assertions that many nuns did not adhere to Periculoso.

Her second book, A Pernicious Sort of Woman: Quasi-Religious Women and Canon Lawyers in the Later Middle Ages (2005) won the History of Women Religious, Distinguished Book Award, from Notre Dame University in 2007.  Sean Field (University of Vermont) wrote in his review in Speculum, (Jan., 2007, 207-09), that this is “an insightful study of the way canon lawyers wrote about semireligious women’s communities. . . .“

Liz’s third book, English Nuns and the Law in the Middle Ages: Cloistered Nuns and Their Lawyers (2012) once again focused on a particular problem faced by women religious—attempts to seize the endowments of their orders by relatives of their benefactors.  Henrietta Leyser, (St. Peter’s College, Oxford) praised Liz’s revealing study of English nuns’ tenacity in defending the endowments of their houses through reliance on lawyers and the English courts (English Historical Review, April 2015, 543).

The last historical study that Liz wrote, Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages (2019), examined the cases of women who left their convents despite the Church’s insistence that their vows bound them to the monastic life until death.  In her study Liz examines the cases of women who left their convents for various reasons including an insistence that they had not willingly taken the vows or had never even taken the vows yet were charged with apostasy.  In her review of the book in Speculum (April 2021, 533) Tanya Stabler Miller (Loyola University Chicago) wrote, “Engrossing and informative, Makowski’s book is a wonderful addition to her already impressive body of work on women, agency, and the law.”

These historical studies were preceded by a literary study that she co-authored with Katharina Wilson, Wykked Wyves and the Woes of Marriage: Misogamous Literature from Juvenal to Chaucer. (1989).  After publishing her last historical study of nuns, canon law, and lawyers, Liz turned to writing fiction and completed The Case of the Reluctant Novice: A Mother Phillipa Mystery, a novel was published by Amazon on August 29, 2021.

Liz Makowski was a remarkable teacher of the history Medieval Europe, who endeared herself to her students and earned the respect of her colleagues for her excellent teaching.  In nominating her for the Alumni Association Teaching Award of Honor, her colleague Ron Brown emphasized that Liz had the task of bringing to life a society and culture vastly different from that of the modern world in which our students live.  Liz described herself as a “guide to students in a foreign land.”  She proved to be very effective in carrying out this mission.  Michelle Seiler-Godfrey, who worked under Liz as an undergraduate and graduate student, recalled “her energy and how infectious it was.  I think she could get just about anyone excited about anything.”  Francisco Javier Rodriguez-Arroyo was also struck by “the sheer passion” with which Liz delivered her lectures.  According to Francisco “no other word” than passion “can truly describe Dr. Makowski’s attitude toward the discipline of history.”  Liz offered her students challenging courses.  Bryan Mann, one of her graduate students and later a colleague in the Department of History, praised her demanding graduate historiography class which had served him as an excellent introduction to the graduate program in history.

Liz loved assisting students improve their understanding and investigation of history.  Describing the efforts Liz exerted to improve his approach toward history, Francisco asserted that “Dr. Makowski has single-handedly done more to help me improve as a student than any educator I have had the pleasure of studying under. . . .”  Louie Valencia, one of Liz’s undergraduate students and subsequently her colleague in the Department of History, recounts how Liz helped him prepare his first conference paper:  Liz “encouraged me to apply to my first conference when I was an undergrad. In preparation, she read drafts of my paper on representations of Liberty and the Virgin Mary—written originally for her Honors class, “Inventing the Dark Ages.” I still remember her giving me a big thumbs up at the conference, encouraging me despite my stage fright.”

Liz also provided encouragement and assistance to both undergraduate and graduate students interested in entering Ph.D. programs at other universities.  Michelle Seiler-Godfrey explained how, during her M.A. studies, Liz had taken on the task of teaching her Latin, which was not taught at Texas State but knowledge of which was essential for research in the Middle Ages.  Michelle with her newly acquired knowledge of Latin, subsequently went on to the University of Iowa where she earned a Ph.D. in Medieval History.  Louie Valencia credits Liz with encouraging him to consider earning a Ph.D. in European history at Fordham University and helping him prepare the materials he needed for a successful application.  After completing his Ph.D. and joining the history faculty at Texas State, Liz continued to serve as a mentor to Louie.  Bryan Mann also considers Liz as a mentor after earning his Ph.D. and joining the history faculty at Texas State.

These heart-warming testimonials from students regarding Liz’s approach to teaching and mentoring her students are reflected in the comments from her colleagues which poured into Jeff Helgeson’s mailbox after he announced Liz’s passing.  A number of colleagues commented on Liz’s kindness, gentle nature, and eagerness to assist her fellow faculty and staff (Leah Renold, Dwight Watson, Peter Siegenthaler, Gary Hartman, Roberta Ruiz). Other colleagues made reference to Liz’s wit and sense of humor (Leah Renold, Ana Romo, Elizabeth Bishop, Jeff Helgeson). Both Debra Law and Jeremy Roethler recalled Liz’s visits to their classrooms and her interest in providing an assessment that would reassure them of the quality of their teaching.  Jeremy said “She wrote an extraordinary teaching evaluation for me. Not the obligatory one-paragraph memo, but a full-page letter. So thoughtful. I didn’t even know who she was before that day and of course she didn’t know me either.”  Debra explained “My first semester teaching here, Liz was assigned to sit in during my 2311 class for my very first review. She came up and said that she had fun…and that has hardly ever happened. (You can picture her face and the quiet way that she critiqued things.)”  Before earning her Ph.D., Debra had been an M.A. student of Lydia Garner in our department.  At the conclusion of Debra’s class, Liz “put her arm around me and said, ‘Lydia [Garner] would be so proud of you.’”

The entire faculty recognized that Liz was a superb scholar whose publications made a significant contribution to the history of women religious and the European Middle Ages in general.  This judgment is firmly supported by the scholarly reviews of her work discussed above and in the comments of many faculty members (Jimmy McWilliams, Louie Valencia, Leah Renold, Ana Romo, Dennis Dunn, Bryan Glass).

Her scholarship was rewarded in 2010 when she was named Ingram Professor of History.  In 2013 she presented the Ingram Lecture entitled “The Curious Case of Mary Felton,” an account of one of her runaway nuns.  One can access this interesting lecture at this web address:  https://www.txstate.edu/history/news-events/speakers/makowski.html.

Mary Brennan, who was serving as chair of the department at the time of the lecture suggests that this event was representative of Liz’s career and contribution to history, the Department of History at Texas State, and the students to whom Liz was so dedicated:  “I can hear her during her Ingram Lecture, talking about her recalcitrant nuns.  That lecture was typical Liz: smart, intellectual, witty, and yet understandable to non-specialists. I think that was why she was such a successful teacher.  She was able to take complex ideas and distill them in such a way that undergraduates ‘get it.’”

-Ken Margerison
Categories: Undergraduate Students

“The Legacies of History and the Defense of Academic Freedom, Here and Abroad”

By Dr. Elizabeth Bishop

Texas State faculty, staff, and students could be forgiven if they missed the most recent episode in the growing international tensions over academic freedom and freedom of speech. As we huddled for warmth, lit candles in the dark, and worried about access to clean water during the most severe winter storm in recent memory (while still carrying out the many adjustments we’ve had to make in our professional and personal lives during the COVID-19 pandemic), National Public Radio reported on political turbulence in and around the French university system. “The French academic world,” NPR told its listeners on 21 February, “is in an uproar after President Emmanuel Macron’s minister for higher education ordered a report into what she called Islamo-leftism in the nation’s universities.”

NPR correspondent Michel Martin brought this news home to her U.S. audience by placing it in the context of recent debate over how U.S. history should be taught, specifically highlighting the New York Times “1619 Project,” and reactions to it. In the U.S., the debate has centered around competing understandings of the place of slavery in the origins and development of the nation. In modern France, the context is the distinct, yet related, debate over the legacies of French imperialism and la lutte de liberation nationale (“the struggle for national liberation”), which was fought—well, I enter the words in Google, Google completes the phrase—in Angola, Algeria, in Africa, in Asia and in Africa, in Indochina, in Guinea, etc.

In the French higher education system, universities are public institutions with degree programs open to any student who has obtained a baccalauréat or its foreign equivalent. Let’s sit, for a moment, on those words, “or its foreign equivalent,” because this phrase refers to the 275 million people who speak French around the world, and who earn secondary degrees equivalent to the baccalauréat that is the standard for France’s population of just over 67 million. Embedded in this access to French universities for those in the Francophone world are the many, increasingly divisive, legacies of what was called impérialisme during the 19th century.

The 20th-century lutte de liberation nationale continues in many ways as culture wars both within French universities, and in debates over what they ought to be teaching. As James D. Le Sueur, Professor of History at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, told the National Press Club in Washington, DC (22 January) “Old but re-vivified identity debates abound as pro-integration forces rally their troops in defense of ‘laïcité’ (read: separation of [Catholic] Church and State).” In the world of French universities—and the debates about them—this controversy over laïcité overlaps with increasing tensions over academic freedom and freedom of speech.

While snow fell on Texas in February, these culture wars came to a critical point. French Minister of Higher Education and Research, Frédérique Vidal, instructed the CNRS (The French National Centre for Scientific Research) to investigate allegations of “Islamo-gauchisme” (roughly “Islamo-Leftism”) in French universities. Six hundred heads of universities signed an open letter, denouncing, as NPR put it, “what they called a sterile controversy over the issue of Islamo-leftism,” which they see as “an attempt to delegitimize certain fields of research like post-colonial studies.”

Recognizing the need to defend academic freedom in French universities as an important cause in its own right—and perhaps seeing its resonances with debates over what ought to be taught in higher education in other parts of the world, including the U.S.—two hundred Anglophone intellectuals (I included) signed a second open letter. This letter puts the key points directly: “First, the state has no right to censor research by academics who draw on their expertise to advance the production of knowledge… Second, the approaches now under attack were inspired by some of the most brilliant minds of the French philosophical, literary, and sociological traditions… Third, those responsible for higher education should address the pressing need to find concrete solutions to the problem of racial discrimination in France, rather than carry out a witch hunt against researchers.”

Further, the letter’s authors highlight the benefits of broad access to a university system committed to rigorous standards of academic freedom. “As scholars working in the United States and elsewhere,” they write, “we carry a great intellectual debt to France for training thinkers such as Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Hélène Cixous, Aimé Césaire, Paulette Nardal, Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Bourdieu, Louis Althusser, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault.” The letter’s signators—including such institutions as California Scholars for Academic Freedom, the Society for French Studies (based in the UK), the Western Society for French History (US), the French Colonial Historical Society (international), The Society for the Study of French History (UK), the Council for European Studies (International), and the Committee on Academic Freedom of the British Society for Middle East Studies (BRISMES, UK)—make the key point that higher education has historically been a space where the voices of those whose communities have suffered from systems of oppression (such as imperialism and chattel slavery) can flourish. If they create discomfort for figures like Frédérique Vidal, the path forward is further debate, not a push to silence critical perspectives.

International academics’ opinions are interesting news in France. A week ago, Le Monde published the Anglophone intellectuals’ letter. As a Texas spring smiles on us, it seems well worth our while to consider the arguments of French academics, and the lessons of these recent events in France. In doing so, I think we will recognize our good fortune to be able to engage in dialogue and debate at a university committed to the mission “to create new knowledge, to embrace a diversity of people and ideas, to foster cultural and economic development, and to prepare its graduates to participate fully and freely as citizens of Texas, the nation, and the world.”

Dr. Elizabeth Bishop joined Texas State’s History Department during 2008 with a PhD from the University of Chicago. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in her areas of her scholarly expertise—the history of the Middle East, Postcolonial Arab history, the history of the Global Cold War. You can visit her profile here.

Categories: Faculty, History at Texas State