Category: Research

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

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. 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

Introducing Dr. Miranda Sachs

We welcome Dr. Miranda Sachs to Texas State this semester! Dr. Sachs specializes in European history, with a focus on France, women and gender, childhood and youth, and immigration. 

I had one of the best campus jobs imaginable as an undergraduate. My university had a special library dedicated to rare children’s books. The shelves of old books shared the space with a unique children’s room. I was first hired to help organize programs for kids. My job included writing a quest with rhyming clues, telling jokes while dressed as a Victorian lady, and gluing plastic salamanders on visors for a Holes watching party. But later I got to help the librarians tasked with working with the books. The collection is amazing! They have scrapbooks created by Hans Christian Anderson, the man who wrote “The Little Mermaid.” They have some of the first children’s books. These books are the size of a deck of cards and are over three-hundred-years old. They have lithographic stones that were used to print toy theaters in the nineteenth century. The stones are about the size of a laptop, but so much heavier.

One day while I was helping shelve books, I noticed an ABC book on World War I. I was already excited about European history, but this book got me thinking. What if I did my senior research project on the history of children in World War I? I had never thought about children as a topic to study, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to know. What was war like for the children who lived through it?.

Since then, I’ve studied and taught the histories of childhood and youth. My research looks at the experience of working-class children in nineteenth-century Paris. I am particularly interested in how childhood came to be a distinct stage of life. How and why did childhood become a time when young people are expected to be in school and dependent on their parents? I enjoy teaching about the history of childhood, because most students don’t expect children and childhood to have a history. We also don’t expect high school yearbooks or children’s drawings to be historical sources. If that sounds interesting, I will be teaching a class on “The Global Teenager” in the spring!

When I’m not studying history, I cheer on the San Francisco Giants and search for the best hot chocolate in the world. My favorites so far include Jacques Genin in Paris and City Bakery in New York, but I’m always looking for new recommendations!

 

 

Categories: Faculty, History at Texas State, People, Research, Spotlights

Introducing Dr. Justin Randolph!

Photo of Dr. Justin Randolph

We are excited to welcome Dr. Justin Randolph to Texas State as our new Assistant Professor of Oral History this semester! Dr. Randolph specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. social and political history. 

I grew up in rural-rural Alabama, was the least athletic person to ever play baseball at my high school, and played the saxophone. You guessed it: I’m a nerd. But you know…a cool nerd. 😎

I’m coming to Texas State from my PhD program at Yale University. Whew. That was a strange experience. Did you know there are people whose grandparents AND parents got PhDs? I was the first person in my family to get an associate’s degree at community college, so I didn’t have much in common with most of my classmates. Luckily I met other first-generation/low-income (FGLI) students with whom I built community. We kept one another accountable and got through it together.

To get a PhD in history you must write the draft of a history book. We call this a dissertation. I wrote mine on the history of police and Black activists in a very rural part of Mississippi. I found this story by conducing oral history interviews with Black farmers—many of whom have owned land since the end of the Civil War. However, I also found that racist white sheriffs and police officers had threatened these families’ safety and security from the beginning. The book I’m now writing shows how states like Mississippi reformed their police forces to chase away the Ku Klux Klan but never fully thought about how the police adversely impacted Black communities.

At Texas State I teach the introductory class on twentieth-century American history (HIST 1320), an upper level course on American history from 1968 to now (HIST 4361), and a graduate seminar on oral history (HIST 5345D). In the next few years I hope to design new courses for Texas State history majors. First, I want to get undergraduates involved in oral history in and around campus. Then, I want to introduce students to the history of the police and criminal legal system—what historians call the “carceral state.”

Hobbies? When my health holds out I enjoy running. And when the global pandemic is over, I might once again enjoy recreational softball and tennis.

What am I reading? Fiction and non-fiction. Fiction: Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940). She wrote it before age twenty-three. (What have I done with my life?!) Such amazing character development plus clear thinking on disability, racism, and radicalism. Go read this classic: I beg you! And nonfiction: Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays (2019). I know Cottom’s writing on the university and the future of work. Now, though, I’m turning to this MacArthur fellow’s memoir-style analysis of American and academic culture.

 

 

 

 

 

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

Introducing Dr. Ruby Oram!

Photo of Dr. Ruby Oram

We are excited to welcome Dr. Ruby Oram to Texas State this semester! Dr. Oram is a social historian of American women and gender, labor, education, and urban reform movements of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As a public historian, Dr. Oram’s work centers on addressing issues of diversity and representation in historic preservation and local history.

I’m thrilled to join the History Department at Texas State University this year and contribute to the growing Public History Program! I have eight years of experience working as a public historian in the fields of museum education, collections management, public programs, and historic preservation. I earned my PhD from the U.S. and Public History Program at Loyola University Chicago in 2020, where I studied women’s and gender history, urban history, labor history, and the history of education in twentieth-century America. My current research examines a group of women who created vocational programs and schools for girls in progressive-era Chicago, and explores how their reform efforts reinforced class and racial inequalities between female students in the city’s public high schools. I’m also in the process of nominating a group of public vocational schools in Chicago to the National Register of Historic Places.

I’m excited to teach “Introduction to Public History” this semester, which provides a rare opportunity for undergraduate students to study the presentation of history to public audiences through museums, historic sites, digital projects, and more. Texas State University is one of the few universities in the state (maybe the only?) offering an undergraduate public history course, and I look forward to teaching it regularly! I also look forward to teaching “Local and Community History” for our graduate students in the spring. I hope to eventually teach courses in my research areas including U.S. women’s labor history and urban history, as well as additional public history courses on museums and material culture.

When I’m not thinking about history, I am often exploring the parks and trails around my home in South Austin or listening to music with my tuxedo cat, Gus. I have a firm conviction that Motown and Atlantic Records released the best American music between 1959 and 1967. Lastly, I never outgrew my teenage obsession with thrifting for vintage clothes on the weekends. I face a current crisis of where to store my vintage winter coat collection now that I’m a Texan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

Check out some of these scholarship opportunities for Texas State University History Scholarships: Apply Here

Texas State Undergraduate and Graduate Level Scholarships
Alton G. Brieger Scholarship $950 Undergraduates History Majors  

3.3 GPA in History
Taylor-Murphy Scholarship $950 Undergraduates History Majors  

3.3 GPA in History
Dennis and Margaret Dunn Scholarship  

$2000

 Entering Freshmen, Undergraduates,

Graduate students.

 History or International Studies Majors 3.5 GPA
FitzPatrick-Clayton-Kissler Scholarship $1700  

Undergraduates,

Graduate Students

.

 History Major 3.5 GPA

Texas State Departmental Nominations
Outstanding Undergraduate Student In Liberal Arts TBA 30 hrs Completed/

18 in Major

 Department will nominate a junior or senior from our Majors for this Liberal Arts College Opportunity 3.75 GPA
Presidential Upper Division Schoalrhsip TBA 60 hrs Completed/

30hrs at TxState

 Department will nominate a junior or senior from our Majors for the Univeristy Wide Opportunity

Graduate Level Only History Scholarships
Brunson Family Endowed Scholarship $1000 Graduate Students History Majors 3.5 GPA
Minnie Knispel Scholarship $660 Graduate Students History Majors/Social Studies Teachers
 

James W. Pohl Scholarship

 

 $1800 Graduate students working on a Thesis in History. History Majors 3.5 GPA

Kenneth and Patricia Margerison Graduate Research Fellowship

The Fellowship is intended for use in recruiting master’s students of the highest quality to Texas State University. It provides support to full-time graduate students enrolled in the master’s degree program who demonstrate great promise as historians. All newly admitted students are automatically considered. Recipients will be awarded funds to fully cover graduate tuition and fees for the spring and fall semesters as well as limited research support. Fellows will also qualify for in-state tuition. In addition to the fellowship, students may also be offered a graduate Instructional Assistantship (IA) to create an attractive financial aid package for top applicants. Recipients who maintain a 3.7 cumulative GPA may have their fellowship renewed for up to three consecutive years.

Learn more about the 2019 inaugural fellows on our Texas State History blog.

 

Categories: Funding Opportunities, Graduate Students, News, Research, Undergraduate Students

Call for Abstracts—Southwest Historical Quarterly Special Issue “The Persistence of Forced Labor in the Southwest, 1865-2000”

 

The Southwestern Historical Quarterly is seeking expressions of interest to submit articles to a special issue on coerced labor, forced labor, and slaveries in the Southwest in the period between 1865 and 2000. The Southwest is defined as the border states of the United States west of the Mississippi. Sitting at the crossroads of empires, nation states, and migration streams, the American Southwest has long been a site of labor exploitation, and it continues to be a home to modern slavery. Since the 2000 passage of the Trafficking victims Protection Act and the formation and adoption of the United Nations’ Palermo Protocol, human trafficking and modern slavery has captured the attention of human rights activists, academics, jurists, labor organizers, and many others. Reports that the number of people caught in conditions of modern slavery continue to rise, as do the types of interventions to fight modern slavery. At the same time scholars of contemporary trafficking note that trafficking correlates to immigration restriction. Consequently, the Borderlands of the Southwest provide a fertile ground for interrogating the history of modern slavery. This special issue seeks to take the global phenomenon of modern slavery and trafficking, and ground it in the Southwest, considering the ways that labor migration, immigration restriction, border violence, and economic inequality combine to produce the soil that can give rise to modern slavery.

We are especially interested in work that:

  • Engages critically with the historical production of categories such as “peonage,” “forced labor,” “slavery,” and migratory “illegality” as they have pertained to the Southwest.
  • Examines ways border control regimes produced or exacerbated new vulnerabilities.
  • Explores the historical lived experience of forced labor in public and private institutions (such as reformatories, detention centers, prisons) in the Southwest.
  • Places trafficking and forced labor within a wider discourse of indenture, slavery and un-freedom; as well as imperialism, mobility, and globalization, while showcasing the ways these dynamics played out in the Southwest.
  • Explores how vulnerability, co-ethnic exploitation and solidarity, or disability, age and/or sexuality can serve as catalysing factors in producing forced labor.

All submissions must be historical in focus.

Prospective contributors to this special issue are asked to send an extended abstract of 1,000 words to the issue’s guest editors, John Mckiernan-González (mckiernangonzalez@txstate.edu) and Jessica Pliley (pliley@txstate.edu) by 15 January 2020. Abstracts should describe the prospective article and how it explicitly engages with the theme of the special issue. Authors should also include a discussion of the sources—archival or published—they will be using in the article.

Selected contributors will be informed within two weeks and asked to submit a complete manuscript by 1 March 2020, which will go through the Southwestern Historical Quarterly’s standard process of peer and editorial review. If the manuscript is accepted for publication at the end of this process, it will be published in the special issue.

Categories: Center for the Study of the Southwest, Faculty, History at Texas State, Publications, Research

Transatlantic Migration History with Visiting Fulbright Fellow Dr. Torsten Feys

Today we interview Dr. Torsten Feys, who will be a Visiting Fulbright Fellow at Texas State from the Netherlands beginning spring 2020. Look for his class Transatlantic Migration (History 4318N), 11am-12:20pm, Tuesday/Thursday, in Spring 2020!

Can you tell us a bit about your background and your research into transatlantic steam shipping and migration?

Dr. Torsten Feys: My dissertation analyzed how the transport of millions of transatlantic migrants turned into a big business managed by passenger shipping companies between the 1840s and its decline in the 1920s. It looks at the business aspects of how such companies competed to attract passengers to their homeports. The research analysed how the most important shipping companies formed a powerful cartel to coordinate the lucrative passenger market, ranging from price agreements, set routes, advertising rules, fixed passengers’ quotas between its members while trying to prevent outsiders from entering the market. By the turn of the century, the biggest threat to their trade became the growing anti-immigration movement in the U.S., which pressured for more legal restrictions and stricter enforcement. The research shows how the shipping cartel became the driving force of the American pro-immigration lobby influencing the enactment of the laws. Shipping companies, much like airline companies today, also played a central part in the enforcement of the laws. To compensate for its lack of resources, the U.S. immigration administration transferred part of its controlling responsibilities to shipping lines. This principle of imposing carrier penalties on transport companies for bringing in irregular passengers is still in use today. This commercialization of border control put the shipping companies in a privileged position to assist passengers to pass controls and develop alternative travel means to evade inspections.

My postdoctoral research focused on this impact on migration laws by drawing comparisons between the transatlantic migration system and the transpacific migrations from Asia to the U.S. It highlights how two migration regimes and policies developed simultaneously to govern European and Asian migrations. It led to different means of bypassing restrictions that, however, gradually collided at the land borders through routes via Canada and Mexico. They pioneered strategies and routes of illegal migration that are still very much in use today.

What you are hoping to do with your Fulbright and what brings you to Texas State?

Dr. Feys: Meet new people, exchange ideas, add to my teaching experience in a totally new environment, do some research and writing—in sum, having fun! I have had the opportunity to spend time abroad with various exchange programs in the past in Italy, Spain, Norway and the United States (Colorado and Pennsylvania). Each of these experiences has been very enriching and rewarding and now, as in most past occasions, the place tends to pick me than the other way around. Texas State was suggested by Prof. Jessica Pliley who I met at various conferences and I am very grateful she did. Many people in the History department and beyond contributed to the successful application of the Fulbright grant. They made it possible and I really look forward to finally meet everyone in person, experience the campus life of Texas State and discover San Marcos and Austin. It is my first trip to Texas and my first research stay abroad with the whole family, traveling with my wife, Malika, who is also doing a research stay and my son Basil who should be learning to walk and speak his first words in Texas. We are curious to hear what language that will be in!

We have a robust public history program here; can you tell us a bit about your work at the Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp?

Dr. Feys: The Red Star Line is the name of the shipping company who transported more than 2 million people, mostly migrants, across the Atlantic between Antwerp and New York from 1872 until 1934. The museum tells their story through the eyes of the shipping company and how Antwerp functioned as a transit hub. I have collaborated with the museum as a member of the scientific committee of the Red Star Line since 2004, from its inception, development until its opening (in 2013). After completing my PhD, I also worked as full-time freelance researcher for various months. The experience offered me a unique opportunity to translate academic findings to a broader public. It allowed me to contribute to the development of the museum’s storyline, provide contents and materials, and translate these in different installations within and outside the museum walls. The latter consisted of collaborating to documentaries, museum catalogues, public talks etc. Because of the prominent place that migration has taken into the public debates, the responsibility of migration historians to provide historical context has increased. My experience and research topics lend themselves to continue doing so in and around Austin.

Tell us a bit about your Transatlantic Migration course; what students can expect?

Dr. Feys: The course uncovers how migration processes function, breaking these down into economic, social, cultural and especially political aspects. Who migrated, why and how did transatlantic migration patterns develop (1815-1930)? What actors steered it and how did the enactment, enforcement and evasion of American migration policies take shape? This will be linked to current debates by opening each class week with a discussion of migration in media during the past week.

The class uses both literature and primary sources. Each week the students will analyse a primary source ranging from migrant letters, a file of a deported migrant, reports of the United Nations, newspapers, interviews, etc. learning to draw valuable information from these, while at the same learning to assess the pitfalls and apply historical criticism. The discussion on these will be tested with academic articles using such sources to uncover parts of the process of transatlantic migration.

The assessment will consist of the class participation, a short presentation for ‘Migration in Media this week’, a research paper based on an oral history assignment interviewing a migrant and mid-term and final exams.

Background image from The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Categories: Faculty, News, Research

2019 Phi Alpha Theta Texas State University History Conference

Conference logo

8:00am—9am

Registration (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Foyer)

Breakfast and Coffee Service (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 110)

  • Assorted breakfast tacos from Taco Cabana
  • Coffee service from Mocha & Java

 

9:00am—10:20am

  • Diplomatic Response to Native and Foreign Powers Panel (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 201) Faculty Commentator: Margaret Vaverek, Librarian, Texas State University, and Jason Rivas, Graduate Student, Texas State University

Student Moderator: John Rogers, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University

  • Issac Xaiver Auld, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Comparative Analysis of the United States, France, and Spain’s Use of Neutrality in 1776 and 1793’”
  • Christopher Bragdon, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “The Effects of Cherokee Nationalism and American Public Opinion on Early S. Diplomacy”
  • Kendall Jo Allen, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Education as a Diplomatic Tool in Negotiations with Native People”

 

9:00am—10:20am

Transformations in Architecture Panel (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 106)

Faculty Commentator: Dr. Peter Dedek, Associate Professor, Texas State University Student Moderator: Kyla Campbell, Graduate Student, Texas State University

  • Kyle Walker, Graduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Spanish Colonial Revival Architecture’s Role in the Preservation Movement in San Antonio”
  • Mary Kahle, Graduate Student, Texas State University
    • “The Architecture of Moral Treatment for the Mentally Ill in Nineteenth Century S.”
  • Nikolas Koetting, Graduate Student, Texas State University
    • “‘A Comparative Analysis of the Architecture of Charleston and New Orleans

 

9:00am—10:20am

Decolonization and the British Empire Panel (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 105)

Faculty Commentators: Dr. Nancy Berlage, Director of Public History, Texas State University Student Moderator: Francisco Rodriguez Arroyo, Graduate Student, Texas State University

  • Rayanna Hoeft, Graduate Student, Texas State University
    • “A Collection’s Purpose: Connecting Material Culture to Museum Visitor Experience”
  • Messia Gondorchin, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Misunderstood Monuments of a Forgotten War: Commemoration of the Second Boer War throughout England”
  • Desmond Workhoven, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “The Barton Brothers: Privateers and Founders of the Scottish Navy”

 

10:30am—11:50am

Thomas Jefferson and National Leaders Panel (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 201) Faculty Commentator: Dr. Shannon Duffy, Senior Lecturer, Texas State University Student Moderator: John Rogers, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University

  • Christian M. Prado, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Nature and Nurture: How Human Tendency and Exterior Influence Affected Early Diplomatic Policy”
  • Samantha S. Cayse, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “North African Pirates and American International Affairs: Evolution of Jefferson’s Diplomacy with the Barbary States”
  • Asher C. Rogers, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Jefferson’s America in the Age of European Colonialism: Western Territories & the Louisiana Purchase”

 

10:30am—11:50am

Gender and Women’s Identity Panel (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 106)

Faculty Commentator: Dr. Jessica Pliley, Associate Professor, Texas State University Student Moderator: Messia Gondorchin, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University

  • Jennifer Blackwell, Graduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Two for the Price of One: The First Ladies and American Diplomacy Beyond the Confines of the Women’s Sphere”
  • Lauren Kahre-Campbell, Graduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Gendered Patterns of Inheritance in Early Modern England”

 

10:30am—11:50am

Foreign Policy and War Panel (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 105)

Faculty Commentator: Dr. Ellen Tillman, Associate Professor, Texas State University Student Moderator: Desmond Workhoven, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University

  • Evan Moore, Graduate Student, Texas State University
  • “The Continental Army’s Role in Violence at the Battle of King Mountain”
    • Andrew Freeman, Graduate Student, Texas State University
      • “From Tampico to Niagara Falls: How a Perceived Insult Led to Invasion, Occupation, and Mediation”
    • Robert J. Anzenberger, Graduate Student, Texas State University
      • “Herbert Hoover: Finland’s Guardian Angel”

 

12:00pm—12:30pm

Lunch catered by Mamacita’s (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 110)

 

12:45pm—1:45pm

Keynote Presentation (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 101)

  • Dr. Thomas Cauvin, Assistant Professor at Colorado State University and President of the International Federation for Public History

 

2:00pm—3:20pm

The Continuous Role of Slavery in Revolutions and Diplomacy Panel (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 106)

Faculty Commentator: Dr. Dwonna Goldstone, Director of African American Studies Program, Texas State University

Student Moderator: Messia Gondorchin, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University

  • Ana Sofia Hernandez, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “‘The Impact of the Haitian Revolution on Early American Diplomacy Towards Slavery”
  • Reagan Deona Sekander, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “The Annexation of Texas and the Issues that Slowed the Process”

 

2:00pm—3:20pm

Perspectives in Modern History Panel (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 105)

Faculty Commentators: Mr. Dan K. Utley, Lecturer, Texas State University and Dr. Jeff Helgeson, Associate Professor, Texas State University

Student Moderator: Desmond Workhoven, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University

  • Suzanne Schatz, Graduate Student, Texas State University
    • “The Fire Burns On: Texas A&M Bonfire, Women, and Tradition”
  • Ethen Peña, Graduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Yellow Stained Tears”: The Effects of Historical Trauma on the American Indian Movement”

 

2:00pm—3:20pm

The Chains of Early American Diplomacy Panel (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 201) Faculty Commentator: Dr. Sara Damiano, Assistant Professor, Texas State University Student Moderator: John Rogers, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University

  • Tobi Omo-Osagie, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “The Racial Barriers to American Diplomacy”
  • William Joseph Keenan, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “By Way of the St. Lawrence: The Bond of Slavery in Canada and The United States”
  • Alex J. Humphries, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “The Faith of the Confederacy Rests on Cotton”

 

3:30pm—4:50pm

The Beginnings and Impact of the Monroe Doctrine (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 201)

Faculty Commentators: Dr. Thomas Alter, Assistant Professor, Texas State University, and Rayanna Hoeft, Graduate Student, Texas State University

Student Moderator: John Rogers, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University

  • Hannah Thompson, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: How Early American Presidents Paved the Way for the Monroe Doctrine”
  • Sarie Aguirre, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “The Advancement of American Imperialism through The Monroe Doctrine”
  • Illeane Marquez, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “The Monroe Doctrine: A Policy of Non-Interference for European Powers for Peace and Safety”

 

3:30pm—4:50pm

American Imperialism Panel (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 106)

Faculty  Commentator:  Dr.  Joshua  Paddison,  Lecturer,  Texas  State  University Student Moderator: Messia Gondorchin, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University

  • Noa Vasquez, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Conquest and Growth: The Two Ages of Filibustering”
  • Carlos Fidalgo, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “The Texas Quagmire: How Failed Diplomacy Sparked the Mexican American War”
  • Jacob Dowdell, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University
    • “The Tempering of US Imperialism: The Cost of an Island Empire”

 

3:30pm—4:50pm

Military and Government Architecture Panel (Taylor-Murphy Hall, Room 105) Faculty Commentator: Dr. Peter Dedek, Associate Professor, Texas State University

Student Moderator: Desmond Workhoven, Undergraduate Student, Texas State University

  • Kyla Campbell, Graduate Student, Texas State University
    • “From Barracks to Balfour: The Evolution of Base Housing on American Military Bases.””
  • Evan Smith, Graduate Student, Texas State University
    • “Washington D.C.: A Unique Creation of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries”

 

Categories: Events, Graduate Students, History at Texas State, Research