On March 27,
the Department of History hosted Nathan Wood to present “Backwardness and
Rushing Forward: The Age of Speed in a Suburb of Europe” for the 53rd
annual Callahan Lecture. Dr. Wood, professor of history at the University of
Kansas, explored the trenchant irony of the history of transportation in Poland
from 1885-1939: that the quintessential experience of the age of
speed—and of modernity generally—just might be the sensation of feeling left behind.
In an
effort to engage students with the past, Dr. Arthurs has been actively
developing courses that take a thematic approach to history. He believes that
courses should allow students to think about history in a broader sense.
Dr. Katherine Aaslestad was recently named a 2016 Benedum Distinguished scholar, an honor which recognizes her high caliber of research and scholarly activity.
A team of emerging history professionals connected
to the WVU History Department recently collaborated to create an online tour of
West Virginia women. The interactive tour was designed for “IN.Exclusive,” a
new exhibit at Arts Monongahela designed to commemorate Women’s History Month
(celebrated during the month of March). The exhibit and interactive tour aim to
highlight contributions and accomplishments of women in West Virginia that may
have been overlooked in mainstream culture and historical interpretation
previously.
Dr. Joshua Arthurs recently produced
an edited volume that explores the complexities of lived experience under
Mussolini and promotes a framework for considering Fascist Italy in relation to
other totalitarian dictatorships like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Kate Kelsey
Staples, associate chair of the West Virginia University Department of History,
was named the recipient of the 2016 Caperton Award for Excellence in the
Teaching of Writing.
For students interested in law school, studying history
provides a solid set of skills to research, present, and contextualize. Many
students who have come through our program are interested in law school or
working with law. Two examples of these are Carrie Cecil, attorney at Spilman
Thomas & Battle, and Jessie Reckart, associate at Bowles Rice LLP.
To Ph.D. student Marc Sanko, his historical research is not
just about the past. It involves working with living communities and enabling
them define their own heritage. This is why he is excited to join Latitude 36,
an audio-visual production company out of London, for work on a community
project looking at global Maltese migration. The fall, Marc was recruited to be
the lead historian for North American Maltese migration by Latitude 36 as they
prepare to run exhibits as part of Valletta 2018.
Dr. Robert Blobaum brought in the new year with a book publication. His book, "A Minor Apocalypse: Warsaw during First World War" (Cornell Press, 2017), is the first history of Warsaw in World War I to appear in English. From the cover: "In A Minor Apocalypse, Robert Blobaum explores the social and cultural history of Warsaw's "forgotten war" of 1914–1918. Beginning with the bank panic that accompanied the outbreak of the Great War, Blobaum guides his readers through spy scares, bombardments, mass migratory movements, and the Russian evacuation of 1915. Industrial collapse marked only the opening phase of Warsaw’s wartime economic crisis,....
