Department of History, UC Santa Barbara

Caring for America: Home Health Care Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State Caring for America: Home Health Care Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State
2012-06-27 00:00 (America/Denver)
Eileen Boris’s new book, Caring for America: Home Health Care Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State, explains how law makers, health care administrators, government officials, labor organizers, and millions of working women have constructed a distinctively new and controversial occupational category out of which hundreds of thousands of workers have been organized. The book launch takes place at 7 p.m. at Chaucer’s Bookstore, 3321 State Street, in Santa Barbara.
hm 6/21/12

Labor's Fate after Wisconsin
2012-06-29 00:00
“Labor’s Fate after Wisconsin,” featuring Heather and Paul Booth. Both are long-time political activists. Heather Booth founded the Midwest Academy, a training center for organizers, and she has worked closely with labor groups and the Democratic Party to register millions of new minority voters, advance the AFL-CIO health care agenda and the Dodd/Frank financial reform law, and defend Social Security and Medicare. Paul Booth, a leader of the antiwar movement in the 1960s, has for many years been the organizing director for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Workers. Based in Chicago, both Heather and Paul Booth were actively involved in the labor effort to oppose Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union agenda and then to recall the governor in the recent election.
Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy.
hm 6/22/12

“Silents, Please!” The 100th Anniversary of Santa Barbara’s Silent Past
2012-07-07 00:00
During the heydey of silent films, Santa Barbara’s Flying A Studios competed withthe best of them, creating almost 900 films between 1912-1920. On Saturday, July
7, UCSB film Prof. Dana Driskel and local historian Neal Graffy will recreate
that lost era with clips that will include the first known surviving film made here,
a classic western, and—for the first time ever seen in Santa Barbara—a screening
of “To Rent, Furnished” (1915). It will all happen in UCSB’s new, state-of-the-art
Pollock Theater. As an added enhancement, pianist Michael Mortilla, one of the
few remaining practitioners of the art, will provide musical accompaniment. The
program will be followed by a wine-and-cheese reception.
As a co-sponsor, the UCSB History Associates can offer a block of 40 tickets at
the discounted price of $15 (for members and guests). This is going to be a special
afternoon. Get your reservation in today!
Co-sponsored by the UCSB Carsey-Wolf Center and the UCSB Affiliates
hm 6/2/12

Summer Session A instruction ends
2012-08-03 00:00
Summer Session A instruction ends
hm 6/21/12

Summer Session B classes start
2012-08-06 00:00
Summer Session B classes start.
hm 6/21/12

"With Their Eyes Turned Skyward: Santa Barbara's Fallen Aviators of WWII"
2012-08-19 00:00
Have you ever wondered how the streets surrounding the Santa Barbara Airport were named? For example, who were David Love, Augustus Griggs and Clyde Adams? They were among the 49 local aviators who lost their lives during World War II.
The Goleta Valley Historical Society will host a lecture, With Their Eyes Turned Skyward: Santa Barbara’s Fallen Aviators of World War II, on Sunday, Aug. 19, by community historian Michel Nellis and Santa Barbara Airport director Karen Ramsdell. The presentation is based on their recent book of the same name, which chronicles the untold stories of the 48 local men and one woman who put their lives on hold for freedom and made the ultimate sacrifice.
$10 for non-members
hm 8/14/12

Summer Session B: last day of instruction
2012-09-14 00:00
Summer Session B instruction ends
hm 6/21/12

Dinetah and Navaho: History and Politics
2012-09-21 00:00
Prof. James Brooks, President and CEO of the School of Advanced Research in Santa Fe (and former UCSB professor), will speak on Dinetah and Navajo history and present politics.
Prof. Brooks, together with Prof. Smith in Anthropology and Prof. Digeser in History, will be teaching a three-quarter graduate seminar on comparative borderlands at UCSB in 2012-2013.
jwil 11.ix.2012

Fall 2012: first day of instruction
2012-09-27 00:00
Fall 2012 classes begin
hm 6/21/12

SCOTT NELSON, Legum Professor of History at the College of William & Mary, discusses his new book A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America’s Financial Disasters
2012-09-28 00:00
Nelson is the author of Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of An American Legend (2008) which won the Merle Curti Prize for the best book in U.S. social and cultural history. Nelson’s paper can be found here.

Violence, Holy War, and the Book of Revelation: Žižek and John, Together at Last
2012-10-11 00:00
The UCSB-Westmont Annual Lecture in Early Christianity
Prof. Steven Friesen is Louise Farmer Boyer Chair in Biblical Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas- Austin.
There will be a reception in HSSB 6020 following the talk.
Sponsored by UCSB and Westmont College, in cooperation with the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program and the Department of History.
jwil 11.ix.2012

The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England and America
2012-10-11 00:00
A central question for historians of religion and culture in early modern Europe and early America is how, given the complexities of mapping “popular religion,” the authority of theological paradigms and religious institutions can be recast to acknowledge social mediations and cultural practice. In this lecture, David D. Hall uses examples from both sides of the Atlantic to sketch some of the possibilities for a grammar of actions and meanings, rethinking historians’ conclusions about the authority of institutions and the great cultural commonplaces of the times.
Prof. Hall has worked throughout his career on religion and society in seventeenth-century England and New England; his books include: The Faithful Shepherd: A History of the New England Ministry in the Seventeenth Century; Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England; Puritans in the New World: A Critical Anthology and, most recently, A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England (2011).
He is presently writing a general history of Puritanism in England, Scotland, and New England c. 1550 to 1700, to be published by Princeton University Press, and continues to pursue interests in “lived religion,” literacy, and the history of the book in early America and early modern England.
This event is co-sponsored by the Dept. of History, the Dept. of Religious Studies, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center
hm 9/9/11

Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War
2012-10-11 00:00
CSU Channel Islands (CI) will host the traveling exhibition Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War at the John Spoor Broome Library from Oct. 11 through Nov. 30. The free, public exhibition opens with a reception on Thursday, Oct. 11, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the library’s Exhibition Hall. The reception will feature Joan Waugh, UCLA history professor and Civil War expert.
The exhibition will end with a closing reception on Thursday, Nov. 29, featuring UCSB history professor and Civil War expert John Majewski.
Read the full story here.
jwil 25.ix.2012

"Higher Education and California Voters: Can this Election Save UC?"
2012-10-17 00:00
Speakers include Assemblyman Das Williams; Chris Newfield, Professor of English; Gene Lucas, Executive Vice Chancellor; and Nelson Lichtenstein, MacArthur Foundation Professor of History. Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy UCSB Faculty Association. More information on Proposition 30, including sites dedicated to arguments for and against the voter proposition can be found here.

Ephesus: Harbour, City and Hinterland
2012-10-22 00:00
Ephesus was one of the most important ancient harbour cities, yet it nevertheless had to contend with a continually progressive silting up caused by natural sedimentation processes. In order to guarantee an optimal connection to the sea, the settlement was moved on numerous occasions, until an artificial landing was created with the construction of the late Hellenistic-Roman harbour which was connected to the sea by an originally broad canal. An impressive scenario was offered to visitors: the northern slope of the Bülbüldağ was bordered by tomb buildings, and after the 3rd century A.D. a necropolis also grew up along both sides of the canal. From the harbour basin, which was framed by both functional and prestigious buildings, the visitor arrived at the city via three gates. The harbour region was without doubt the pulsating centre of the city with markets, baths, sacred structures and numerous administrative buildings.
A distinct upswing and cultural transformation went hand in hand with the establishment of the Province of Asia and the designation of Ephesus as its capital city. In the archaeological record, this development is particularly impressively manifested during the Augustan period, after which time a significantly Roman character of the material culture can be observed. The urban appearance of Ephesus in the Roman Imperial period was stamped by numerous private foundations and honorific monuments which bordered the public plazas and streets.
A number of factors are responsible for the economic prosperity of the city. Thus, for example, the city had an extremely fertile hinterland at its disposal, where agriculture, above all the cultivation of olives and wine, could be intensively practiced. The abundance of raw materials in the hinterland of Ephesus was also of great significance; the presence of marble in particular can be pointed to. The harbour of Ephesus, where tariffs were also collected, served as trading hub and reloading point for goods of every description. Wares from Asia Minor were shipped from here, while imports from the entire empire and beyond were delivered to the city and the wider region. An additional factor of economic importance was the Artemision, which – as large-scale landholder, as the “bank of Asia”, and also as a pilgrimage sanctuary – contributed measurably to the prosperity of the city and its population. The provision of a metropolis such as Ephesus, whose inhabitants made high demands for consumption, was a logistical challenge: sites of production and transportation routes needed to be maintained in a functioning capacity, markets had to be adequately supplied, and distribution guaranteed.
As capital city and seat of a bishop of the now significantly smaller Province of Asia, Ephesus retained its key function as trading hub throughout Late Antiquity, even when with the founding of Constantinople the focal point of activity was now transferred to the new capital. Great consideration was still paid to maintaining the harbour basin and the canal. By means of the construction of outer harbours, large ships could anchor offshore and unload their cargo, which would be brought into the city on smaller boats. The numerous Christian sanctuaries, above all the Basilica of St. John and the Church of St. Mary, attracted hordes of pilgrims, and thus a brisk trade in tourism and eulogies was developed.
Finally, the medieval town of Ayasoluk, which extended around the Basilica of St. John and the area of the Artemision, also profited from previously existing trading connections, and was equally as attractive for Italian, Jewish and Armenian merchants as it was for the resident Byzantines and Turks.
About the Speaker
Sabine Ladstätter is the Director of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, and is Excavation Director at Ephesus. She holds her degrees from the University of Vienna (Ph.D.) and the Karl-Franzens-Universität (University of Graz), and her areas of specialization are Roman archaeology, landscape archaeology, pottery, and archaeological method. Dr. Ladstätter has been named Austrian Scientist of the Year, and is an AIA Kress Lecturer for 2012/2013.
Sponsored by the Santa Barbara Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the UCSB Department of Classics in cooperation with the UCSB Ancient Mediterranean Studies Program.
jwil 21.ix.2012

Grad School Confidential: Applying to and Living through Graduate School in History
2012-10-24 00:00
Panelists will include Prof. Lansing, Prof. Plane, and UCSB alumnus Ross Melczer.
jwil 19.x.2012

Deconstructing the Myth of Pure Origins: How Christianity Shaped the Scientific Study of Race
2012-10-24 00:00
It is often believed that the modern scientific study of race first emerged in and around the Enlightenment. During this time the study of natural history reached an unprecedented level of maturity and sophistication due largely to the discovery of novel plants, animals, and humans in the New World, and the increasing influence of materialist philosophy, which encouraged scholars to seek explanations for the origins of life that did not depend on supernatural intervention. The attempts of contemporary historians and anthropologists to place the birth of modern racial science within the Age of Reason often overlook the continued role that traditional Christian conceptions of time, nature, and human descent played in the minds of natural historians studying race during and well beyond the 18th century. This oversight has kept alive the myth that the Enlightenment emancipated modern racial science from a Judeo-Christian worldview and raises questions about which ideas have a legitimate place within the history of scientific theories of human difference.
Terence Keel is Visiting Assistant Professor of Black Studies at UCSB.
Image: A thirteenth century rendition of “T-O” map from the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville (AD 560-636). The continents of Asia, Europe and Africa are shown as the domains of the sons of Noah: Sem (Shem), Iafeth (Japheth) and Cham (Ham). Image taken from the Harvard University map collection at Widener Library.
Sponsored by the UCSB History Department’s History of Science field.
jwil 11.x.2012

War in History and Memory
2012-10-25 00:00
History tells war stories. Memory recalls them. Some war stories are true; some are not. Of many it’s hard to say. “War in History and Memory” will tell a few war stories–true, mythic, and false–from Troy through Afghanistan.
Sponsored by the 2012-2013 IHC series Fallout: In the Aftermath of War.
John Talbott is Professor of History at UCSB. Visit his web page here.
jwil 11.ix.2012

Lawrence Badash Memorial Lecture
2012-10-29 00:00
Come hear Princeton University historian Michael D. Gordin give an engaging public lecture on the “Pseudoscience Wars” and the birth of the scientific fringe.
???; hm 8/14/12

Reciprocity in the French Revolution
2012-11-01 00:00
In this talk, Walton will discuss how the concept of reciprocity (in its reified, noun form réciprocité) emerged in the Enlightenment and was invoked to work through modern problems: political economy, rights, and citizenship. It was in the twentieth century that the term fell out of the modern/democratic lexicon to become associated with pre-modern societies.
Charles Walton, an historian of the French Revolution, is the author of Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech (Oxford, 2011).
Sponsored by the Department of History.
jwil 08.x.2012

Experience, Imagination, and the Body of Ghosts: Examples from Ancient China
2012-11-05 00:00
“Experience, Imagination, and the Body of Ghosts: Examples from Ancient China”
Poo Mu-chou
Chinese University of Hong Kong
What does a ghost look like? Does a ghost possess a body? How do we know it is a ghost? This talk attempts to answer these questions by using textual evidence from Ancient China. Using stories and treatises about ghosts, we form some idea about how people in Ancient China recognized ghosts, and why these perceptions were valid in the contexts of cultural and religious tradition. The talk will also introduce exorcistic texts that the ancient Chinese employed to deal with ghosts.
Co-sponsored by the Department of History, the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, the Department of Religious Studies, and the Ancient Borderlands RFG.
jwil 31.x.2012

RomeLab: 160 BCE. The Art of the Visual Argument
2012-11-30 00:00
Through textual, visual, and interactive, virtual world-based analysis, this talk will examine and re-evaluate the visual argumentation employed during one of the most critical moments of image manipulation at Rome, the aristocratic funeral of the 2nd century BCE.
Part of the presentation will take place within a multi-user, interactive virtual world. Attendees from the UCSB community who have password access to university wifi are encouraged to bring their laptops to the talk to participate directly in the visual argument.
Sponsored by the Departments of Classics, History, and History of Art & Architecture
Chris Johanson is Assistant Professor of Classics at UCLA and Associate Director of UCLA’s Experiential Technologies Center.
jwil 25.xi.2012

Start of Winter 2013 Classes
2013-01-07 00:00
Instruction begins on Monday.
hm 1/4/13

Sailing from Ming China
2013-01-10 00:00
In 2008, an unusual 17th-century Chinese wall map of East Asia surfaced in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, bearing almost no resemblance to any previous Chinese map. Were it not for its perfect provenance, it might have been dismissed as a fake. But it wasn’t: it was simply drawn according to a completely different cartographic logic — a maritime logic — that was lost as soon as it surfaced.
Prof. Brook (History Department, University of British Columbia-Vancouver) is a distinguished historian of Ming & Qing Dynasties in China, and has taught at Oxford, Toronto, and Stanford. He is the author of an impressive array of works, including Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China, The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World and Death by a Thousand Cuts.
Sponsored by the UCSB East Asia Center.
jwil 07.i.2013

Who Freed the Slaves?
2013-01-10 00:00
On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation became law. Conceived as a pragmatic measure to hasten the end of a bloody civil war, the Proclamation declared millions of slaves to be “forever free.” Americans naturally identify this momentous event with Abraham Lincoln, who became widely known as “The Great Emancipator.” While Lincoln undoubtedly played a key role in ending slavery, were political figures alone responsible for this momentous event? Historians have come to see emancipation as the result of a broader social movement which worked tirelessly to force Americans to confront the moral and economic consequences of slavery. The slaves themselves were a key part of this movement. By fleeing to Union lines, serving as Union soldiers, and insisting on full equality, they set the stage for their own liberation.
This talk is based on an exhibit at the Special Collections Department at Davidson Library. The exhibit is based on documents and artifacts from UCSB’s Wyles Collection—a treasure trove of original nineteenth-century materials about Lincoln, the Civil War, and the American West.
John Majewski is Professor of History at UCSB, and Associate Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts.
For questions, or if you need special arrangements to accommodate a disability, please call the UCSB Office of Public Events at 893-2877.
jwil 09.i.2013

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?
2013-01-12 00:00
In his new book, The World Until Yesterday, Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning and mega-best-selling author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, takes us on a mesmerizing journey into our rapidly vanishing past. Drawing on his fieldwork in New Guinea as well as evidence from Inuit, Amazonian and other cultures, Diamond explores how traditional peoples approach universal problems – from child rearing and elder care to dispute resolution – and discovers that we have much to learn from these cultures.
Books will be available for purchase and signing.
hm 1/4/13

Corinth: Portrait of an Idiosyncratic Greek City
2013-01-17 00:00
Ancient Corinth was the first, major long-term excavation undertaken in Greece by the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Begun in 1896, these investigations have continued with few interruptions until today. A commercial powerhouse, Corinth has been overshadowed by Athens, about which a great deal more is known in the ancient sources. A review of some of the more interesting and unusual Corinthian monuments, beginning in the 9th century B.C. and ending with Corinth’s destruction by the Roman general, Lucius Mummius, in 146 B.C., will reveal to us a city, ruled by an oligarchy, that was rich and innovative. In addition, evidence of Corinth’s commercial activities provides an interesting insight into certain aspects of ancient trade.
Dr. Nancy Bookidis is Assistant Director Emerita of the Corinth Excavations, part of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA).
Sponsored by the UCSB Ancient Mediterranean Studies Program and the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group.
jwil 25.xi.2012

"Freedom Under God": Corporations and Christian Libertarianism against the New Deal
2013-01-18 00:00
Kruse is the author of the prize-winning White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (2006) and the editor, most recently, of The Second World War and the Civil Rights Movement (2012). His new book project is “One Nation Under God: Corporations, Christianity and the Roots of the Religious Right.” His paper can be found here.

Civilizing' the Pillagers: Identity, Race, and Domesticity in Ojibwe Country, 1830-1890
2013-01-23 00:00
Dr. Harper’s talk centers on the identity of Susan Bonga, who was a member of the Pillager band of Ojibwe Indians residing in northern Minnesota and the daughter of a prominent fur trader of mixed African-Ojibwe ancestry. A moment of crisis in her life is analyzed by discussing the contexts of the federal “civilizing” program, female domesticity, and Christian missions in Ojibwe country, all of which significantly influenced notions of identity about and among Indians in the region in the 19thcentury. Through examining discourse surrounding Susan’s marriage engagement in 1880, she illustrates how hierarchies of “civilized” and “race” awkwardly intersected as they produced tensions in conceptions of her identity. She gives particular attention to gendered aspects of colonialism in her examination of how missionaries sought to restructure Ojibwe communities by looking at the ways in which Ojibwe women both adapted and subverted forms of patriarchy, individualism, capitalism, and domesticity that were imposed in Native communities.
The History Department is hosting Dr. Mattie Harper, a Berkeley PhD and current UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, who is a candidate for a position in our department.
hm 1/14/13

PERFORMANCE: Theater of War
2013-01-31 00:00
Theater of War is an innovative project that presents professional actors reading scenes from ancient Greek drama about soldiers returning from war. Following the reading, a panel of veterans and community members will offer their personal responses to the play in order to initiate an audience discussion about the psychological, physical, emotional and social challenges facing veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sponsored by the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion and Public Life, the Department of Theater and Dance, the IHC’s Hester and Cedric Crowell Endowment, and the IHC series Fallout: In the Aftermath of War.
Presented by Outside the Wire: http://www.outsidethewirellc.com
33 Flatbush Avenue, 5th Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Phone: 718-624-0350
Fax: 718-624-0354
Email: info@outsidethewirellc.com
hm 1/25/13
