The Politics of Consumption in the Gold Coast/Ghana, 1930-1975
2009-04-14 00:00 (America/Denver) | CA
Bianca Murillo’s dissertation explores the politics of consumption in the Gold Coast/Ghana from 1930-75, a period that encompassed British colonialism, rapid urbanization, political independence, military rule, and severe economic decline. Drawing upon both archival and oral research, her project examines how shifting relationships between foreign capital, colonial/postcolonial governments and groups of African retailers and consumers shaped these processes.
This talk is organized by the African Studies Research Focus Group and co-sponsored by the Department of Feminist Studies and the Department of History.
For more information contact Stephan Miescher.
jwil 09.iv.09

Four Seasons Lodge
2009-04-19 00:00
In Commemoration of Yom HaShoah
This event is made possible, in part, by a Program Grant from the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara.
It is also cosponsored by Just Communities Central Coast.
From the darkness of Europe’s death camps to the lush mountains of New York’s Catskills, Four Seasons Lodge (Andrew Jacobs, 2008, 100 min.) captures the final season for a bungalow colony of Holocaust survivors who have gotten together each summer for twenty-five years to celebrate their lives. They come for the raucous poker games such poker games from poker-online.com, the dancing that goes on till dawn, and the long summer days spent with others who have lived through the unimaginable. They pursue friendships, rivalries, love affairs, and even lawsuits as the fate of their community hangs in the balance.
Skillfully directed by New York Times reporter Andrew Jacobs and beautifully photographed by the legendary Albert Maysles, Four Seasons Lodge is a counterintuitive film about the Holocaust, one that captures the Lodgers’ intoxicating passion for living, in bracing contrast to lives harrowed by loss. It is a story of tightly bonded friendships that replace lost family and the quest for inner peace in the face of haunting memories. Heartrending, spiritually uplifting, and startlingly funny, Four Seasons Lodge offers indelible lessons about the challenge of aging, the comfort of old friends, the power of memory, and the importance of embracing joy even in the face of mortality.
The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring local Holocaust survivors Stan and Edith Ostern, and noted photographer Rick Nahmias, moderated by Professor Richard Hecht (Department of Religious Studies, UCSB and Chair, Program Committee, Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies at UCSB).
Four Seasons Lodge had its world premiere at the prestigious Silver Docs festival in June, 2008, where it was met with a “wildly enthusiastic reception.” The “undisputed hit” of the Hampton International Film Festival in October, 2008, it received three screenings at which “audiences stood up and cheered as the credits rolled.” At the Miami Jewish Film Festival in January, 2009, Four Seasons Lodge garnered the Audience Award for Best Documentary Film. First Run Features has acquired all rights to Four Seasons Lodgeand will announce the theatrical opening date shortly.
hm 4/6/09, 4/14/09

Hamas
2009-04-20 00:00
There is an exciting and timely series of events taking place this spring: The Shalom/Salam Conversations, in which members of the UCSB faculty and community will address aspects of the Israel/Palestine dispute. There will be three events this spring, all on Monday at 5 pm in the Multicultural Center. The series is sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts and by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs.
The second event will take place THIS MONDAY, APRIL 20, AT 5 PM IN THE MULTICULTURAL CENTER. The subject will be “Hamas.” The panelists will be Lisa Hajjar, Professor in the UCSB Law and Society Program, and Richard Hecht, Professor of Religious Studies. Professor Randy Bergstrom of the UCSB Department of History will moderate.
Free Pizza and beverages will be served. Please join us for this important event!
hm 4/6/09

"Keep on Saving": A Transnational History of How Other Nations Forged Cultures of Thrift When America Didn't
2009-04-23 00:00
Amidst the current financial meltdown, it has become painfully clear that Americans spent too much, saved too little, and borrowed excessively. Although we like to believe the rest of the world behaves “like us,” other capitalist nations have saved at much higher rates than Americans. Historically, Europeans, Japanese, and other Asians systematically encouraged saving by means of campaigns and institutions such as savings banks, postal savings, and school savings programs. Beginning in 1800, this lecture tells the global, interconnected story of savings-promotion, illustrated by savings campaign posters from around the world.
Sheldon Garon is the Dodge Professor of History and East Asian Studies at Princeton University. He explores relations between state and society in modern Japan, while also examining the transnational flow of ideas and institutions among several European nations, the U.S., Japan, and other Asian nations. Publications include The State and Labor in Modern Japan (1987) for which he received the American Historical Association’s John K. Fairbank Prize in 1988, and Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (1997). His current transnational history, “Keep on Saving”: How Other Nations Forged Cultures of Thrift When America Didn’t, is under contract with Princeton University Press. With Patricia Maclachlan, he co-edited The Ambivalent Consumer: Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West (2006). He recently served as advisor in the preparation of For a New Thrift: Confronting the Debt Culture: A Report to the Nation from the Commission on Thrift (2008).
Cosponsored by the EAC, the East Asian Cultures RFG, IHC, and the departments of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, History, Political Science and Economics.
LOCATION CHANGED ON 4/21 TO THE MARINE SCIENCES BUILDING AUDITORIUM.
It is next to Bren Hall on the East side of campus (campus map).
hm 3/31/09, 4/21.09

Centering Central Asia: Gender, State, and Nation
2009-04-24 00:00
The UCSB Center for Middle East Studies Conference “Centering Central Asia: Gender, State, and Nation” will be held on Friday, April 24 & Saturday, April 25, 2009. A schedule of events appears below.
Friday, April 24 at the Multicultural Center Theater
7:30-8:00 pm Nancy Gallagher, Professor, History Dept., UCSB. Talk on NGOs in Afghanistan
8:00-10:00pm Introduction of film by Director, Meena Nanji. Film “View from a Grain of Sand”
Saturday, April 25 in the McCune Conference Room, HSSB 6020
8:45am-5:30 pm CONFERENCE
Panel 1: Gender and Society in Iran and Central Asia
Adrienne Edgar, Associate Professor, History, UCSB. “Gender, Nation, and Modernity in Soviet and Post-Soviet Central Asia”
Ashraf Zahedi, Resident Scholar, Beatrice Bain Research Group, University of California, Berkeley. “Rethinking Gender Policies in Afghanistan”
Nayereh Tohidi, Chair & Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies Dept.,California State University, Northridge. “Gender and Transition in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan”
Mary Hegland, Associate Professor, Dept. of Anthropology and Women & Gender Studies, Santa Clara University. “Gender, Family, Kin, Sexuality Transformation in Iran and Tajikistan”
Plenary Speaker: Janet Afary, Keddie-Balzan Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles.”The Sexual Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran”
Panel 2: Central Asia, Pakistan, and Iran in Global Perspective
Adeeb Khalid, Professor, Dept. of History, Carleton College. “After the Soviets: Islam in Contemporary Central Asia”
Shahnaz Rouse, Professor and Chair, Sociology Faculty, Sarah Lawrence College. “State Practices Versus Non-State/Civil Society Peace Initiatives in Pakistan”
Mateo Mohammad Farzaneh, Ph.D. Candidate, UCSB. “A U.S.-Iran Détente?: Views from Iran”
Mona Sheikh, Visiting Research Scholar, Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, UCSB. “Talking with Taliban Activists: Militant Jihad in Pakistan”
Plenary Speaker: Olivier Roy, Lecturer, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. “Imposing Emancipation: What is the West Doing There?”
5:30-6:30pm Reception, with music by members of the Middle East Ensemble
The conference is sponsored by the CMES and co-sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. All events are free and open to the public. For additional information please contact Laura Pollick, Center for Middle East Studies, 805-893-4245.
jwil 15.iv.09

Terror and Intercultural War in the Era of the American Revolution
2009-04-24 00:00
Peter Silver, Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University, will discuss his recent book and current research.
Professor Silver (Rutgers homepage) is a renowned historian of Early America. His first book, Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America ($13 & viewable at amazon), received both the 2007 Bancroft Prize and the 2007 Mark Lynton History Prize.
Welcome all! Light refreshments will be served, but feel free to bring a lunch.
hm 4/16/09

Ancient Fiction and the Politics of Genre
2009-04-27 00:00
This talk is sponsored by the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group.
For more information contact Christine Thomas.
jwil 03.iv.09

Drug Violence, Public Security, and the Rule of Law in Mexico
2009-04-29 00:00
David Shirk is Director of the Trans-Border Institute and Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, San Diego, and was a fellow at the Center for U.S.- Mexican Studies from 1998-99 and 2001-2003. He conducts research on Mexican politics, U.S.-Mexican relations, and a variety of policy issues along the U.S.-Mexican border. He is the author of Mexico’s New Politics: The PAN and Democratic Change and co-editor of Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico.
This event is sponsored by the History Department and the Latin American and Iberian Studies program.
For more information contact Gabriela Soto Laveaga.
jwil 22.iv.09

Economic Crises and Lessons from the New Deal
2009-04-29 00:00
Presented by the UCSB Affiliates and the UCSB History Associates.
The First Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall is located at 21 E. Constance Ave. (at State Street).
See:
Detailed description of talk, and
Prof. Brownlee’s faculty homepage with list of publications.
$8 for UCSB Affiliates, History Associates or Chancellor’s Council members
$10 for non-members
E-MAIL Katie Houseknecht: katie.houseknecht@ia.ucsb.edu
OR PHONE 893-4388
TO MAKE YOUR RESERVATION
hm 4/17/09, 4/24/09
:

The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker
2009-04-30 00:00
Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times is the nation’s most authoritative reporter on labor and employment issues. For 15 years his investigative exposes have probed the way some of the nation’s largest corporations treat and mistreat their workers, from the Brooklyn waterfront to the Piedmont South, and from Toyota assembly lines to Wal-Mart check-out counters. His first book, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, is an eye-opening account of how the corporate clamp-down on wages, benefits, and job security has made efforts to climb out of the current economic crisis all the more difficult.
Greenhouse comes to UCSB as the Regents’ Lecturer in History.
Sponsored by the Department of History, the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, and UCSB Arts & Lectures.
jwil 07.iv.09

The Jetsons Fallacy: Science Fiction, Biotechnology, and the Future of the Human Species
2009-04-30 00:00
Abstract:Science fiction films and novels often present us with remarkably imaginative visions of the future. In this talk I argue that all the most popular and influential versions of such sci-fi visions – movies like Star Wars, Star Trek, Blade Runner, AI, Spiderman, and Iron Man – systematically mislead us in one important respect: they depict a future in which technology becomes very sophisticated, but most humans remain basically the same as they are today. This is unrealistic, I argue, because today’s major trends in biotechnology suggest that a very different kind of world actually awaits our children and grandchildren. Over the next half century, entire populations of humans will increasingly use pharmaceuticals, bioelectronics, and genetic interventions to enhance their physical and mental capabilities. We are on the cusp of an era in which human beings will apply science and technology to the redesign of their own bodies and minds. In this sense, therefore, the actual creations of technoscience today are already exceeding the imaginative reach of the “futuristic” stories we tell ourselves. It is time for mainstream science fiction to take its head out of the sand and face up to the transmogrified future that probably awaits humankind.
——
Michael Bess, Chancellor’s Professor of History, is a specialist in twentieth-century Europe, with a particular interest in the social and cultural impacts of technological change. Bess has received fellowships or grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Institutes of Health / National Human Genome Research Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Fulbright research grants program, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.

The Future of Planetary Governance and the Emergence of Global Action Networks
2009-04-30 00:00
THE GLOBAL AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES PROGRAM,in conjunction with the search for a chaired professorship in GLOBAL
AUTHORITY AND GOVERNANCE sponsored by the DUNCAN AND SUZANNE MELLICHAMP INITIATIVE, is pleased to invite you to a lecture by
SANJEEV KHAGRAM
Wyss Visiting Scholar, Harvard Business School
Thursday, April 30, 2009
12 p.m.
Orfalea Center Seminar Room
1005 Rob Gym
Over the past two decades, multi-stakeholder and cross-sectoral global action networks (GANs: a critical subset of cross-sectoral action networks more generally or CANs) emerged as arguably the most innovative global governance arrangements with transcontinental and multi-scalar agendas and reach. GANs can now be found in virtually every field from well known initiatives like the Global Compact, Global Fund, Marine Stewardship Council and Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, to less well known ones like the Global Water Partnership, Youth Employment Systems, the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, and the Sustainable Biofuels Partnership. This seminar will explicate the theory and empirics of GANs. It will systemically analyze the emergence, dynamics, as well as current and potential role of GANs in global governance.
Professor Khagram is known worldwide for his interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral scholarship, teaching, and leadership in the areas of globalization and transnationalism, global governance and international institutions, nongovernmental organizations and civil society, corporate citizenship and emerging regulatory forms, sustainable development and human security. He was honored as a 2009 Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.
hm 4/28/09

From Main Street to Wall Street: What News Gets Reported and What Does Not
2009-05-01 00:00
Joining Steven Greenhouse on this timely panel are award-winning investigative reporter Ann Louise Bardach and Peter Dreier, director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Program at Occidental College.
Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy and the Policy History Program, and co-sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television and New Media at UCSB. For more information contact Leah Fernandez
jwil 07.iv.09

"Rasta" Sufis and Muslim Youth Culture in Mali
2009-05-01 00:00
In this talk, Benjamin Soares is concerned with understanding changing modalities of religious expression and modes of belonging among Muslim youth in contemporary Mali. While much recent scholarship about Muslim youth privileges Islamism, trajectories of political radicalization, as well as ethical modes of self-fashioning associated with so-called piety movements, the case of young self-styled Sufis — sometimes dubbed “Rasta” Sufis — in urban Mali helps to illustrate other ways certain youth have been refashioning how to be young and Muslim. By focusing on these young Muslims’ activities, including their religious practices, sophisticated engagement with the media, and religious marketing, Soares explores the cultural politics of Muslim youth who are involved in building new communities and dreaming of a world different from the one in which they find themselves.
Sponsored by the IHC’s African Studies FRG, the Center for Middle East Studies, the Dept. of History, and the Dept. of Religious Studies
For additional information please call 893-3907, or see www.ihc.ucsb.edu
hm 4/27/09

Exchange and Identity
2009-05-02 00:00
See the flyer for more information.
hm 4/28/09

Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales
2009-05-05 00:00
Scholar and artist E. Patrick Johnson is currently Chair and Directorof Graduate Studies in the Department of Performance Studies, as well
as Professor of African American Studies, at Northwestern University.
His one-man-show, Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their
Tales, is based on the oral histories collected in Johnson’s book,
Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South — An Oral History, published by
the University of North Carolina Press. The oral histories are from
black gay men who were born, raised, and continue
to live in the South and range in age from 19 to 93.
This performance covers the following topics:
coming of age in the South, religion, sex, transgenderism, love stories,
and coming out. The show tells of Chaz,
a transgendered person who lives as a man on Sunday so he can sing in
the church choir, but lives as a woman during the rest of the week;
Freddie’s story of being raised by parents who did not want him is
heartbreaking, but also delivered with an ironic twist; Countess
Vivian, the oldest narrator, recounts his life during the 1920s and
the 1930s on the streets of New Orleans. Johnson embodies these and
other stories in the show.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Performance Studies and New Sexualities RFGs,
the Dept. of Black Studies, Dept. of English, Center for Black
Studies, Dept. of Theater, Dept. of Feminist Studies, the
MultiCultural Center, the IHC, Black Quare, Associated Students, and
the Women’s Center with special support from the following
individuals: Stephanie L. Batiste, Ingrid Banks, Mireille Miller
Young, and Christina McMahon.
hm 5/1/09

Portents and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Japan: Kurosawa Tokiko and the Comet of 1858
2009-05-05 00:00
Kurosawa Tokiko (1806-1890) was born and raised in Mito domain, where she ran a small temple-school (terakoya). As most women in her day and age, she did not pay much attention to political issues. Then, on the evening of September 30, 1858, a neighbor rushed over announcing the arrival of a large, bright comet. In her later writings Tokiko would identify the comet as the spark that ignited her political activism: she embraced the loyalist faction and, in 1859, surreptitiously traveled to Kyoto to deliver a petition to none other than the emperor. This presentation will draw on Tokiko’s unpublished diaries (preserved in Ibaraki Kenritsu Rekishikan) to follow the trajectory of her political awakening and examine the pivotal role of the 1858 comet as part and parcel of her political vocabulary.
Laura Nenzi received her Ph.D. from the UCSB in 2004. After five years as Assistant Professor at Florida International University in Miami she is now moving to the University of Tennessee Knoxville. She is the author of Excursions in Identity: Travel and the Intersection of Place, Gender, and Status in Edo Japan (University of Hawai’i Press, 2008).
Cosponsored by the East Asia Center, the East Asian Cultures Research Focus Group, the Department of East Asian Cultural Studies and Languages, and the Department of History.
For more information visit the East Asia Center web site or call (805) 893-3907.
jwil 28.iv.09, hm 4/29

When I Awaked': Colonial Encounters, Gendered Meanings, and the Cultural Significance of Dream Reporting in Seventeenth-Century New England
2009-05-06 00:00
Presentation of work in progress hosted by UCSB’s Early Modern Center.
Ann Plane, Associate Professor of History at UCSB, will present a paper as part of the Early Modern Center’s works-in-progress series. Her presentation, entitled, “‘When I Awaked’: Colonial Encounters, Gendered Meanings, and the Cultural Significance of Dream Reporting in Seventeenth-Century New England,” explores the convergence of two distinctive ‘dream cultures,’ that of the Algonquian-speaking natives of the region and that of the seventeenth-century nonconformist English colonists. Her paper also considers how these dream cultures reveal the gendered dynamics of colonization, particularly focusing on the representation of masculinity among both colonizer and colonized.
The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Please join us!
Email the EMC Graduate Fellow, Cat Zusky, if you have questions: zusky@umail.ucsb.edu
hm 4/17/09

Excavating Neolithic Caves in Attica: Rituals to Pan and the Origins of Agriculture in Greek Prehistory
2009-05-07 00:00
There are over 10,000 caves all over the Greek islands, where archaeologists have identified abundant materials revealing both environmental as well as cultural information dating as far back as the 7th millennium B.C. in Neolithic times. This talk will present the case study of recent excavations conducted at Leontari cave situated in Hymettus mountain in Attica. During the five years of excavations of Leontari cave (2003- 2008), a joint project conducted by the University of Athens and the Ephorate of Paleoanthropology-Speleology (Greek Ministry of Culture), the team has revealed new environmental and archaeological knowledge shedding new light on the process of the rise of agriculture and domestication patterns of animals in mainland Greece. In addition, they have made positive identifications that the cave was also an important shrine dedicated to the deity Pan, one of most popular gods in the Greek pantheon.
Dr. Lilian Karali-Giannakopoulou Ioulia is Professor of Prehistoric and Environmental Archaeology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece. She is one of Europe’s leading specialist on Environmental Archaeology, Greek Prehistory (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age), and Bio-archaeology (human and animal remains, shells). She is also the founder of the Environmental Archaeology program at Athens University, the first of its kind in Greece.
A reception will follow the talk.
Sponsored by the Archaeology Focus Research Group of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
jwil 27.iv.09

The Missing Story of Ourselves: Women, Poverty and the Politics of Representation
2009-05-07 00:00
The Missing Story of Ourselves is a nationally touring photographic andnarrative exhibit developed by low-income student parents, that challenges
and offers alternatives to conventional “stories” about class, poor women,
welfare and single parenthood in the United States.
Co-sponsored by the Policy History Program, the Department of
Feminist Studies, the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy,
and the Women’s Center.
Vivyan Adair is the Elihu Root Endowed Peace Fund Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and the Director of The ACCESS Project (serving welfare eligible student parents) at Hamilton College. She is the author of From Good Ma to Welfare Queen: A Genealogy of the Poor Woman in American Literature, Photography and Culture (2000) and the co-editor of Reclaiming Class: Women, Poverty and the Promise of Higher Education in America (2003), as well as articles in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Harvard Educational Review, Feminist Studies, Labor, Sociology, NWSA Journal, and the AAUW’s On Campus with Women In 2005, Dr. Adair was named the CASE Carnegie New York State Teacher of the Year.
For more information please visit www.hamilton.edu/college/access.
Adair’s biography on the Hamilton College website.
hm 5/1/09

Reclaiming Class: Poverty and Higher Education in the United States
2009-05-08 00:00
Vivyan Adair is the Elihu Root Endowed Peace Fund Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and the Director of The ACCESS Project (serving welfare eligible student parents) at Hamilton College. She is the author of From Good Ma to Welfare Queen: A Genealogy of the Poor Woman in American Literature, Photography and Culture (2000) and the co-editor of Reclaiming Class: Women, Poverty and the Promise of Higher Education in America (2003), as well as articles in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Harvard Educational Review, Feminist Studies, Labor, Sociology, NWSA Journal, and the AAUW’s On Campus with Women In 2005, Dr. Adair was named the CASE Carnegie New York State Teacher of the Year.
For more information please visit www.hamilton.edu/college/access.
Adair’s biography on the Hamilton College website.
Sponsored by the Seminar on Work, Labor, and Political Economy.
hm 5/1/09

CANCELLED Transborder Nationhood and the Politics of Belonging in Germany and Korea
2009-05-08 00:00
Because of the Jesusita Fire this event has been postponed until next year.
The talk addresses transborder membership politics in historical and comparative perspective, examining changing German and Korean policies towards transborder coethnics (Germans in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and Koreans in Japan and China) during the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. “Ethnic Germans” or “overseas Koreans” are often treated as prepolitical, self-subsistent ethnonational entities; and the transborder membership politics of Germany and Korea have been cast as clear exemplars of ethnic nationalism. Yet transborder populations’ status as “co-ethnics” or “co-nationals” is not given by the facts of ethnic demography: it is constructed through, contested in, and contingent on representations, claims, and struggles in transborder regions.
This talk is part of the Research Focus Group on Identity series.
hm 4/28/09, 5/8/09

Peace Initiatives in the Middle East
2009-05-11 00:00
There is an exciting and timely series of events taking place this spring: The Shalom/Salam Conversations, in which members of the UCSB faculty and community will address aspects of the Israel/Palestine dispute. There will be three events this spring, all on Monday at 5 pm in the Multicultural Center. The series is sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts and by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs.
The second event will take place THIS MONDAY, MAY 11, AT 5 PM IN THE MULTICULTURAL CENTER. The subject will be “Peace Initiatives.” Professor Salim Yaqub of the UCSB Department of History will moderate.
This is the third and final event of the series.
Free Pizza and beverages will be served. Please join us for this important event!
hm 4/6/09, 5/11/09

Gazing through the Empire's Shop Window: Women and Consumption at the British Empire Exhibition, 1924-1925
2009-05-11 00:00
Professor Clendinning is the author of Demons of Domesticity: Women and the English Gas Iindustry, 1889-1939, Ashgate Publications, Aldershot , England , 2004.
Anyone interested in gender, consumer culture, imperialism and European history more generally is encouraged to attend.
hm 4/20/09

Christianity and Empire: Unity and Diversity in New Worlds
2009-05-11 00:00
Fernando Cervantes, J.E. & Lillian Byrne Tipton Distinguished Visiting Professor in Catholic Studies, Department of Religious Studies, UCSB, for Spring 2009 will present a paper exploring the interaction of Christianity among the populations of the New World. His presentation will seek to shed light on what J.H. Elliott once called “the remarkable survival of a worldwide empire for a period of three centuries without a standing army or police force.” Professor Cervantes will do so by reassessing the process of Christianization and the central role of religious culture in the early modern Hispanic world.
Five panelists will respond, relating his research to their own work in the fields of Ancient Borderlands and Latin American Studies: Gerardo Aldana (Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, UCSB); Sarah Cline (Department of History, UCSB); Beth DePalma Digeser (Department of History, UCSB); Hal Drake (Department of History, UCSB); and Pamela Huckins (History of Art and Archaeology, NYU). The panel will be moderated by Christine Thomas (Department of Religious Studies, UCSB). A public Q & A and reception will follow.
For further information, please contact Ann Taves or Cathy Albanese.
jwil 06.v.09

Who determines what becomes history? A witness's reflections
2009-05-12 00:00
The renowned historian Arnold Toynbee posed the question whether we, the general public, but also scholars and students of historical events, are correctly informed. This question has concerned George Wittenstein for many decades, as it has a determining influence on “what becomes history”. Dr. Wittenstein will discuss the common and disturbing phenomenon of historical facts being presented in slanted, misleading, and, at times, even falsifying ways. From the vantage point of a witness to and active participant in historical events during the Hitler regime, Dr. Wittenstein will then describe lesser known facts about two resistance groups with whom he was closely associated: the famous White Rose and the Freedom Action Bavaria.
Dr. George Wittenstein, born in 1919, majored simultaneously in medicine, psychology and philosophy at the University of Munich during World War II. As Military service was compulsory, Wittenstein and most of his White Rose friends were drafted together into a medical student company. As early as 1939, he was threatened by the Nazi secret police (Gestapo) and, in 1942 and 1943, undertook a series of dangerous actions on behalf of the White Rose. In 1943, five of his friends, Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, and his PhD advisor, the professor of philosophy Kurt Huber, were executed. When Wittenstein learned in 1944 that the Gestapo was likely to apprehend him, he volunteered to serve at the front-lines, as the immediate combat zone was the only place where the Gestapo had no jurisdiction over members of the armed forces. Assigned as a physician to the Italian front, he collected the wounded soldiers’ weapons for the secret arsenal of the Freedom Action Bavaria, a resistance group of military officers led by Captain Rupprecht Gerngross based in Munich. Wittenstein was wounded at the Italian front in 1945.
Wittenstein emigrated to the United States in 1948. Continuing his surgical training at Harvard and the universities of Rochester and Colorado, he specialized in general, cardiovascular, and thoracic surgery and later taught and performed the latest complex heart operations at numerous European medical schools. Since 1960, Wittenstein has been residing in Santa Barbara, where he was in private practice until his appointment as professor of surgery at the University of California at Los Angeles, and as chair of the Department of Surgery at UCLA/LAC Olive View Medical Center. He retired from UCLA in 1991 and continued to practice in Santa Barbara. Over almost four decades, Wittenstein served in various capacities at four Santa Barbara hospitals, the UCSB’s Affiliates, the Friends of the UCSB Library, and on the board of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. In recognition of his active involvement in the resistance against Hitler, for his contributions to German cardiac surgery, and for promoting scientific exchange between the United States and Germany, Wittenstein was awarded the “Commander’s Cross Of The Federal Republic Of Germany” (Grosses Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) and more recently the “Bayerischer Verdienstorden”, the State of Bavaria’s highest honor.
In Fall 2007 the UCSB Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies initiated the George J. Wittenstein lecture series, created to commemorate and continue the legacy of civic courage of Dr. George J. Wittenstein. The series sponsors one to three lectures every year. (UCSB press release)
In 2008-2009, the series is made possible by the generous co-sponsorships of the following campus agencies and departments: Office of the Chancellor, Comparative Literature, Feminist Studies, Film and Media Studies, French and Italian, History, Law and Society, Religious Studies, Theater and Dance.
Dr. Wittenstein himself will be the speaker at this event, which will take place in the McCune conference room (HSSB 6020) at 5 pm.
This lecture series is designed to inspire people to become active citizens and to uphold and defend democratic principles. While some talks may have an explicitly political dimension, others will deal with literature and philosophy—two areas that were extremely important to White Rose members, including Dr. Wittenstein, who continues to be greatly interested in them.
The Munich-based White Rose consisted of a group of friends, predominantly medical students, who appealed to the German people to defy both Hitler’s dictatorship and the apathy of their fellow citizens. Members of the White Rose wrote, printed, and disseminated six leaflets that denounced the National Socialist regime’s criminal activities and goals. It was the only German group specifically to condemn the extermination of European Jews. Six members were convicted of high treason and executed.
Already a member of the German armed forces, Wittenstein escaped apprehension by the Gestapo by volunteering to serve on the front line—the only place the German secret police would have no jurisdiction over him. He was assigned to the Italian front to serve as a physician. There he collected the weapons of wounded soldiers and contributed them to a secret arsenal maintained by Freedom Action Bavaria, a resistance group that consisted of military officers based in Munich.
Wounded in 1945, Wittenstein immigrated to the United States a few years later and continued his surgical training at Harvard University, the University of Rochester, and the University of Colorado. A Santa Barbara resident for almost 50 years, he has worked in private practice, as a professor of surgery at UCLA, and as chair of the Department of Surgery at the UCLA-Olive View Medical Center.
hm 5/4/09, 5/6/09
For more information, please visit:

Black September and the Question of Palestinian Identity within Jordan
2009-05-12 00:00
In this talk, Clea Bunch looks at the events of Black September 1970, in which King Hussein of Jordan fought a civil war against Palestinian
militant groups. She argues that Jordan constituted a “hidden pillar”
of America?s Middle East policy. Only during crises like Black
September did the kingdom’s essential role become apparent.
Washington saw Hussein’s pro-Western leadership as essential
maintaining a regional balance of power, and so United States linked
its policy to the continuation of the Hashemite regime in Jordan.
Clea Bunch is Assistant Professor of History and Chair of Middle East
Studies at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She specializes
in U.S.-Middle East diplomacy and has conducted extensive research in
the Middle East. She is currently writing a book on the history of
Jordanian-American relations, 1948-1970.
The talk is free and open to the public. A brief reception will
follow Prof. Bunch’s presentation. Please join us for this exciting
event!
hm 5/10/09

Catholicism and the Early Modern Imagination
2009-05-13 00:00
The imagination as a human faculty was subjected to some of the most fascinating explorations in its history during the period from 1430 to 1680. Fernando Cervantes will explore the broad Catholic intellectual background of these debates with particular reference to the work the two greatest literary figures of the age: Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare.
Fernando Cervantes is a historian of early modern Europe specializing in the cultural, religious and intellectual history of early modern Spain and Spanish America. He is the author of The Devil in the New World (1994) and The Hispanic World in the Historical Imagination (2006) as well as editor of Spiritual Encounters: Interactions between Christianity and Native Religions in Colonial America (1999). He is currently completing a book entitled The Celestial and the Fallen: Angels and Demons in the Hispanic World.
For further information, please contact Ann Taves or Cathy Albanese.
jwil 06.v.09

Precipitating Factors and Root Causes of the Sino-Soviet Split
2009-05-14 00:00
Professor Shen Zhihua is Director of the Center for Cold War Studies at East China Normal University in Shanghai.
The event is free and open to the public. A brief reception will follow Prof. Shen’s presentation.
In this talk, Professor Shen Zhihua discusses the surface and root
causes of the Sino-Soviet split. The surface causes were China’s
shelling of Goumindang-held islands in August 1958 and its commune
movement of July 1959, which revealed sharp divergences between China
and the Soviet Union. The root causes were the fundamental
contradictions between internationalist ideals and the pursuit of
national interest, and between the fraternal ideals and hierarchical
reality of the Sino-Soviet relationship. These structural
contradictions made the Sino-Soviet split inevitable.
Shen Zhihua is Professor of History at East China Normal University
(Shanghai, China), where he also serves as Director of the Cold War
International History Research Center. He is also concurrent
professor at Peking University, and honorary research fellow at the
Chinese University of Hong Kong. Professor Shen’s research interests
include Cold War History, the diplomatic history of the Soviet Union,
Sino-Soviet relations, and the Korean War. His books include Soviet
Experts in China, 1948-1960 (2nd ed., 2009), Mao Zedong, Stalin, and
the Korean War (2003), and An Outline History of Sino-Soviet Relations
(2007).
The event is sponsored by the Center for Cold War Studies and by East Asian
Languages and Cultural Studies.
hm 5/12/09

History Honors Colloquium
2009-05-15 00:00
On Friday, May 15, the undergraduates who wrote senior theses this year will present their work at the History Honors Colloquium in HSSB 4020. The students have produced very interesting research and all interested parties are invited to attend some or all of the sessions.
The program is as follows:
Session I (9:00-10:30): War and Suffrage
Allison Fischer (Jacobson): “Shot to the Core: Vietnam Veterans and the Disintegration of American Exceptionalism”
Discussant: Laura Kalman
Michael Hale (Lee): “The Destruction of Poleis in the Greek World”
Discussant: Jack Talbott
Risa Katzen (Harris, Miescher): “Anything to Fit in: A Comparative Study of American and South African Women’s Suffrage Movements”
Discussant: Adrienne Edgar
Session II (10:45-12:15): Education and Political Activism
Damien Mimnaugh (O’Connor): “The School is Before the Church: A History of Catholic Dissent During and Following the Great School Controversy in New York, 1840-1870”
Discussant: Patricia Cohen
Adrienne Minor (Daniels): “What’s Left of the Struggle: The Oakland Community School and the Black Panther Party”
Discussant: Megan Bowman
Craig Nelson (Westwick): “The Evolution of Environmentalism in the California Surfing Community”
Discussant: Greg Graves
Session III (2:00-4:00): Politics and Public Policy
Christopher Kindell (Tutino): “ ‘Now for the Lord and our good Queene/ To fight be not afraide’: Elizabethan Propaganda and the Spanish Armada”
Discussant: Sears McGee
Mathew Hamula (McGee): “Modernizing Medieval Medicine and the Medical Marketplace: The London Medical Establishment during the English Civil War”
Discussant: Stefania Tutino
Celine Purcell (Bergstrom): “STEP it Up: The Rise of Conservative Anti-Gang Legislation in California”
Discussant: Andrea Gill
Katyn Evenson (Woods): “Upon a Blank Slate: Reforming Public Education in Post-Katrina New Orleans”
Discussant: Randy Bergstrom
hm 5/11/09
