Department of History, UC Santa Barbara

Victor Seow, "The Human Factor: Work as Science in Twentieth-Century China"
2025-01-15 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020), Humanities and Social Sciences Bldg, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
In 1935, the Commercial Press in Shanghai published a modest-sized volume on a subject most of its readers likely never heard of. Titled An Overview of Industrial Psychology (工業心理學概觀), this text was written by a young psychologist who was trained in and recently returned from Britain. It was the first in Chinese on the titular subject, which promised to (amid other things) “restore the rightful place of human beings in processes of production.” What was industrial psychology, and why did those who promoted or practiced it across multiple political and productive regimes choose to do so? In this talk, Victor Seow will trace the history of industrial psychology in China from the 1930s to the 1990s, focusing on how this science of work reflected shifts in the meaning and value of labor over those decades.
Victor Seow is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University. He is a historian of technology, science, and industry, specializing in China and Japan in their global contexts and in histories of energy and work.
Event cosponsored by the Lawrence Badash Memorial Lecture Fund, the IHC’s Machines, People, and Politics Research Focus Group, and the Department of History’s History of Science field.

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, "The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs"
2025-01-22 16:00 - 17:30 | HSSB 6020 (McCune Room), University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
UCSB Professor of History (emeritus) Tsuyoshi Hasegawa and Michigan State Professor of History (emeritus) Lewis Siegelbaum will engage in a colloquy on Professor Hasegawa’s new book, The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs. When Tsar Nicholas II fell from power in 1917, Imperial Russia faced a series of overlapping crises, from war to social unrest. Although Nicholas’s life is often described as tragic, it was not fate that doomed the Romanovs; it was poor leadership and a blinkered faith in autocracy.
Based on a trove of new archival discoveries, The Last Tsar narrates how Nicholas’s resistance to reform doomed the monarchy. Encompassing the captivating personalities of the era, it untangles the struggles between the increasingly isolated Nicholas and Alexandra and the factions of scheming nobles, ruthless legislators, and pragmatic generals who sought to stabilize the restive Russian empire either with the Tsar or without him. By rejecting compromise, Nicholas undermined his supporters at crucial moments. His blunders cleared the way for allout civil war and the eventual rise of the Soviet Union.
Definitive and engrossing, The Last Tsar uncovers how Nicholas II stumbled into revolution, taking his family, the Romanov dynasty, and the whole Russian Empire down with him.

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa is professor emeritus at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is the author of numerous books, including The February Revolution, Petrograd 1917: The End of the Tsarist Regime and the Birth of Dual Power (2017), Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution: Mob Justice and the Police in Petrograd (2017); Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan (2006); The Northern Territories Dispute and Russo‑Japanese Relations (1998), and The February Revolution: Petrograd, 1917 (1981). He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Sergey Saluschev, "Reluctant Abolitionists: Slavery and Abolition in the Nineteenth-Century Caucasus, 1801-1914"
2025-01-23 17:30 - 19:00 | HSSB 4020

History and Political Economy Colloquium
2025-01-31 12:00 - 13:50, 2025-02-28 12:00 - 13:50, 2025-04-25 12:00 - 14:00, 2025-05-16 12:00 - 14:00, 2025-06-06 12:00 - 14:00 | HSSB 4020, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States

Juan Cobo Betancourt, "The Coming of the Kingdom: The Muisca, Catholic Reform, and Spanish Colonialism in the New Kingdom of Granada
2025-02-07 17:00 - 18:30 | McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020), Humanities and Social Sciences Bldg, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
Book Presentation: “The Coming of the Kingdom: The Muisca, Catholic Reform, and Spanish Colonialism in the New Kingdom of Granada”
Juan Cobo Betancourt UC Santa Barbara | Associate Professor of History
Commentator: Yanna Yannakakis Emory University | Professor of History
The Coming of the Kingdom explores the experiences of the Indigenous Muisca peoples of the New Kingdom of Granada (Colombia) during the first century of Spanish colonial rule. Focusing on colonialism, religious reform, law, language, and historical writing, Juan F. Cobo Betancourt examines the introduction and development of Christianity among the Muisca, who from the 1530s found themselves at the center of the invaders’ efforts to transform them into tribute-paying Catholic subjects of the Spanish crown. The book explores how successive generations of missionaries and administrators approached the task of drawing the Muisca peoples to Catholicism at a time when it was undergoing profound changes, and how successive generations of the Muisca interacted with the practices and ideas that the invaders attempted to impose, variously rejecting or adopting them, transforming and translating them, and ultimately making them their own.

Juan Cobo Betancourt, "Christianity, Colonialism, & the Muisca peoples of the Northern Andes"
2025-02-20 18:00 - 19:00 | Alhecama Theater, 215 A East Canon Perdido Street, Santa Barbara, 93101, United States
Public Lecture: Juan Cobo Betancourt, “Christianity, Colonialism, & the Muisca peoples of the Northern Andes”
Alhecama Theatre, 215 E. Canon Perdido Street, located in El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park
Free and open to the public. RSVP to historyassociates@ia.ucsb.edu
How does colonialism work without a strong colonial state? How does religious conversion work without an effective missionary project? How can historians work with an archive full of fictions? Taking the history of the Muisca peoples of the Northern Andes of what is now Colombia, who from the 1530s found themselves at the centre of efforts by Europeans to transform them into Catholic, tribute-paying vassals of the Spanish crown, this talk explores the complex and contradictory ways in which Christianity, Spanish colonialism, and Indigenous politics came together to produce a new kind of society to the disappointment of everyone involved.
Juan Cobo Betancourt is Associate Professor of History and Director
of the Latin American and Iberian Studies Program and
Center for Latin American and Iberian Research at UC Santa
Barbara. He has written three books on questions of religion,
race, law, and language in colonial Latin America.

Carlyle Constantino, Curating "Creative Currents: Student Expression in the Arts," Public History Colloquium
2025-02-21 12:00 - 13:30 | CA
Join the Public History Colloquium for a conversation with Carlyle Constantino, curator of the exhibition, “Creative Currents: Student Expression in the Arts,” at the Sara Miller McCune Arts Library.
We will meet at the Library, classroom 2332, Mountain Side. We will visit the exhibition after the discussion.

Michael Cooperson (UCLA), "Towards a New Arabic Literary History"
2025-02-24 16:00 - 17:30 | HSSB 4020
Towards a new Arabic literary history
Michael Cooperson, Professor of Arabic, NELC, UCLA
What did pre-modern authors writing in Arabic have to say about their own literary history? Many things, as it turns out, most of them non-linear. In this respect, their accounts differ from the rise-and-fall story later promulgated by European scholars––a story which has now become the dominant one even in the Arab world.

What’s next? One way forward, I propose, is to draw on non-linear approaches, both pre-modern and modern––including, for example, the late-nineteenth century notion of Kulturgeschichte as applied to the cultural history of Arabic-speaking societies. A new literary history of Arabic––or at least, the one I am trying to write––should grant equal weight to all periods and regions; should foreground reception, especially translation, as a critical part of the story; and should embrace avowedly pedagogical elements such as commentary, digression, and above all, visual explanation.
The talk will include a sneak preview of this work in progress; comments and criticism are welcome! I am also very interested in hearing from participants about the state of literary history in their fields of expertise.

Lisa Jacobson, "Intoxicating Pleasures," Humanities Decanted Dialogue
2025-02-27 16:00 - 17:30 | McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020), Humanities and Social Sciences Bldg, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
Professors Lisa Jacobson and Erika Rappaport will discuss Jacobson’s new book Intoxicating Pleasures: The Reinvention of Wine, Beer, and Whiskey after Prohibition (University of California Press, 2024).

UCSB History on Ice FUNdraiser
2025-03-02 15:00 - 16:30 | Ice in Paradise, 6985 Santa Felicia Drive, Goleta, 93117, United States
Come skate with the UCSB History Department at Ice in Paradise on Sunday, March 2, 2025 from 3:00 – 4:30 PM. Ticket fee ($10 for undergrads/grads, $15 for faculty) includes skate rental, and as many laps of the studio rink as you can accomplish in an hour and a half. Don’t forget to RSVP here!
All funds raised will be split between the UCSB History Club (undergraduates) and the History Graduate Students Association (HGSA). Space is limited to 100 skaters.

Tiffany Caesar, “A Black Womanist Archival Tradition: Revising the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival 50th Anniversary," Public History Colloquium
2025-03-07 12:00 - 13:30 | 4041 HSSB, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
Dr. Tiffany Caesar shares her efforts in preserving the legacy of Margaret Walker and the 1973 Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival at Jackson State University. The 1973 Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival served as the premiere gathering of black women, writers, artists, scholars, and activists to celebrate Phillis Wheatley and black women’s creativity. The original conference included Alice Walker, Paula Giddings, Audrey Lorde, and more. Dr. Caesar chaired the editorial committee of the recent 50th Anniversary of the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival, co-editing two journals focused on the conference, one with Callaloo Literary Journal and the other with the JSU Researcher. Dr. Tiffany Caesar shares her journey of using a black womanist archival tradition and her experience as a Mellon Fellow at the Margaret Walker Center, which further thrust her into public history as she continues preserving black women’s stories.

Katie Moore, "Counterfeiting and the Coming of the American Revolution"
2025-03-09 14:00 - 15:00 | Goleta Valley Library, 500 North Fairview Avenue, Goleta, 93117
What does the history of counterfeiting reveal about colonial-imperial relations in British North America? What does it tell us about the nature of money itself? Join Professor Katie Moore as she utilizes counterfeiting as a lens to explore the political and
social meanings of money in the century before the American Revolution, unveiling a rich and complex monetary landscape.
Katie A. Moore is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her first book, Promise to Pay: The Politics and Power of Money in Early America, was published in 2024 by the University of Chicago Press.
Questions? Email historyassociates@ia.ucsb.edu

History and Political Economy Colloquium
2025-03-14 12:00 - 13:50 | HSSB 4080, 4080 Humanities and Social Sciences Building, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States

Shelley Bookspan, The Historian as Detective, Public History Colloquium
2025-04-04 12:00 - 13:30 | HSSB 4041, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
Shelley Bookspan, a graduate of UCSB’s public history program, will talk about her extensive and varied career as a consulting historian, and offer students tips and guidance about careers in consulting.
Please email shcase@ucsb.edu for suggested reading.

Public History Colloquium, Meleia Simon-Reynolds, Watsonville is in the Heart
2025-05-02 12:00 - 13:30 | CA
The Watsonville is in the Heart Research Initiative is a partnership between the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) and The Tobera Project, a Watsonville community organization founded by Dioscoro “Roy” Respino Recio, Jr. (b. April 19, 1968). The partnership is named after the novel America is the Heart by Filipino American immigrant poet and writer, Carlos Bulosan. The project team is composed of UCSC professors, UCSC undergraduate & graduate students, and community members. WIITH partners with community institutions including the Watsonville Public Library and the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. The initiative is housed in The Humanities Institute at UCSC.
This event is virtual.
Zoom link: https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/83580616508
Meeting ID: 835 8061 6508

Talk: Erin Trumble, "Rebirth after Retirement: How Elderly Women Reinvented Femininity in Edo Japan"
2025-05-07 17:00 - 19:00 | McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020), Humanities and Social Sciences Bldg, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
Speaker: Graduate Student Erin Trumble

Title: “Rebirth after Retirement: How Elderly Women Reinvented Femininity in Edo Japan”

Description: The talk will focus on retirement as a life stage and examine how it represented a time when women had both more freedom after being liberated from daily tasks and more authority due to their age. I will examine prescriptive literature and its silences around responsibilities for retired women, as well as use examples from the lives of Nakako, Ieko, Shigako, and Aijo to show how women engaged with travel, literature, and religion in new ways as a result of this freedom and authority.

Public History Colloquium, Adam McNeil, "The Importance of Podcasting for the Study of Black Life"
2025-05-09 13:00 - 14:30 | CA
Adam Xavier McNeil is the 2025-26 postdoctoral fellow at the American Philosophical Society and is an incoming Assistant Professor at the University of Rhode Island’s Africana Studies department. McNeil defended his dissertation, “Contested Liberty: Fugitive Women & the Shadow of Re-Enslavement and Displacement in Revolutionary Virginia,” at Rutgers University in March 2025. He will speak about his work creating podcasts for New Books in African American Studies; examples of his interviews are available here.
Virtual event. Note later time than usual.
Zoom link: https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/81406494649
Meeting ID: 814 0649 4649

Public History Colloquium: Censoring Public Memory, Past and Present
2025-09-26 12:00 - 13:50 | CA

Gender & Sexualities Colloquium: "Commodifying Contraception: A Political Economy of Sex in Interwar Britain"
2025-10-03 12:00 - 13:50 | CA
October 3, 2025
12:00-1:50 pm HSSB 4020
Julie Johnson Warkentin (History, UCSB) will present a chapter of her dissertation, “Commodifying Contraception: A Political Economy of Sex in Interwar Britain.”

Public History Colloquium: National Parks and the Origins of Public History in the United States
2025-10-10 12:00 - 13:50 | CA

History and Political Economy Colloquium: Before Islamic Finance: A History of Muslim Private Banking from the Maghreb to Indonesia, 1750-1975
2025-10-17 12:00 - 13:50 | CA
Please join us to welcome Professor Michael O’Sullivan from the University of North Carolina Chapel-Hill who will discuss the introduction to his forthcoming book Before Islamic Finance: A History of Muslim Private Banking from the Maghreb to Indonesia, 1750-1975. Professor O’Sullivan is a scholar of early modern and modern South Asia in the context of Ottoman and European empires, the Western Indian Ocean, and connected histories of Muslim communities across Eurasia, the Maghreb, and East Africa. Please find the draft of the introduction attached below, along with the poster for the colloquium and the quarter-long series.

Public History Colloquium: Erasing and Reclaiming Public Memory in Palestine
2025-10-24 12:00 - 13:50 | CA

History Associates Talk : Alfredo Gonzalez | "An American Promise: 20th Century US Military Naturalization."
2025-11-02 14:00 - 16:00 | Vista Del Monte, 3775 Modoc Rd, Santa Barbara, 3775 Modoc Rd., Santa Barbara
Assistant Professor of Political Science at UCSB, Alfredo Gonzalez will speak on “An American Promise: 20th Century US Military Naturalization.”
Despite widespread recognition that modern social welfare programs stem from the protections pledged to war veterans, commitments from Congress to naturalize immigrant service members and veterans are absent in debates on the military social safety net. Legal historians have shown that after World War I, veterans’ organizations were instrumental in pressuring Congress to grant citizenship to racially ineligible war veterans, but we know less about whether veterans’ organizations have since considered naturalization a military benefit worth protecting. I explore the boundaries of military social welfare between WWI and the War on Terror, when military naturalization policy significantly changed from guaranteeing legal citizenship to merely expediting an immigrant’s ability to apply for naturalization. Understanding the development of military naturalization policy and its relationship to military welfare requires tracing how the process unfolded to reveal the extent, if at all, decision makers and veterans view political incorporation as part of the repertoire of protected benefits.

Sarah Rodriguez: The Great North American Constitutional Revolution
2025-11-03 12:00 - 13:15 | HSSB 4020, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States

History of Science Colloquium: Matthew Restall, Discovering Columbus (and his Many Lives)
2025-11-04 13:00 - 15:00 | CA
The next meeting of the History of Science Colloquium will take place on Tuesday November 4 at 1 pm. Matthew Restall will be presenting a talk entitled “Discovering Columbus (and his Many Lives),” which is based on his recent book. Matthew Restall is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Anthropology and the Director of Latin American Studies at Penn State University. His research has won numerous awards and focuses on European and indigenous encounters in the Americas.

History and Political Economy Colloquium: Elisabeth (Sissi) Luif, The Restructuring of Labor Arbitration and AustroFascism
2025-11-07 12:00 - 15:00 | HSSB 4020, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
Please join us to welcome Elisabeth (Sissi) Luif from the Central European University, Vienna who will discuss a chapter from her dissertation, titled The Restructuring of Labor Arbitration and AustroFascism: A Social History of Institutional Change, 1933-38. Luif is a scholar of comparative fascism, corporatism, the Catholic Church, and labor and working class history and is currently a visiting scholar in the Department of Feminist Studies at UC Santa Barbara.
