Department of History, UC Santa Barbara

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 (America/Los_Angeles) | 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.

History and Political Economy Colloquium
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

Public History Colloquium, Meleia Simon-Reynolds, Watsonville is in the Heart
2025-05-02 12:00 - 13:30
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
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

Gender & Sexualities Colloquium: "Commodifying Contraception: A Political Economy of Sex in Interwar Britain"
2025-10-03 12:00 - 13:50
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

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
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

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
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.

Sarah Bond: Law and Order: Legal Limits on Freedom of Assembly and Protest in Ancient Rome
2025-11-07 15:30 - 17:00
Sarah Bond (University of Iowa) will give a lecture titled “Law and Order: Legal Limits on Freedom of Assembly and Protest in Ancient Rome.” Please note that the lecture will take place in HSSB 6020 (i.e., the McCune Conference Room).

Gender & Sexualities Colloquium: "To Be Worthy of the Name of My Father: Métis, Paternity and Belonging in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Colonial and Postcolonial French Africa and France"
2025-11-14 12:00 - 13:50
November 14, 2025
12:00-1:50 pm HSSB 4020
Professor Rachel Jean-Baptiste (History, Stanford) will present her article, “To Be Worthy of the Name of My Father: Métis, Paternity and Belonging in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Colonial and Postcolonial French Africa and France,” Gender & History 37, no. 2 (2025): 462-476.

Political Economy Colloquium: Tiraana Bains: How to Rule a Global Empire
2025-11-21 12:00 - 15:00 | HSSB 4020, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
Professor Tiraana Bains is delivering a talk entitled “How to Rule a Global Empire, 1784-1793” on Nov. 21, 2025. Please join us!

Gender & Sexualities Colloquium: Graduate Student Workshop
2025-12-05 09:00 - 16:00
Day-long Graduate Student Workshop that provides a venue for students in history and other disciplines to share and receive formative feedback on their works in progress.

History Associates Talk : Shaun Armstead on "African-American women in peace organizations"
2026-01-25 14:00 - 16:00 | Presidio Chapel (123 E Canon Perdido St, Santa Barbara), Presidio Chapel, 123 E Canon Perdido St., Santa Barbara
History professor Shaun Armstead will speak on African American women in peace organizations.

More details : TBA

History Associates Book Club: "Lies my Teacher Told Me"
2026-01-29 17:00 - 18:00 | Mosher Alumni House, Alumni Association / UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, 93106
Book Club for history faculty, staff, students, History Associates, and history-minded community members. We’ll discuss Lies My Teacher Told Me (graphic novel, PDF will be available closer to the time). Food will be served.
Version 1.0.0
