History

Kate Brown, a professor of history, was recently interviewed by Process, the blog of the Organization of American Historians (OAH), the Journal of American History (JAH), and The American Historian (TAH), about her award-winning book Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2013). The posted interview is in Q&A format and Process asked Prof. Brown about her inspiration, research process, and difficulties in writing the book: “…it was difficult to integrate labor, urban, cultural and environmental history with the history of science and medicine, and to do so in the context of two national histories. I… Continue Reading Kate Brown, History, Describes Her Experience Writing Plutopia in Process History Blog

An article published June 18 in the Baltimore Sun examined a digital history project documenting the unrest surrounding the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Denise Meringolo, an associate professor of history, is collaborating with the Maryland Historical Society and University of Baltimore to collect images, oral histories, and videos taken by everyday citizens documenting the events. Meringolo, who is featured in the article, set up a website for the project. “I decided to establish a site that allows people to participate directly in the act of collecting,” Meringolo said. “When you study social movements from the past, sometimes what’s missing are… Continue Reading Denise Meringolo, History, Describes Baltimore Uprising Project in the Baltimore Sun

In a June 15 op-ed in Al Jazeera America, history professor Kate Brown examined the impact of Russia’s foreign agents law on the country’s civil society and environmental activists. The law requires organizations that receive funding from abroad to register as foreign agents, and the law as it was originally written excluded environmental advocacy groups. However, Brown wrote in her column that the law has recently been used with broad application to abolish NGO’s that prevent development in Russia. “The ease with which the law can be abused could spell disaster both for Russian civil society and environmental regulation.” With the… Continue Reading Kate Brown, History, Examines Russia’s Foreign Agents Law in Al Jazeera America

On Memorial Day, The Conversation published a series of insights into wars that have been waged and their aftermath. Anne Rubin, an associate professor of history, published an article that gave voice to the Union soldiers in Sherman’s Army and their view of their impact on the end of the Civil War. “Sherman’s veterans, at least those who spoke and wrote publicly about their experiences, were remarkably untroubled by the war they made against civilians. They looked at the march not as something that broke the laws of war, but instead as one of the great experiences of their lives,” Rubin wrote. “For… Continue Reading Anne Rubin, History, Gives Voice to Union Soldiers in Sherman’s Army in The Conversation

History Professor Kate Brown will soon publish a new book at the end of May on her experiences traveling and conducting research in the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation, the basement of a hotel in Seattle, Ukraine, Russia, and Illinois. The book, titled Dispatches from Dystopia (University of Chicago Press) examines the histories of places that have been silenced, contaminated, or broken and the lives of people who remain in those places. The work recently received a positive review from Inside Higher Ed columnist Scott McLemee. “So for the first several pages of Dispatches From Dystopia I braced myself, only to find that Brown is the… Continue Reading Kate Brown, History, Receives Book Review from Inside Higher Ed and Los Angeles Review of Books

With news coverage this week surrounding the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s death, the Baltimore Sun published a story examining Catonsville’s connection to Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. The article looked at Booth’s time as a student at St. Timothy’s Hall preparatory school in Catonsville. Anne Rubin, an associate professor of history and author of Through the Heart of Dixie: Sherman’s March and American Memory (UNC Press 2014) is quoted in the article and provided perspective on the environment that Booth studied in. “The thing about Maryland was that it was very divided,” said Rubin. The article also states: “Throughout his adolescence,… Continue Reading Anne Rubin, History, in the Baltimore Sun

As the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War approaches, Anne Rubin was a guest on Tulsa Public Radio’s “Studio Tulsa” program on April 1 discussing her book Through the Heart of Dixie: Sherman’s March and American Memory (UNC Press 2014). Rubin, an associate professor of history, shared her research which examined the stories and myths about Sherman’s March to the Sea. “I started this project really under the spell of the mythologizing of Sherman’s March,” Rubin said, “…so much about what we think of the American Civil War, even today, is very Virginia-centric…and I do think once you shift… Continue Reading Anne Rubin, History, on Tulsa Public Radio

Social Sciences Forum Wednesday, April 8 | 4:00 p.m. Elizabeth Fenn, Professor of History at the University of Colorado, Boulder Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery  Elizabeth Fenn’s lecture tells the story of North Dakota’s Mandan Indians, widely known for hosting Lewis and Clark during the winter of 1804-1805. The challenges the Mandans faced included epidemics of smallpox and whooping cough and invasions of Norway rats, which diminished Mandan numbers from more than 12,000 in 1500 to fewer than 300 in 1838. In this talk, Fenn will be speaking about her recent book, Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History… Continue Reading Social Sciences Forum: Ecological Encounters on the Upper Missouri: The Making of Mandan Indian History (4/8)

History professor Kate Brown has been in the news reflecting on two major recent news stories: the death of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and a Pasco, Washington police shooting case. Brown published op-eds in Al Jazeera America and Time that studied the deeper history behind both incidents to give more meaning and context to the two stories. In her column “Boris Nemtsov died alone,” Brown discussed how much of the news coverage surrounding Nemtsov’s murder mainly focused on his personality and who was responsible for his death, not on his plans for economic reform. “Unfortunately, the funeral coverage of Nemtsov is all about… Continue Reading Kate Brown, History, in Time and Al Jazeera America