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Department of History
University of Mississippi

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Alexandra Lindgren-Gibson

Posted on: August 20th, 2017 by

Assistant Professor of  History

Office Hours: W 2:30-4:30pm (in-person or Zoom)

Bishop Hall 337
aslindgr@olemiss.edu

Education
Ph.D, Northwestern University

Teaching and Research Interests
Empire; Race, Class, Gender; Modern Britain

Alexandra Lindgren-Gibson is a historian of modern Britain and empire. She received her BA from Lawrence University, her MA in History with a specialization in Public History from Arizona State University, and her PhD from Northwestern University (2016). Her research interests are located at the intersection of histories of the British colonial world, class formation, family history, and the histories of race, gender, and sexuality.

Her book project, Working-Class Raj: Making a British Imperial Nonelite, reframes British working-class history as part of global history, asking what happened to working-class men and women when they left Britain and travelled to India, where their social worlds were upended by the disruptive addition of race to seemingly unshakeable British social hierarchies. The book makes two key interventions: first, it delves into the experiences of these working-class men and women in their own words, drawing on a diverse collection of letters and diaries which allow us to hear directly from these people for the first time. Working-class Britons in India enjoyed enormous privilege, reliant on native Indian labor and living, as one put it, “like gentlemen.” But within the hierarchies of the Army and the railyard they remained working class, a potentially disruptive population that needed to be contained. The class confusion that resulted shows up in the writings of these men and women and in the records of charitable organizations, the British Army, and the Government of India. Second, Working-Class Raj argues that the history of the British working class cannot be fully understood if the imperial part of the story is left out.  Working in India and other parts of the empire, emigrating to settler colonies, often returning to Britain, all the while attempting to maintain family ties across imperial distances—the British working class in the nineteenth century was a globalized population. Understood in this framework, the story of the British working class in India becomes part of the larger history of mass movements of people and cultures around the globe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Dr. Lindgren-Gibson’s work has been published in the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History and supported by the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture, and Society, and Northwestern University’s Chabraja Center for Historical Research, and the University of Rochester’s Humanities Center.

Dr. Lindgren-Gibson teaches graduate courses on European and imperial history and undergraduate courses on the history of modern Europe, the British Empire, gender and sexuality in European history, and the history of shopping. She also teaches undergraduate courses in Public History. In her Winter 2019 Public History classes, students collaborated to create an online exhibit sharing original research into the Neilson’s Department store archive, housed in the University of Mississippi Libraries’ Archive and Special Collections. Take a look at their work here: https://neilsonsdepartmentstore.wordpress.com/

Alexandra Lindgren-Gibson CV

Susan Gaunt Stearns

Posted on: August 20th, 2017 by

Assistant Professor

Office Hours: By Appointment

Bishop Hall 330
sgstearn@olemiss.edu

Education
Ph.D, University of Chicago

Teaching and Research Interests
Political Economy and Western Expansion, Revolutionary America and the Atlantic World

Susan Gaunt Stearns is an Assistant Professor of History. She received her doctorate from The University of Chicago in 2011. Susan’s work focuses on how the trans-Appalachian west — the region encompassing the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys, came to be incorporated into the American union in the 1780s and 1790s. Drawing on research conducted in ten states and on two continents, Susan’s work argues that it was the development of trade connections that helped to develop a shared conception of national interests that united the trans-Appalachian west to the rest of the union. Susan’s work focuses in particular on the period from 1784 until 1803 when Spain (and later France) the Gulf South and large parts of the Mississippi River — the primary trading outlet available to migrating western settlers. When Spain closed the Mississippi to American trade, it touched off an economic crisis in the trans-Appalachian west that forced an explicit evaluation the region’s relationship with the rest of the union.

Susan is particularly interested in questions of how various areas of economic activity, particularly land purchases and land speculation, influenced the ideologies and politics that shaped the nation in its first few decades of the early Republic.

Susan Stearns CV

History Professor Awarded Prestigious NEH Fellowship

Posted on: February 15th, 2017 by

Jarod Roll, associate professor of history at the University of Mississippi, has been awarded a coveted fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The yearlong fellowship allows scholars in the humanities to focus solely on their research or writing. Of the 1,298 scholars who applied for the 2017 fellowship, only 86 – less than 7 percent – were chosen for the award. Roll, a highly regarded historian of modern America with a focus on labor in U.S. history, joined the faculty in the Arch Dalrymple III Department of History in 2014.

He plans to use his fellowship, which begins in August, to complete a book project, tentatively titled “American Metal Miners and the Lure of Capitalism 1850-1950.” Roll is exploring the history of the white working-class anti-unionism and conservatism movements in the Tri-State Mining District of Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, a region that was national leader in the production of zinc and lead.

“Unlike miners elsewhere in the United States, the Tri-State miners resisted unionization and government reforms for over a century,” he said. “I am particularly interested in how their ideas about capitalism, as well as ethnicity and gender, influenced these views.

“Scholars in my field of labor history have not given much attention to workers who opposed unions, particularly over an extended period. My research fills that gap. It’s important, I think, to understand that white working-class conservatism is not a recent development, as some commentators would have it, but rather a subject with a deep history that we can trace back into the middle of the 19th century.”

“We are very proud of Dr. Roll’s achievement and what it represents for the university’s legacy of academic excellence,” Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter said. “This fellowship is one of the most coveted and competitive awards in the humanities, and Dr. Roll’s selection by the NEH is further evidence of his standing as one of the top humanities researchers in the country.”

The honor also is important because of the role humanities play in understanding and applying arts and sciences in today’s world, said Lee Cohen, dean of the UM College of Liberal Arts.

“Research in the humanities helps us not only to contextualize development in the sciences, innovations in technology and advances in medicine, it offers us an opportunity to recognize that the work being done on campus by our faculty has a broad reach, beyond the laboratory, beyond the studies and beyond the classroom,” Cohen said.

“This work influences how we understand ourselves in very real, very tangible ways that impact our everyday lives. Dr. Roll being chosen for this well-regarded NEH fellowship indicates that his work is being recognized at the highest level, which is consistent with an R1 institution.”

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy and other areas of the humanities by funding selected peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation.

“NEH provides support for projects across America that preserve our heritage, promote scholarly discoveries and make the best of America’s humanities ideas available to all Americans,” said William D. Adams, NEH chairman. “We are proud to announce this latest group of grantees who, through their projects and research, will bring valuable lessons of history and culture to Americans.”

Roll has previously authored two books “Spirit of Rebellion: Labor and Religion in the New Cotton South” (University of Illinois Press, 2010) and “The Gospel of the Working Class: Labor’s Southern Prophets in New Deal America” (University of Illinois Press, 2011).

Archives Gains Addition to James Silver Collection

Posted on: December 31st, 2016 by

By Christina Steube | December 21, 2015

silverbookThe University of Mississippi’s J.D. Williams Library has acquired a unique collection of notes written by author and former UM faculty member James Silver.

Silver began teaching history at the university in 1936 and served as chair of the Department of History from 1946 to 1957. He is perhaps best known for his work on the history of race relations in the state, especially the 1964 publication of Mississippi: The Closed Society. That same year, Silver took a leave of absence from UM and continued to teach at Notre Dame and the University of South Florida.

The collection of notes includes newspaper clippings about race relations as well as handwritten notes, thoughts and underlined sections in the articles relevant to him.

“This gift provides an important glimpse into the research process used by Dr. Silver in conjunction with this seminal work,” said Jennifer Ford, head of Archives and Special Collections and an associate professor. “These notes survive due to the noteworthy efforts of Doris Bain Thompson, and we are deeply indebted to her family for this donation.”

In 1968, Thompson was a teacher working on her master’s degree in American history when she took a course taught by Silver in Innsbruck, Austria. Following a class seminar, Silver discarded his research notes. Thompson gathered and kept what she believed to be 90 pages of research notes for the enlarged edition of Mississippi: The Closed Society, published in 1966.

In a letter to her family while in Austria, Thompson wrote that she was taking a “great course in race relations which I think I have already explained is being taught by James Silver, the author of Mississippi: The Closed Society and Thursday he threw out on the seminar table his research notes on the added 120-page addition that was included in the book. … I picked up all that were left after the others had left since he was leaving them for the janitors to clean up. Must have about 50 or 60 pages on yellow foolscap. Should be great to show a class how a researcher goes about writing such a book.”

Thompson’s daughter, Mary Margaret Hansen, said her mother was a teacher who spent many summers taking courses to gain more knowledge about American history.

Thompson taught American history and English to students at Lago Oil and Transport Co.’s school in Aruba and was also a director of choral music. Hansen said her mother was multitalented and also had an intellectual curiosity that drove her to keep learning.

She added that Thompson was a very visual teacher and likely saw these notes as an opportunity to incorporate an example of original research into her own American history courses.

While looking through family belongings, Hansen came across the notes, and she and her siblings decided to donate them to the university.

“We thought they would be more useful in archives, contributing to the subject matter, than they would be for us to keep them,” Hansen said. “We’re happy the papers are where they may be looked at as a small piece of a larger puzzle.”

This collection is a great asset to faculty, students and researchers studying topics dealing with race relations and Southern history, Ford said.

Carolyn Corretti

Posted on: December 5th, 2016 by

Visiting Assistant Professor

Office Hours: Mondays 1:00pm – 4:00pm or By Appointment

Bishop Hall 328B
662-915-7734  |  ccorrett@olemiss.edu

Education
Ph.D. University of Iowa

Teaching and Research Interests
16th-century Switzerland and France, Religion, Society, Legal History

Ann Tucker

Posted on: December 5th, 2016 by

ATucker - Hist Dept Website PicVisiting Assistant Professor

Office Hours: T & TH 9:30 am – 11:00 am 1:00 pm – 2:30pm & By Appointment

Bishop Hall 318

662-915-7488 | tuckera@olemiss.edu

Education: MA and PhD at the University of South Carolina

Research Interest: Antebellum and Civil War Eras, 19th-century South

Ann Tucker studies the nineteenth century US South, specifically southern nationalism in the antebellum and Civil War Eras. Her research analyzes international influences on the development of Confederate nationalism. Dr. Tucker’s dissertation, “’Newest Born of Nations’: Southern Thought on European Nationalisms and the Creation of the Confederacy, 1820-1865,” examines the ways in which nineteenth century southerners used their analysis of European nationalist movements to develop their own sense of nationhood and to claim legitimacy for their aspiring nation. She earned her MA and PhD at the University of South Carolina.

42nd Annual Porter Fortune, Jr., Symposium and 10th UM Conference on the Civil War

Posted on: October 5th, 2016 by

final2016confposter

Please join us for the 42nd Annual Porter Fortune, Jr. Symposium, A Just and Lasting Peace. Panels will take place at the Yerby Conference Center from 8:30-5:30, Friday and Saturday, October 7-8, 2016. The Keynote speaker will be Heather Cox Richardson, from Boston College. All events are free and open to the public. For more information contact the Arch Dalrymple III Department of History at 662.915.7148 or via email, history@olemiss.edu.

Ian Beamish to Speak on Slavery in Antebellum Mississippi

Posted on: September 5th, 2016 by

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The Arch Dalrymple III Department of History will host Ian Beamish for “Light Fingers and Heavy Hearts: Cotton Picking, Slavery, and the Quota System in the Deep South,” a presentation to be held next Monday, September 26th at 4:00PM in the Faulkner Room in J.D. Williams Library. Beamish, a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, specializes in slavery and capitalism in antebellum Louisiana and Mississippi. This event is open to the public and should be of interest to faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students interested in learning more about the labor of enslaved people.

History Faculty to Serve on the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on History and Context

Posted on: August 10th, 2016 by

Three members of the Arch Dalrymple III Department of History have been selected by Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter to serve on the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on History and Context (CACHC), which is charged with recommending campus sites, including monuments, buildings, and street names, that should be contextualized to better explain the environments in which they were created or named and how those environments compare to our core institutional values. Charles Ross, Professor of History and Director of African American Studies, John Neff, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for Civil War Research, and Anne Twitty, Associate Professor of History, will serve alongside eleven other members of the CACHC. The committee will engage in a transparent and inclusive process that aligns with the UM Creed and employ a variety of methods to ensure broad community input, including the addition of ad hoc expertise as needed on a project-by-project basis, and will keep the community informed of the status of projects under consideration.

Professor Frances Courtney Knuepper’s New Book

Posted on: March 2nd, 2016 by

The Empire at the End of Time: Identity and Reform in Late Medieval German Prophecy

Oxford University Press, 2016

kneupperIn her new book, Frances Courtney Kneupper, assistant professor of history, examines the apocalyptic prophecies of the late medieval Empire, which even within the sensational genre of eschatological prophecy stand out for their bitter and violent nature. In addition to depicting the savage chastisement of the clergy and the forcible restructuring of the Church, these prophecies also infuse the apocalyptic narrative with explicitly German elements-in fact, German speakers are frequently cast as the agents of these stirring events in which the clergy suffer tribulations and the Church hierarchy is torn down.

These prophecies were widely circulated throughout late medieval German-speaking Europe. Kneupper explores their significance for members of the Empire from 1380 to 1480, arguing that increased literacy, the development of strong urban centers, the drive for reform, and a connection to the imperial crown were behind their popularity. Offering detailed accounts of the most significant prophecies, Kneupper shows how they fit into currents of thought and sentiment in the late medieval Empire. In particular, she considers the relationships of German prophecy to contemporary discourses on Church reform and political identity. She finds that eschatological thought was considered neither marginal nor heretical, but was embraced by a significant, orthodox population of German laypeople and clerics, demonstrating the importance of popular eschatological thought to the development of a self-conscious, reform-minded, German-identified Empire on the Eve of the Reformation.