FALL 2008

News & Announcements
The Center for Communal Studies at the University of Southern Indiana announces its annual paper prize competition for the best undergraduate and graduate student paper on historic or contemporary communal groups.  The author of the best graduate paper or thesis or dissertation chapter will receive $500.  The author of the best undergraduate paper or thesis will receive $250.  Send two copies of submissions, by January 15, 2009, to Matthew Grow, 8600 University Boulevard, Evansville, IN, 47712. Questions may be directed to Dr. Matthew Grow at mjgrow@usi.edu.

Faculty News

DAVID O’GRADY, instructor of history, published the article “The Great Evansville Bingo Riot – 1945” as the featured story in the fall 2008 edition of the Evansville Boneyard. He also spoke on this subject as the featured guest on the WNIN radio program “Tri-State Matters” on October 17 2008.

 GINETTE ALEY published “A Republic of Farm People:  Women, Families, and Market-Minded Agrarianism in Ohio, 1820s - 1830s,” Ohio History 113 (Spring 2007): 28-45.

MICHAEL DIXON published a book chapter, “Corinth, Greek Freedom, and the Diadochoi, 323-301 B.C.,” in Alexander’s Empire. From Formulation to Decay. W. Heckel, L. Tritle, and P. Wheatley, eds. (Regina Books: Claremont, CA 2007), pp. 151-178. Dr. Dixon has also published several book reviews: a review of M.M. Hansen, Polis. An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State (Oxford, 2006), in the New England Classical Journal 35.1 (2008), pp. 44-46; and a review of Elizabeth Carney, Olympias Mother of Alexander the Great (Routledge, 2006), in Classical Journal-Online 2007.11.01

JASON HARDGRAVE is the History Department’s liaison for the College Achievement Program (CAP). As the faculty mentor for USI’s very active chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the History Honor Society, he attended the association’s 2008 National Biennial Convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was voted in as a member of the National Council. He also served as an expert on the how-to panel session titled “Improving Your Chapter,” and was the session coordinator and commentator for “Culture in Medieval Europe.” In other scholarly work, Dr. Hardgrave presented the paper “Gothic Context, Cultural Contact, and Crusades” at the 2007 International Studies Colloquium at USI on The Gothic Imagination. He also presented “Medieval Justice Personified and Enacted” at the October 2007 meeting of the Liberal Arts Faculty Colloquia. At the beginning of the fall 2007 semester, he received the Liberal Arts Dean’s Golden Apple for Teaching Excellence.

CASEY HARISON'S The Stonemasons of Creuse in Nineteenth-Century Paris was published by University of Delaware Press in 2008.

TAMARA HUNT: As part of the 2008 Black History Month speakers series at Mead Johnson, Inc., Dr. Hunt gave the presentation “Gandhi’s Road to Nonviolence.” In May, with the support of a USI College of Liberal Arts Faculty Development Award, she spent a month in London conducting archival research on two early eighteenth-century women publishers. Also in May, she presented a paper in Brest, France, entitled “Envisioning Terrorists: English Protestant Dissenters and French Revolutionaries” at the international colloquium on “Caricature and Religion(s),” sponsored by the University of Western Brittany’s Center for the Study of Satirical Images. A revised version of this paper will appear in the October 2008 issue of the international journal on satiric images, Ridiculosa.

CHRISTINE LOVASZ-KAISER received the USI Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching by Adjunct Faculty. Chris teaches World Civilizations I, Age of Vikings, and England to 1600 for the department.

TRACY UEBELHOR published a review of two books, Presidential Leadership: From Woodrow Wilson to Harry S. Truman and Harry S. Truman and the Cold War Revisionists by historian and Truman scholar Robert H. Ferrell in the June 2007 issue of the Indiana Magazine of History.

New Faculty Join the History Department

The History Department is pleased to welcome new colleagues who have joined the History Department in August 2008.

DENISE LYNN (2006 PhD, Binghamton University, State University of New York) has research interests in constructions of race and gender in radical class politics, the American Old Left, and the alleged "doldrums" in American women's history -- the period following the passage of the women's suffrage amendment in 1920 until the so-called second wave of feminism. Her research interests build on her dissertation, "Women on the March: Gender and Anti-Fascism in American Communism, 1935-1939,” and argues that some women's rights activists after 1920 operated within radical working-class organizations, including the Communist Party. Her current projects include an article that looks at the disappearance of communist spy Juliet Stuart Poyntz. This research focuses on the "narrative of communist degeneracy" -- anti-communist propaganda that painted communists as threats to the American way of live. Although never proven, anti-communists argued that Poyntz was murdered by the KGB after she became critical of the Soviet Union. Her disappearance became a central narrative in "converting" former communists into witnesses for the House Un-American Activities Committee. Dr. Lynn will teach a variety of courses in twentieth-century American history, including courses on women, civil rights, and historical methods.

MATTHEW GROW (2006 PhD, Notre Dame) comes to USI after holding a two-year position as the Edward Sorin Postdoctoral Scholar at Notre Dame. Dr. Grow’s specialization is on American religious history and reform movements, with special emphasis on the nineteenth century. His monograph, “Liberty to the Downtrodden”: Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer, examines Kane’s career as a nineteenth-century champion of religious liberty, particularly for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). Dr. Grow is a broadly trained scholar who will teach a variety of courses in American history, including classes that examine Communal Societies in American history, religion in America, the history of reform movements in American society, and memory and war in American history. As part of his new appointment, Dr. Grow will also become the director of the Center for Communal Studies, a unique clearinghouse of information about historic and contemporary communal societies. As director, Dr. Grow will oversee the operations of the Center, including its lecture series and the annual Center prize for the best undergraduate or graduate paper on any aspect of communal societies. He will also work closely with the staff of the Rice Library to expand and enhance the world-class collection of communal studies materials currently held in the Special Collections area.

JENNIFER LOFKRANTZ (expected 2008, PhD, York University) has research interests in the intellectual history of Islamic West Africa, the practice of slavery and the slave trades, and the African Diaspora. She just completed her dissertation entitled "Ransoming Policies and Practices in the Western and Central Bilad al-Sudan c 1800-1910" and her article on ransoming in the Sokoto Caliphate will be published this year in the edited volume Slavery, Islam, and Diaspora (Africa World Press, 2008). She comes to USI from Furman University. She will be teaching World Civilizations since 1500 and a Senior Seminar on "Comparative African Slaves Trades."