Department of History, UC Santa Barbara

Prophets, Peace-Makers, and the Civilizing Process in Ancient Native North America
2008-05-16 00:00 (America/Denver)
Tim Pauketat is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Religion, violence, and political centralization are all entangled in larger fields of human experience, perception, and agency. The latest archaeological evidence from Poverty Point in Louisiana and Hopewell in Ohio to Cahokia in Illinois indicates that complex regional orders in ancient eastern North America arose as political-religious movements, probably based around prophets not unlike those known from historic accounts across North America. Such views hinge on understanding agency as a dispersed phenomenon and history as a physical experience. And they lead us to elevate singular events or encounters as historic phenomena that afford prophetic movements in the first place.
Professor Pauketat’s talk will be followed by a reception in HSSB 2024.

Worlds Together, Worlds Apart
2008-05-19 00:00
Dear Faculty and Graduate Student Colleagues,
You are cordially invited to a discussion with Stephen Aron (UCLA), a co-author of a new world history textbook. The event will be on Monday, May 19, in HSSB 4041, noon-1 or 2 p.m.
The background: For 2c I am using one of the most recent world history textbooks, which has just come out in a second edition. It was originally created by a team at Princeton, and has now expanded the collaboration for a much expanded second edition. Unique is that the collaborative work was interactive, not additive, namely the chapters were drafted by multiple people and discussed by all (or most).
The book is: Worlds Together, Worlds Apart (W.W. Norton, 2002, 2008), by Tignor, Adelman, Aron, Brown, Elman, Kotkin, Liu, Marchand, Pittman, Prakash, Shaw, Tsin.
You can find out more about it at (menu items down the left side–esp. authors and contents are informative):
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/titles/history/wtwa2/
The first edition site also gives overviews of what are now chaps. 10-21:
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/worlds/index/welcome.htm
The publisher is sponsoring co-author Steve Aron from UCLA to come to UCSB to discuss with me and my Hist 2c TAs what we like and dislike about the book, and answer our questions about some of the decisions they made in putting the book together. Since there is a large group of us in this department with an interest in World History, as well as a number of textbook authors, I’d like to invite anyone interested to attend as well. I’m thinking of it as an informal brown-bag type event, and I’ll organize some snacks.
contact Harold Marcuse if you have any questions.
jwil 28.iv.08

For Blacks Only?: Reconsidering Racialized Space in Post-Civil Rights
2008-05-19 00:00
Ingrid Banks, Professor of Black Studies at UCSB, will discuss her multi-city, fourteen-month ethnographic study that examines black beauty salon culture.
These events are part of Race, Place, and Power, a series of classes, forums, presentations, and discussions aimed at evaluating emerging concepts, theories, and policies about race and space. This series is coordinated by the Critical Issues Race, Place, and Power Advisory Board, and co-sponsored by the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and the Black Studies Department, with support from the Critical Issues in America endowment in the College of Letters & Science at UC Santa Barbara.
Click here for more information.
jwil 08.v.2008

Postwar German Literature and the Quest for the Past
2008-05-20 00:00
This George Wittenstein lecture will be given by Amir Eshel, Stanford University:
“History as a Gift: Postwar German Literature and the Quest for the Past”
Tuesday, May 20, at 5 pm, in HSSB 6020.
Dr. Eshel will explore prevalent approaches to the literary and cultural engagement with National Socialism in Germany from the 1950s to the present while arguing for the need to develop new paradigms. Referring to the work of such eminent writers as Guenter Grass and Alexander Kluge, the lecture will also introduce the innovative prose of younger writers such as Hans Ulrich Treichel, Norbert Gstrein and Katharina Hacker.
Born in Haifa, Israel, Amir Eshel completed his PhD at the University of Hamburg, Germany before arriving at Stanford in 1998. He is a Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature as well as the Director of the
Forum on Contemporary Europe at Stanford University. Amir Eshel’s work focuses on the German-Jewish literary and philosophical tradition, on postwar German literature, on contemporary Hebrew prose as well as on
theoretical approaches to the study of memory and history. His first book, Zeit der Zaesur: Juedische Lyriker im Angesicht der Shoah, offered a study of temporal forms in the work of Paul Celan, Nelly Sachs, Rose Auslaender,
Yehuda Amichai, Dan Pagis, Tuvia Ruebner and Jacob Glatstein. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the literary engagement with the past in the contemporary German, Israeli and Anglo-American novel.
Dr. Wittenstein will be presented with the first volume of the Library’s Oral History Project; the Chancellor will attend.
hm5/6

Wal-Mart in Black, White and Urban Grey
2008-05-23 00:00
Dorian Warren (Department of Political Science/School of International Affairs, Columbia University) specializes in the study of inequality and American politics, focusing on the political organization of marginalized groups. His latest project is an examination of the contrasting fates of community/labor mobilizations against Wal-Mart in Chicago and Los Angeles.
This talk is sponsored by the Program in Work, Labor and Political Economy and the Policy History Program.
For further information, contact Professor Nelson Lichtenstein.

Modern Myths of Muslim Anti-Semitism
2008-05-30 00:00
The lecture will be from 4:00-5:30 p.m., with a reception afterwards.
Mark R. Cohen is the author of Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt; Al-mujtama` al-yahudi fi Misr al-islamiyya fi al-`usur al-wusta (Jewish Life in Medieval Egypt 641-1382); The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena’s Life of Judah; Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages; Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt; and The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages: An Anthology of Documents from the Cairo Geniza.
This lecture is sponsored by Medieval Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies, and the Dean’s Jewish Studies Initiative

"Gauging the West African Mind": Advertising, Market Research and Imagining Consumers in Colonial Ghana, 1930-1960
2008-05-30 00:00
The research group on Consumers, Commodities and Markets will be discussing Bianca Murillo’s paper on colonial Ghana this Friday at 1 p.m. in HSSB 4020. Bianca Murillo will give a short introduction but please read the paper in advance if you can. For a copy of the paper please contact Erika Rappaport.
jwil 27.v.08

Writers in Our Midst: Santa Barbara Literature, Past and Present
2008-06-03 00:00
Ever since Henry Dana wrote about Santa Barbara in Two Years Before the Mast, authors have been drawn to Santa Barbara. The distinguished writers on our panel will discuss the city’s rich literary tradition over the past 150 years.
The event will be held from 5:30-7:00 p.m. in the Founder’s Room at the Granada Theater, 1214 State Street.
The panelists:
—Fred Klein, former Vice-President of Marketing for Bantam books, and author of The Film Encyclopedia.
—Marcia Meier, director of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, and former editorial editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press.
—Steve Gilbar, editor of Tales of Santa Barbara, of Red Tiles, Blue Skies: More Tales of Santa Barbara, and of Santa Barbara Stories, as well as founder of Speaking of Stories.
The panel’s moderator will be Susan Gulbransen, a writer, civic activist, and History Associates Board member.
Call UCSB Community Relations at (805) 893-4388 to reserve a space. The cost of $15 per person includes a reception following the event. Advance reservations are strongly suggested. For questions, or to make arrangements to accommodate a disability, please call UCSB Community Relations at (805) 893-4388.
This event is co-sponsored by History Associates and the UCSB Affiliates.
jwilee 22.v.08

History Department and History Associates Awards
2008-06-04 00:00
The UCSB History Associates and the Department of History will hold the annual awards ceremony and reception on Wednesday, June 4, starting at 4:00 p.m. The event will be held in the McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020).

Senior Reception for Graduating History Majors
2008-06-15 00:00
Graduating History Majors and their families are cordially invited to attend a reception on commencement Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. in HSSB 4020. The commencement ceremony will begin at 1 p.m., on the Faculty Club Green.
jwil 24.v.08

Summer Sessions run from June 23 to September 12
2008-06-23 00:00
Summer Session A runs from June 23 to August 1.Summer Session B runs from August 4 to September 12.
For History courses taught during Sessions A and B, see our summer 2008 course schedule.
For more information visit UCSB Summer Sessions.

History TA Training:Fall 2008 Initial Meeting
2008-09-22 00:00
All new History Department Teaching Assistants must attend both morning and afternoon sessions of the Initial Training Meeting. All returning History TAs must attend the afternoon session.
For more information contact History Lead TAs Jessica Elliott and Rachel Winslow.
jwil 04.viii.2008

Fall instruction begins
2008-09-25 00:00
Fall instruction begins on Thursday, September 25, 2008.Note that some History syllabi are available for downloading from the History website Courses page prior to the start of the quarter.
Also, each instructor’s web page (click on their name to get there) has a section “announcements” in the left-hand column. Some instructors post information about waiting lists or changes in course venue there.
hm 9/18

Alex Lichtenstein, (History, Florida International):
2008-09-26 00:00
Lichtenstein is the author of Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South (1995). His current research examines the interplay of the civil rights and labor movements in Florida during the 1940s.
hm 9/22

Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice
2008-10-10 00:00
Fletcher, a longtime labor and international activist, is executive editor of Black Commentator and founder of the Center for Labor Renewal. Gapasin is a Central Labor Council President and former professor of Industrial Relations and Chicana/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Fletcher is also the author of The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
hm 9/22

Black Masses, Poltergeists, and Ritual Sex: Reconstructing the Libertine Topography of West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK
2008-10-13 00:00
Jason Kelly is Assistant Professor of History at Indiana University-Purdue University of Indiana.
Since its existence first became public knowledge in the 1760s, politicians, critics, and historians alike have represented the so-called Monks of Medmenham Abbey in a variety of ways. The 4th Earl of Sandwich, Francis Dashwood, and John Wilkes, all early members of the group, publicized their libertine behaviors — drunkenness and hyper-masculine sexuality in particular. They suggested that the grounds of West Wycombe manor, the parish church, and even the local chalk mines had been locations of the monks’ debauchery. Within a generation, locals were regaling tourists with stories of haunted churchyards and caves, leading unsuspecting tourists on muddy romps to see the ghosts of the Franciscan Friars. One hundred years later, the stories of the friars’ haunts had become infused with stories of black magic and satanic orgies. When the National Trust took over the West Wycombe estate and the associated grounds in the 1930s, the stories about the area had become such a part of the local history that it became central to drawing tourists to West Wycombe. By the 1950s, the oral histories of the Monks prompted the National Trust to introduce a Disney-esque array of wax figures into the re-opened chalk mines, promoting stories about eighteenth-century ritualized sex, ghostly tales, and black magic in the accompanying literature. The West Wycombe lore found a ready audience, andthe popularized version of black masses, poltergeists, and sex rituals found
repetition in late twentieth-century history writing, X-Men comics, and even a Japanese cartoon series.
Through a virtual walking tour through West Wycombe, this paper is, in part, an attempt to separate the factual from the mythological stories surrounding the eighteenth-century Monks of Medmenham Abbey. More importantly, however, it shows why the telling and retelling of the stories about the monks — in particular stories about their libertinism — have remained important to the construction of elite identity into the twenty-first century.
jwil 10.x.08

Malaria, Witchcraft, Infant Cemeteries and the Fall of Rome
2008-10-15 00:00
This lecture examines evidence from an ancient Roman infant cemetery recently discovered at Lugnano in Teverina (Umbria). The cemetery contained forty-eight bodies. DNA testing techniques recently developed by Robert Sallares of the University of Manchester have revealed that the bodies contain evidence of an epidemic of plasmodium falciparum malaria. The cemetery also offers evidence of witchcraft and puppy sacrifice ca. A.D. 450. Circumstantial and physical evidence suggest that the area of Umbria / Tuscany may have become a malarial zone contributing to the fall of Rome.
David Soren is Regents Professor of Classics at the University of Arizona, and Director of the Orvieto Institute in Umbria. He holds a B.A. in Greek & Roman Studies from Dartmouth, and an M.A. in Fine Arts and a Ph.D. in Archaeology from Harvard. He has done extensive field work in Cyprus, Italy, Portugal, and Tunisia, and has received numerous honors and awards for his work.
This is the annual Sandra Church Lecture. The Santa Barbara Society of the Archaeological Institute of America gratefully acknowledges the support of Sandra Church in making this lecture possible.
If you wish to attend this lecture and need special assistance due to a disability please call (805) 893-3556.
jwil 01.x.08

Working-Class Readers, Libraries and Networks of Self-Education in the Progressive Era
2008-10-17 00:00
Tobias Higbie, Associate Professor of History at UCLA, is the author of Indispensable Outcasts: Hobo Workers and Community in the American Midwest, 1880-1930 (2003), which won the Philip Taft Labor Prize in Labor History.
hm 9/22; jwil 08.x.08

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story
2008-10-19 00:00
Diane Ackerman, author of the bestselling A Natural History of the Senses and An Alchemy of Mind, will discuss and sign copies of her latest book, The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story, at 3 p.m. on Sunday, October 19 at UCSB Campbell Hall. This groundbreaking work of nonfiction recounts a story–as powerful as Schindler’s List–of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who capitalized on the Nazis’ obsession with pureblood animals in order to save over 300 doomed Jewish refugees and Polish resistance fighters by hiding them in the bombed-out cages at the Warsaw Zoo. This free, public event is presented by the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies at UC Santa Barbara.
Listen to a Jan. 2008 interview with Diane Ackerman on NPR’s Science Friday.
hm 7/29; 9/18, 10/2

"The Middle East and the Shifting Global Balance,"
2008-10-22 00:00
For the past 35 years, the US has been unquestionably the dominant power in both the Middle East and the world. But now, the global balance is shifting rapidly; we are hurtling into a post-unipolar world. As during earlier periods of deep global change, developments in the Middle East have been intimately involved. (What comparisons are valid between the tripartite invasion of Egypt in 1956 and President Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003?). How might the present– and continuing– shift in global power affect the Middle East?
hm 10/22
Helena Cobban is an internationally known journalist and author, with a focus on the Middle-East. She has worked for several years as a Beirut-based correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, and The Sunday Times of London. She is the author of “Re-engage America and the World After Bush.” Ms. Cobban received her B.A. and M.A. from Oxford University.
Sponsored by the Center for Middle East Studies, the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, the MA Program in Global and International Studies, and the Department of History
For questions, please contact CMES at 805-893-4245

Ionian Topography and the Spartan Attack on Sardis, 395 B.C.
2008-10-22 00:00
This talk examines the literary and archaeological/topographical evidence for Agesilaos’ campaign against Sardis in 395 B.C. By reading the conflicting accounts of Xenophon, the Oxyrhynchus Historian, and Diodorus Siculus in combination with the ancient topography of the Kaystros Valley, a plausible case can be made that Agesilaos marched to Sardis via Hypaipa and over Mount Tmolus, rather than via the Karabel Pass.
This talk is sponsored by the interdisciplinary Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group. For more information please contact Professor Christine Thomas.
jwil 08.x.08

Conference "Domesticity, Affect, Intimacy, Power, and Justice"
2008-10-24 00:00
Friday, Saturday, & Sunday, October 24 – 26, 2008University of California, Santa Barbara
McCune Conference Room (6020 HSSB)
7:30pm Friday October 23
KEYNOTE: Intimate Justice
Tricia Rose, Africana Studies, Brown University
______________________________
9pm Friday October 24
Domesticity and Normativity
Lisa Duggan, Program in American Studies, New York University
Respondents:
Erin Ninh, UCSB Asian Ameri can Studies
Sohail Daulatzai, UCI African Ameri can Studies
______________________________
10am Saturday October 25
Genteel Apartheid: The Affect of Power
Daniel HoSang, Departments of Political Science and Ethnic Studies, University of Oregon
______________________________
11:30am Saturday October 25
Orphans of Modernism
Ondine Chavoya, Department of Latino/a Studies and Department of Art, Williams College
Respondents:
Paula Ioanide, Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity, Ithaca College
David Garcia, UCSB Postdoctoral Fellow
______________________________
2PM Saturday October 25
Panel Discussion:
Art, Affect, and Activism
Rickey Kim, Evil Monito webzine
Melissa K. Nelson, Cultural Conservancy and American Indian Studies SFSU
Lisa Nevins, hip hop activist
Denise Pacheco, UCLA School of Education
Pepe Urquijo, Film Maker
______________________________
10am Sunday October 26
Planning Session for a UC-Wide
Race, Place, and Power Network
3635 South Hall
All Friday and Saturday sessions will be held in the McCune Conference Room
(6020 HSSB)
All sessions free and open to the public Sponsored by: University of California Humanities Research Institute; Center for Black Studies Research; Chicano Studies Institute; Asian American Studies Department; Chicano Studies Department; Hull Chair in Feminist Studies; Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Academic Policy; English Department; History Department; Black Studies Department
hm 10/22

Sir Thomas Browne, the Laudian Moment, and the Birth of Modernity
2008-10-28 00:00
UCSB Renaissance Studies presents the first talk in its new speaker series. There will be a light reception after the talk.
For more information contact Stefania Tutino or Jim Kearney.
hm 10/13/08

In Cod We Trust
2008-10-29 00:00
Was John Cabot the first European after the Norse to set foot in North America? Brian Fagan takes us on a fascinating 1,500-year archaeological and historical journey in search of the answer, which is closely linked to the importance of fish like cod to Christian doctrine. We begin with Christ’s 40-day fast in the wilderness, with the symbolism of fish in Christian belief, in a world of abstinence, atonement, fasting and penance. Within a few centuries, enormous numbers of (now vanished) fish farms appeared throughout Europe. Soon afterward, a huge international fish trade developed to satisfy an insatiable demand for fish on holy days and during Lent. This is a story of salt, herrings and cod, of busses, doggers, cogs, and caravels, of fishers sailing the North Atlantic in mid-February for Lenten catches. The journey culminates in the discovery of the Newfoundland cod fisheries and with the permanent settlement of New England well before the Pilgrims. This lecture is the opening event of the IHC’s “Food Matters” series.Sponsored by the IHC; part of the “Food Matters” series.
hm 10/22

FILM SCREENING: Food for the Ancestors
2008-10-30 00:00
Dias de los Muertos event
Thursday, October 30 / 5:30 PM
McCune Conference Room, HSSB 6020
As part of its Food Matters series, the IHC will celebrate the Days of the Dead with a screening of the PBS film Food for the Ancestors. Food for the Ancestors is a culinary-history exploration of Days of the Dead and Mexican traditions, set in the state of Puebla.
Sponsored by the IHC; part of the “Food Matters” series.
hm 10/22

FILM Seven Days In May
2008-10-30 00:00
Presented by the CCWS Cold War film series.
The president of United States has just signed a treaty with the Soviet Union requiring both countries to destroy their nuclear weapons. The polls show the treaty to be unpopular. The charismatic Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believes that the Soviets will cheat and launch a nuclear surprise attack that would kill hundreds of millions and destroy the United States. To thwart the treaty, he and a cadre of like-minded officers plot to seize control of the U.S. government. A vigilant colonel, committed to the U.S. Constitution, uncovers the scheme. But are the seven fateful days ahead enough time to derail a takeover? The clock is ticking.
Released the same year that ushered in Fail-Safe and Dr. Strangelove, this John Frankenheimer (Manchurian Candidate) film explored another nightmare scenario of the Cold War – a right-wing military coup in the United States. The book and film were inspired by the disarmament debate at the end of the Eisenhower years and start of the Kennedy years. President John F. Kennedy admired the novel so much that he allowed Frankenheimer to film outside the White House in late 1963, but the Department of Defense objected to the negative portrayal of the military and refused cooperation. Starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, the film is a fine example of Cold War psychological drama at its best.
Wikipedia Seven Daysfilm page
hm 10/26

Democracy and Knowledge in Classical Athens
2008-10-31 00:00
In this colloquium, Josiah Ober will draw on his recent book Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens (Princeton University Press, 2008) to discuss the institutional contexts of democratic knowledge management in classical Athens.
Josiah Ober is Professor of Classics and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, and holds the Constantine Mitsotaki Chair in the School of Humanities and Sciences.
jwil 23.x.08

Politics of the Living Dead: Lords, Adoption and Inheritance in Tokugawa Japan
2008-11-03 00:00
Monday, November 3 / 12:00 PMHSSB 2252
Luke Roberts will speak on keeping the deaths of daimyo officially secret for days or months at a time so as to engineer adoptions in the Tokugawa period. Almost everyone is in the know but pretends the lord is alive. This study helped Roberts figure out the why of the topic of his book, which is to understand Tokugawa politics through Tokugawa-era concepts of omote (ritual performance of submission to hierarchy) and naishu (inside group-forming identity, informal relations across groups). Factions within lords’ households frequently competed over inheritance. Therefore in Tokugawa law daimyo lords had to be alive to personally name their heir or the house was forfeit. Still daimyo frequently died suddenly and heirless. The performance of submission to this rule and the civility necessary to engineer the inheritance of an officially alive but really dead daimyo lord helped prevent intra-house strife and warfare and helped maintain the Tokugawa great peace.
Sponsored by the IHC’s East Asian Cultures RFG.
hm 10/22

An Evening with David Grossman
2008-11-05 00:00
Wednesday, November 5 / 7:30 PMUCSB Campbell Hall
Israeli writer David Grossman is the author of some of the most controversial books in his country’s history, including the award-winning The Yellow Wind, observations collected over three months in the West Bank. The recipient of 21 international literary awards, Grossman’s acclaimed body of works has been translated into more than 20 languages and often deals with Arab/Jewish relations (Death as a Way of Life) and Holocaust themes. Grossman will read and discuss work from his forthcoming collection of essays on literature and politics Writing in the Dark. Courtesy of Borders, copies of his books will be available for purchase and signing.
Website: http://www.ihc.ucsb.edu/events/endowed/taubman.html
Sponsored by the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies at UCSB, a program of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, co-sponsored by UCSB Arts & Lectures, the Department of Religious Studies, Congregation B’nai B’rith, the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara, and Santa Barbara Hillel. Assistance provided by the Anti-Defamation League.
hm 10/22

Catolicos: Resistance and Affirmation in Chicano Catholic History
2008-11-05 00:00
Wednesday, November 5 / 4:00 PMMcCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB
This book presentation and discussion will focus on Mario T. Garcia’s new book concerning the historic role that Chicano Catholicism has played in the resistance of Chicanos to cultural and identity repression and in affirming the cultural and identity integrity of Chicanos. In addition to Prof. Garcia’s presentation, analysis and reflections on the book will be offered by Rudy Busto and Jack Clark Robinson, O.F.M., from the Dept. of Religious Studies. Mario T. Garcia is the author of many texts on Chicano history, including Chicano religious history.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Chicano/Latino Research Focus Group, Catholic Studies, the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies; Chicano Studies Institute.
hm 10/22
