Department of History, UC Santa Barbara

Whiskey Goes to War: American Distillers and the Politics of Food and Alcohol during WWII
2011-04-05 00:00 (America/Denver)
The invasion of Normandy, the creation of an industrial war machine, and the falling reputation of rum—how does whiskey tie them all together? Lisa Jacobson answers this question by exploring the political and cultural ramifications of domestic whiskey shortages during World War II. Contrary to the common assumption that the federal government steered clear of alcohol questions after Prohibition’s repeal, her paper shows how large distillers emerged from the war both more powerful and more distrusted thanks to delayed federal intervention on their behalf. Distillers might have scored a much-needed public relations victory when they converted their entire production to industrial alcohol to aid in the manufacture of smokeless gun powder and synthetic rubber. Their substantial reserves of aging whiskey, however, could not keep pace with rising wartime demand and the resulting liquor shortages gave way to price gouging and black markets. The distillers campaigned for (and eventually won) “liquor holidays” from war production to replenish dwindling whiskey inventories, but the state’s ambivalent response to liquor shortages and the liquor trade’s own eagerness to profit from them damaged whiskey makers’ reputation.
This paper workshop is designed to provide the author with feedback on work-in-progress. Please contact Ali Hendley at ahendley@umail.ucsb.edu to obtain a copy of the paper to read beforehand.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Food Studies RFG and the Dept. of History.
hm 3/30/11

The Anatolian Past and the Roman Beholder
2011-04-06 00:00
In Roman antiquity as much as now, the landscapes of Asia Minor were strewn with the traces of prior human habitation, from Hittite rock-cut reliefs to abandoned Urartian fortifications. Anatolian authors writing under Roman rule—notably during the second and third centuries CE—had a keen interest in exploring mythological and pseudo-historical narratives about the local past; echoing these literary concerns, the sculptural and numismatic production of cities throughout Roman Asia Minor celebrated remote foundation myths and kinship ties. But was anyone interested in manipulating material remains to imagine the Anatolian past? And were the traces of prior human habitation used to substantiate a preferred one version of local history over others? Who cared about Anatolian realia and why?
Felipe Rojas received his Ph.D. in Classics from UC Berkeley. He is a 2010-2011 postdoctoral fellow at the Getty Villa.
This event is sponsored by the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program and the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group.
jwil 09.iii.2011

The Racial Politics of Bernstein's On the Town (1944)
2011-04-07 00:00
Lecture I: An Integrated Cast in a Segregated AmericaThursday, April 7, 4 p.m., Karl Geiringer Hall (Music 1250)
On the Town (1944) was the first Broadway show of Leonard Bernstein (music), Betty Comden and Adolph Green (book and lyrics), and Jerome Robbins (choreography). It featured three sailors enjoying a one-day leave in New York City, and it did so in the midst of WWII, when the U.S. military remained firmly but contentiously segregated. A number of African Americans performed in the show’s otherwise all-white cast. Black male dancers donned sailor uniforms, and black women danced hand-in-hand with white men. This lecture explores the transgressive message and silent-but-powerful political back-story of this now-forgotten racial landmark.
Lecture II: A Japanese-American Star on Broadway during WWII
Friday, April 8, 4 p.m., Karl Geiringer Hall (Music 1250)
At the same time as On the Town contributed a chapter to the Long Civil Rights movement, it also challenged the virtual exclusion of Asians from Broadway by hiring the dancer Sono Osato as the show’s star. On the day after Pearl Harbor, Osato’s father had been arrested as an “alien enemy” and he remained on parole in Chicago when the show opened. This lecture explores the cultural complexities of Osato’s presence in On the Town .
Carol J. Oja is William Powell Mason Professor of Music at Harvard and on the faculty of its Program in the History of American Civilization. Her Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s won the Lowens Book Award from the Society for American Music and an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. Other titles include Copland and his World (co-edited with Judith Tick) and Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds . She is past-president of the Society for American Music, and she is completing a book tentatively titled Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War .
These lectures are sponsored by the UCSB Department of Music.
jwil 28.iii.2011

East and West: Encounters along the Silk Road
2011-04-11 00:00
Ronald Mellor is Professor of History at UCLA.
This event is sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa in cooperation with the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program and the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group.
jwil 24.iii.2011

From Victory Gardens to Urban Agriculture
2011-04-13 00:00
TALK: From Victory Gardens to Urban Agriculture: Join the Garden RevolutionRose Hayden-Smith (IHC Research Fellow)
Wednesday, April 13 / 12:00 PM
McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB
Hayden-Smith will present an in-depth look at the past and present of the Victory Garden movement. This paper will review historical case studies and discuss current national policies and models as well as future work needed to sustain the Victory Garden model as part of the overall local food movement. Hayden-Smith will also discuss urban agriculture and how the local food-systems movement is addressing a wide range of challenges facing Americans today. A graduate of UCSB, Hayden-Smith is the Strategic Initiative Leader for Sustainable Food Systems for UC’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Division.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Research Fellows Program.
Website: www.victorygrower.com
More Information: http://www.ihc.ucsb.edu/?p=4412
hm 4/6/11

Russia and Terrorism
2011-04-14 00:00
This talk is about Russia’s historical experiences with and responses to terrorist activities.
Alexander Kubyshkin is Professor of the Department of North American Studies, School of International Relations, St. Petersburg State University, Russia, and currently a Fulbright Scholar at Ramapo College of New Jersey. He will speak about the historical roots of terrorism in Russian history, terrorist activities and Russia’s anti-terrorism measures in the Northern Caucasus, and Russia’s policy toward international terrorism.
The talk is sponsored by the Center for Cold War Studies and International History, the Ofalea Center for Global and International Studies, the Department of History, and the Department Political Science.
The talk is free and open to the public. Please join us for this important event!
hm 4/7/11

International Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War
2011-04-14 00:00
The GWU/UCSB/LSE International Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War will be taking place here at UCSB April 14-16, 2011, in the Harbor Room, on the lower level of UCen. The conference is an annual event jointly sponsored by the Center for Cold War Studies and International History, along with affiliated Cold War centers at George Washington University and the London School of Economics. The conference rotates among the three university campuses, and this year is UCSB’s turn. Twenty-two graduate students from all over the world are taking part in the conference, presenting papers covering a wide array of topics relating to the Cold War. (See attached schedule.) It’s shaping up to be a great event, and we cordially invite you to attend.
The students’ papers have been submitted and uploaded onto a password-protected web site, and conference attendees are encouraged to read as widely in the papers as possible prior to the event. Anyone interested in attending the conference can contact me at this email address, and I will provide him or her with the url and password.
Please join us for this exciting event! The schedule is as follows:
THURSDAY, APRIL 14
5:00-8:00 pm—Orientation, Reception, and Dinner
(Including presentation by Tsuoyoshi Hasegawa on his new edited volume, The Cold War in East Asia, 1945-1989, and comment by Arne Westad, London School of Economics)
FRIDAY, APRIL 15
8:15-9:00—Breakfast
Session 1: 9:00-10:30—Nuclear Weapons
Chair: Jason Parker, Texas A & M
Mary McPartland, George Washington University
“Captured Colleagues: British Scientists’ Advice about Their German Colleagues Detained at Farm Hall, 1945-46”
Comment: Peter Westwick, University of Southern California
Anthony Crain, Ohio State University
“Neutron Diplomacy”
Comment: Hope M. Harrison, George Washington University
Jason Saltoun-Ebin, University of California, Santa Barbara
“Ronald Reagan and the Strategic Defense Initiative”
Comment: Peter Westwick, University of Southern California
Session 2: 10:40-12:10—Europe
Chair: Salim Yaqub, University of California, Santa Barbara
Weston Ullrich, London School of Economics
“Same as the Old Boss? U.S. Policy and the Malenkov Interregnum, 1953-1955”
Comment: Donal O’Sullivan, California State University, Northridge
Bernhard Blumenau, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland
“The Other Battleground of the Cold War: The UN, West Germany, and the Struggle Against International Terrorism in the 1970s”
Comment: Hope M. Harrison, George Washington University
Una Bergmane, Institute d’Etude Politique Paris
“French, American, and German Foreign Policy Toward the Lithuanian Crisis of 1990”
Comment: Mary Sarotte, University of Southern California
12:10-1:10—Lunch
1:10-2:15 Keynote Address
Mary Sarotte, University of Southern California
“The International Legacy of 1989”
2:15-3:00—Plenary discussion on subject TBA, led by Hope M. Harrison, George Washington University
Session 3: Africa—3:15-4:45
Chair: Mhoze Chikowero, University of California, Santa Barbara
Alessandro Iandolo, Oxford University
“The Rise and Fall of the ‘Socialist Model of Development’ in West Africa, 1957-1964”
Comment: Arne Westad, London School of Economics
Jamie Miller, Cambridge University
“‘This Bastion Against Communism’: South Africa and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire, 1973-74”
Comment: Jennifer De Maio, California State University, Northridge
Nathaniel Powell, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland
“Saving Mobutu: The International History of Africa’s First Peacekeeping Force”
Comment: Jennifer De Maio, California State University, Northridge
6:00 pm—Dinner at the home of Salim Yaqub
SATURDAY, APRIL 16
9:00-9:20 Breakfast
Session 4: The Arab and Muslim Worlds—9:20-10:50
Chair: Donal O’Sullivan, California State University, Northridge
Paul Baltimore, University of California, Santa Barbara
“From the Camel to the Cadillac: American Perceptions of Saudi Arabian Modernization and Consumption in the Early Cold War”
Comment: Christopher Endy, California State University, Los Angeles
Brian Lawatch, George Washington University
“American Foreign Policy in France and the Maghreb: The 1958 Sakiet Crisis and the Anglo-American Good Offices Mission”
Comment: Salim Yaqub, University of California, Santa Barbara
Hanna Jansen, University of Amsterdam
“Gorbachev’s Multipolarity: A Clash of Civilizations?”
Comment: Arne Westad, London School of Economics
Session 5: U.S. Domestic Affairs—11:00-12:30
Chair: Darlene Rivas
Amanda Schlumpberger, University of Kansas
“‘Like Landing on the Moon: African Students, the Cold War, and Civil Rights in the United States in the 1960s”
Comment: Sara Pugach, California State University, Los Angeles
Eric Fenrich, University of California, Santa Barbara
“Guns, Butter, or Rockets: The Evolution of the American Impetus during the Race to the Moon”
Comment: Tom Devine, California State University, Northridge
Rachel Winslow, University of California, Santa Barbara
“Preserving the Black Family: Transnational Adoption, Social Policy, and Race during the Vietnam War”
Comment: Christopher Endy, California State University, Los Angeles
12:30-1:15 Lunch
Session 6: East Asia—1:15-3:05
Chair: Xiaowei Zheng
Lyong Choi, London School of Economics
“The Peaceful ‘War’: The Nixon Doctrine and South Korea’s Northern policy, 1969-1971”
Comment: Toshi Hasegawa, University of California, Santa Barbara
Helen Pho, University of Texas, Austin
“The Johnson Administration, the NLF, and the Kidnapping of Gustav Hertz during the Vietnam War, 1965-1967”
Comment: Thomas Devine, California State University, Northridge
Brian Hilton, Texas A & M University
“‘A Tolerable State of Order’: The United States, Taiwan, and the Recognition of the People’s Republic of China, 1948-1979”
Comment: Thomas Maddux, California State University, Northridge
Anna Armentrout, University of California, Berkeley
“Containing the Cold War: The Fulbright Hearings, Veteran Experience, and Ending the War in Vietnam”
Comment: Thomas Maddux, California State University, Northridge
Session 7: Latin America and the Caribbean—3:15-4:45
Chair: Sara Pugach, California State University, Los Angeles
Jorge Rivera Marin, Cornell University
“Breaking the Covenant: The United States, Cienfuegos, and the Collapse of U.S.-Cuban Relations, 1957-1958”
Comment: Darlene Rivas, Pepperdine University
Aragorn Storm Miller, University of Texas, Austin
“Caribbean Crisis: The U.S. Struggle with Venezuela, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic, 1958-1961”
Comment: Jason Parker, Texas A & M University
Ivan McLaughlin, University College Cork, Ireland
“Sheriff No More: The Vietnam Legacy in US-Nicaraguan Relations during the Carter Era”
Comment: Brian O’Neil, California State University, Long Beach
4:45-5:00—Closing Comments
hm 4/110/11

Government Lawyers and Bureaucratic Autonomy in the New Deal
2011-04-15 00:00
Please join us for a talk by Daniel Ernst, Georgetown University Law Center.
Earnst will speak on “Government Lawyers and Bureaucratic Autonomy in the New Deal.” He is the author of the prize-winning Lawyers Against Labor: From Individual Rights to Corporate Liberalism (1995) and Total War and the Law: the American Home Front in World War II. (2003)
The talk, and subsequent discussion, is part of the History 294: Colloquium in Work, Labor, and Political Economy, 2010-2011 lecture series.
The Spring Quarter series is on Worker Rights and the Law 20th Century America.
The Colloquium meets on Friday, April 15 at 1 p.m. in 4041 Humanities and Social Science Building.
jmj 04/09/2011

The Mountains: Representations of Italic Landscapes in the Aeneid
2011-04-15 00:00
Alessandro Barchiesi, Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Siena at Arezzo and G. and H. Spogli Professor of Italian Studies at Stanford University, holds the 2011-2012 Sather Lectureship at UC Berkeley.
Professor Barchiesi’s talk will examine representations of Italic landscapes in the Aeneid, especially wilderness, as seen in mountains and woods, and (super)natural phenomena, volcanic and sulphurous. He will discuss these images in a double perspective: on the one side ‘wild Italy’ anticipates ideas of Roman control over nature, on the other it allows the poem to be read not only as a meditation on the Italic past, but as a foundational text for Roman imperial expansion, colonial and diasporic.
This event is sponsored by the Department of Classics in cooperation with the Ancient Mediterranean Studies program and the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group.
jwil 30.iii.2011

Global Politics in the 1970s: The Transformation of China
2011-04-18 00:00
This workshop is about global politics in the 1970s, focusing primarily on the transformation of China in and around that decade.
Professor Westad will make a brief presentation and then lead a discussion of some of his recent scholarship. Workshop attendees are encouraged to read in advance Professor Westad’s essay, “The Great Transformation: China in the Long 1970s,” which he contributed to Niall Ferguson et al., eds., THE SHOCK OF THE GLOBAL: THE 1970S IN PERSPECTIVE, along with Niall Ferguson’s introduction to that volume. Both pieces are contained in the pdf file attached to this message.
Professor Westad is a highly acclaimed scholar and a dynamic and engaging teacher. Please join us for this rare opportunity to work with him up close!
Odd Arne Westad is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and an expert on the history of the Cold War era and on contemporary international affairs. He co-directs LSE IDEAS, a center for international affairs, diplomacy, and strategy, is an editor of the journal COLD WAR HISTORY, and is a general editor of the forthcoming three-volume CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE COLD WAR. Professor Westad lectures widely on China’s foreign affairs, on Western interventions in Africa and Asia, and on foreign policy. Professor Westad’s most recent book, THE GLOBAL COLD WAR: THIRD WORLD INTERVENTIONS AND THE MAKING OF OUR TIMES, received the Bancroft Prize, the Michael Harrington Award, and the Akira Iriye International History Book Award. It has been translated into fourteen languages. He is now working on a history of Chinese foreign affairs since 1750.
hm 4/10/11

Art Markets and Cultural Exchanges: New Perspectives on the Renaissance
2011-04-19 00:00
Michael North is Professor of History at the University of Greifswald in Germany. He is the 2010-2011 Fulbright Chair in German Studies at UCSB.
Professor North’s research and teaching interests include the Holy Roman Empire, the growth of consumer culture in early modern Europe, the development of German nationalism, and the conceptualization of the Baltic region as a borderland. He is the author of Material Delight and the Joy of Living: Cultural Consumption in the Age of Enlightenment in Germany (Ashgate, 2008) and Artistic and Cultural Exchanges between Europe and Asia, 1400-1900 (Ashgate, 2010).
A light lunch will be served.
Sponsored by The Medieval Studies Program, Renaissance Studies, and the Department of History. For more information contact Ed English (english(at)history.ucsb.edu).
jwil 03.iv.2011

Native to the Republic: Citizenship, Slum Clearance and Social Welfare in 1950s Marseille
2011-04-20 00:00
During the post-World War Two economic boom, France implemented a comprehensive urbanism program intended to modernize and rationalize the nation by putting the city, the home, and the citizen in order. During this period, France was also working out the repercussions of decolonization as families from former French colonies in Africa and Asia migrated to the metropole. Municipal technocrats and central state planners had to decide how migrant families fit into an emerging national vision for a modern France. An important feature of this vision was developing a welfare state which included the mass construction of modern housing. In the late 1950s, many migrant families began to move into these large, concrete, Le Corbusier influenced housing projects on the fringes of French cities such as Marseille. This talk will situate recent debates about the “immigrant question” in the context of the developing post-1945 welfare state. In particular, the talk will explore the broader contours of the debate through a discussion of slum clearance and re-housing practices in 1950s Marseille.
hm 4/7/11

From Victory Gardens to Urban Agriculture: Join the Garden Revolution
2011-04-20 00:00
Hayden-Smith will present an in-depth look at the past and present of theVictory Garden movement. This paper will review historical case studies and
discuss current national policies and models as well as future work needed
to sustain the Victory Garden model as part of the overall local food
movement. Hayden-Smith will also discuss urban agriculture and how the
local food-systems movement is addressing a wide range of challenges facing
Americans today. A graduate of UCSB, Hayden-Smith is the Strategic
Initiative Leader for Sustainable Food Systems for UC’s Agriculture and
Natural Resources Division.
Sponsored by the IHCâ€™s Research Fellows Program.
hm 4/18/11

The Language of Hip Hop
2011-04-21 00:00
A Zimbabwean born academic and musician, Dr. Farai Berefocuses on what he calls Black performativity, the performance of
Blackness as a political force and how Black performance can be
said to embody Blackness. He looks at the context of Black
performance in Africa, the United States, and the rest of the
African Diaspora. Bere received his PhD from New York University
in Performance Studies with an emphasis on African and
Afro-Diasporic music, theater, and orature. Fafi will perform
briefly after his lecture.
CO-SPONSORED BY THE AFRICAN STUDIES RESEARCH FOCUS GROUP-INTERDISCIPLINARY HUMANITIES CENTER, FRIENDS OF AFRICA, PROFESSORS PETER BLOOM, MHOZE CHIKOWERO, AND STEPHAN MIESCHER, AND THEATER AND DANCE.
hm 4/12/11

The Writing of John Winthrop, Jr., Alchemy, and the Creation of New England Culture, 1606-1676
2011-04-26 00:00
Walter Woodward, the Connecticut State Historian and Assoc. Prof. of History at the Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, will be giving this talk via Skype hookup on Tuesday, April 26, 1-2:15, in HSSB 3001E (the seminar room located in the old Religious Studies Dept office) as part of the history department colloquium series and my History 201AM seminar on Colonial America.
Woodward’s talk will touch on colonial history, history of science, and public history, as well as offer a narrative of his own development as a scholar and public history professional. Ever wondered what it would be like to be a state historian? Walter can tell you: it keeps you on your toes.
Woodward will address the process of conceiving, researching, writing, and publishing his book, Prospero’s America: John Winthrop, Jr., Alchemy, and the Creation of New England Culture, 1606-1676 (Omohundro Institute, UNC Press 2010). This is a study of John Winthrop Jr, the founder of New London Colony, governor of Connecticut, and a leading alchemical and medical practitioner in seventeenth-century New England.
The book itself is available at:
Amazon.com.
Or you can find a description and review of it at:
philobiblios blog.
Hope to see you there!
This program co-sponsored by the Department of History and the Program in Public Historical Studies.
hm 4/19/11

Globalization and Flexibilization: The Remaking of the Employee Relationship in the 21st Century
2011-04-29 00:00
Please join us for a talk by Katherine Stone, UCLA School of Law.
Stone will talk on “Globalization and Flexibilization: The Remaking of the Employee Relationship in the 21st Century.” She is the author of the prize-winning From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation for the Changing Workplace (2004), as well as dozens of path-breaking law review essays on work and employment.
The talk, and subsequent discussion, is part of the History 294: Colloquium in Work, Labor, and Political Economy, 2010-2011 lecture series.
The Spring Quarter series is on Worker Rights and the Law 20th Century America.
The Colloquium meets on Friday, April 29 at 1 p.m. in 4041 Humanities and Social Science Building.
jmj 04/09/2011

The Eichmann Trial
2011-05-01 00:00
Prof. Lipstadt will present her new book The Eichmann Trial .
Reviews
“Having covered the Eichmann trial myself, I can warmly recommend Deborah Lipstadt’s important analysis of its fascinating perspectives.”
–Elie Wiesel
“A penetrating and authoritative dissection of a landmark case and its after effects.”
–Publishers Weekly
“Just in time for its fiftieth anniversary, renowned historian Deborah Lipstadt has reworked the Eichmann trial. This book is a powerfully written testimony to our ongoing fascination with the proceedings, the resonance of survivor tales, and how both changed our understanding of justice after atrocity.”
–David Gergen, professor, Harvard Kennedy School
“An excellent work of historical and political analysis by an accomplished writer. Compellingly written, it grips the reader from its opening pages. With this book, Deborah Lipstadt consolidates her standing as one of the major figures in the Jewish world today.”
–Anthony Julius, author of Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England
Book Description
Award-winning historian Deborah Lipstadt gives us a compelling reassessment of the groundbreaking trial that has become a touchstone for judicial proceedings throughout the world in which victims of genocide confront its perpetrators.
The capture of SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann by Israeli agents in Argentina in May of 1960 and his subsequent trial in Tel Aviv by an Israeli court electrified the world. The public debate it sparked on where, how, and by whom Nazi war criminals should be brought to justice, and the international media coverage of the trial itself, is recognized as a watershed moment in how the civilized world in general and Holocaust survivors in particular found the means to deal with the legacy of genocide on a scale that had never been seen before.
In The Eichmann Trial, award-winning historian Deborah Lipstadt gives us an overview of the trial and analyzes the dramatic effect that the testimony of survivors in a court of law–which was itself not without controversy–had on a world that had until then regularly commemorated the Holocaust but never fully understood the millions who died and the hundreds of thousands who managed to survive.
As the world continues to confront the ongoing reality of genocide and ponder the fate of those who survive it, this “trial of the century” offers a legal, moral, and political framework for coming to terms with unfathomable evil and with those who perpetrate it. In The Eichmann Trial, Lipstadt infuses a gripping narrative with historical perspective and contemporary urgency.
Description:
Award-winning historian Deborah E. Lipstadt offers a compelling reassessment of the groundbreaking trial that has become a touchstone for judicial proceedings throughout the world in which victims of genocide confront its perpetrators.
The capture of SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann by Israeli agents in Argentina in May of 1960 and his subsequent trial in Tel Aviv by an Israeli court electrified the world. The public debate it sparked on where, how, and by whom Nazi war criminals should be brought to justice, and the international media coverage of the trial itself, is recognized as a watershed moment in how the civilized world in general and Holocaust survivors in particular found the means to deal with the legacy of genocide on a scale that had never been seen before.
In The Eichmann Trial, Lipstadt provides an overview of the trial and analyzes the dramatic effect that the testimony of survivors in a court of law– which was itself not without controversy– had on a world that had until then regularly commemorated the Holocaust but never fully understood the millions who died and the hundreds of thousands who managed to survive. As the world continues to confront the ongoing reality of genocide and ponder the fate of those who survive it, this “trial of the century” offers a legal, moral, and political framework for coming to terms with unfathomable evil and with those who perpetrate it. In The Eichmann Trial, Lipstadt infuses a gripping narrative with historical perspective and contemporary urgency.
Profile of Speaker:
Deborah E. Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. Her book History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving (2005) is the story of her libel trial in London against David Irving, who sued her for calling him a Holocaust denier and right wing extremist. The book has been described as a “fascinating and meritorious work of legal–and moral–history” (Kirkus). It won the National Jewish Book Award and was a finalist for the Koret Book Award. It was ranked by the editors at Amazon.com as number four on its list of top ten history books of 2005.
The Daily Telegraph (London) declared that Lipstadt’s trial had “done for the new century what the Nuremberg tribunals or the Eichmann trial did for earlier generations.” The Times (London) described it as “history has had its day in court and scored a crushing victory.” The judge found David Irving to be a Holocaust denier, a falsifier of history, a racist, an antisemite, and a liar. Her legal battle with Irving lasted approximately six years. According to The New York Times, the trial “put an end to the pretense that Mr. Irving is anything but a self-promoting apologist for Hitler.” In July 2001 the Court of Appeal resoundingly rejected Irving’s attempt to appeal the judgment against him.
As an historical consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Lipstadt helped design the section of the Museum dedicated to the American Response to the Holocaust.
Lipstadt has been called upon by both President Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to represent the United States in several capacities. President Bush asked her to represent the White House at the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In June 2007 President Bush appointed her to the American delegation to the OSCE (the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) conference on combating intolerance and antisemitism. President Clinton appointed her to two consecutive terms on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. She accompanied President and Mrs. Clinton on an official visit to Warsaw. President Clinton also appointed her to the United States State Department Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad. In this capacity she, together with a small group of leaders and scholars, advised Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on matters of religious persecution abroad.
Dr. Lipstadt has also written Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (1993), the first full length study of those who deny the Holocaust. The book has been translated into German and Japanese. She has also written Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust (1986). The book, an examination of how the American press covered the news of the persecution of European Jewry between the years 1933 and 1945, addresses the question “what did the American public know and when did they know it?”
She has taught at University of Washington, UCLA and Occidental College in Los Angeles. In Spring 2006 she was a Visiting Professor at the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome. She received her B.A. from City College of New York and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Brandeis University.
Lipstadt has appeared on BBC, CNN, CBS’s Sixty Minutes, NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, National Public Radio’s Fresh Air, PBS’s Charlie Rose Show, and the O’Reilly Factor. She is a frequent contributor to and is widely quoted in a variety of newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times, and Chicago Tribune.
She has received numerous teaching awards including Emory’s student government association’s award for being the teacher most likely to motivate students to learn about new and unfamiliar topics and the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching award, for her courses on modern Jewish and Holocaust studies. Given to Emory’s outstanding teachers, the award is based on nominations by alumni of the professor who has had the greatest impact on them. She has received Honorary Doctorates from Yeshiva University, Bar Ilan University, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Hebrew Union College.
Sponsors:
The Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies at UC Santa Barbara,a program of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, is cosponsored by UCSB Arts & Lectures, Department of Religious Studies, Congregation B’nai B’rith, Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara, and Santa Barbara Hillel. This event is also cosponsored by the Department of History at UCSB.
hm 1/25/11, 3/24

Barbarians, the Baltic, and Beyond: A Comparative Borderlands Conference
2011-05-02 00:00
Traditional research on borders and frontiers has typically emphasized the divisive influence of “hard” boundaries imposed by geography, politics, and economics. This conference seeks to widen the narrow conceptions of space underlying traditional work on borders by focusing on borderlands and frontier zones, spaces of interaction between different cultural groups. The conference pays particular attention to the experiences of people who live and act in borderland societies. The participants in this conference study a diverse range of periods and places, but all share a common interest in the mechanics of borderlands interactions and the shaping of borderlands identities. Our goal is to foster comparative discussion that crosses academic dividing lines, in hopes of inspiring further research and cooperation.
This conference is sponsored by the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group (UC Santa Barbara) and the Baltic Borderlands International Research Training Group (University of Greifswald, Germany), in cooperation with the Ancient Mediterreanean Studies Program, the Department of History, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
Funding for this conference has been provided by the UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and the UCSB College of Letters & Science. Additional support was provided by the UC Multi-Campus Research Group in Late Antiquity.
OPENING REMARKS: 9:00-9:10am
John W.I. Lee (UCSB)
Michael North (University of Greifswald)
SESSION I: 9:10-10:25am
Veronica Castillo-Munoz (History, UCSB). Beyond “Red Light” Districts: Agrarian Struggles and Transnational Labor
in the Mexico-U.S. Borderlands.
Gabriela Soto Laveaga (History, UCSB). Borders and Boundaries of Political Dissent: Medical Knowledge and
Labor Strikes in Modern Mexico.
Manja Olschowski (History, Greifswald). The Influence of Territorial Borders on Medieval Monastic Economy.
BREAK: 10:25-10:45
SESSION II: 10:45am-12pm
Clinton Smith (History, UCSB). From Frontiers to Borderlands: The Shifting Contours of Native American History.
Olga Sasunkevich (Political Science & Sociology, Greifswald). Place, Gender and Power on the Borderlands: Studying the Petty
Smuggling Community on the Border between Belarus and Lithuania.
Leah Fernandez (History, UCSB). Cooperation and Conflict in a Borderland: California’s Imperial Valley, 1900-1910.
LUNCH: 12:00-1:00pm
KEYNOTE TALK & RESPONSE: 1:00-2:20pm
Greg Fisher (Greek and Roman Studies, Carleton University). Barbarian Leadership in the Places “In Between”– North African and Syrian Comparisons. With a response by Elizabeth DePalma Digeser (History, UCSB).
BREAK (2:20-2:40pm)
SESSION III: 2:40-4:15pm
Ann Marie Plane (History, UCSB). “These inraged Barbarians”: Visionaries and the Spiritual Struggle for the Maine Borderlands, 1675-1684.
Kord-Henning Uber (History, Greifswald). Weak Borders, Strong Boundaries? The Religious Environment of the
Couronian Nobility around 1700.
Stefan Herfurth (History, Greifswald). Swedish Pomerania in the 18th Century: Development of a Borderland in the Baltic Sea Region.
Adrienne Edgar (History, UCSB). Ethnic Mixing in a Eurasian Borderland: Intermarriage and Identity in Soviet Kazakhstan.
Closing Remarks: 4:15pm
John W.I. Lee (UCSB)
Michael North (Greifswald)
jwil 10.iv.2011

Tak for Alt: Survival of a Human Spirit
2011-05-02 00:00
This film, made by a former UCSB student, chronicles Judith Meisel’s experience as a Holocaust survivor, which inspired her life-long cursade against racism.
hm 4/26/11

Social Protest in Imperial Japan: Reading the Visual Record
2011-05-02 00:00
Co-sponsored by Department of History, UCSB
hm 4/26/11

Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharine to Splenda
2011-05-04 00:00
Carolyn de la Pena is a professor of American Studies.
Sponsored by the Food Studies Research Focus Group and the History Department.
hm 4/26/11

Ground Zero and Anti-Muslim Sentiments
2011-05-05 00:00
The battle over plans to build a Muslim religious center near ground zero has thrown into sharp relief anti-Muslim rhetoric that contradicts American values of religious tolerance. This panel will explore the origin of these sentiments in the context of ground zero as an emotionally-charged memorial space, and the exploitation of this history for political and ideological purposes. Maher Hathout is a Senior Advisor at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Los Angeles; Nuha Khoury, is a professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at UCSB; and Edward Linenthal is professor of History at the University of Indiana.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies; the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center’s Geographies of Place series; and the Walter Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion and Public Life.
hm 4/25/11

The Degradation of Work in the 21st Century
2011-05-06 00:00
Please join us for a talk by Tom Juravich, Sociology and Labor Studies, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
“The Degradation of Work in the 21st Century.”
Juravich is a labor educator and musician. He is the author of Chaos on the Shop Floor: A Worker’s View of Quality, Productivity and Management (1985); an ethnography of a bitter labor struggle in West Virginia, Ravenswood: The Steelworkers’ Victory and the Revival of American Labor, with Kate Bronfenbrenner, (1999); and At the Altar of the Bottom Line: The Degradation of Work in the 21st Century (2009).
The talk, and subsequent discussion, is part of the History 294: Colloquium in Work, Labor, and Political Economy, 2010-2011 lecture series.
The Spring Quarter series is on Worker Rights and the Law 20th Century America.
The Colloquium meets on Friday, May 6 at 1 p.m. in 4041 Humanities and Social Science Building.
jmj 04/25/2011

Pulling the Teeth of the Tropics: Science, Medicine, the Environment, and the Construction of the Panama Canal
2011-05-09 00:00
Between 1904 and 1914, the United States built the Panama Canal, an ambitious engineering project undertaken in the shadow of the French failure two decades earlier. The French experience taught American administrators several lessons, none more potent than the need to mitigate the destructiveness of so-called “tropical” diseases such as malaria and yellow fever. The U.S. responded with a sanitary program, informed by several critical mosquito vector discoveries at the end of the 19th century, that seemed to successfully meet that threat; indeed, many Americans claimed to have solved one of the vexing medical and imperial problems of the era: the settling of temperate peoples in tropical environments. The Americans had, to use the words of a contemporary commentator, pulled the teeth of the tropics. This talk will examine American perceptions of the tropics at the turn of the last century, how those perceptions informed U.S. sanitary and other administrative practices in Panama, and how those practices in turn resulted in the creation of a Canal Zone landscape that mixed marked public health improvements with racial and medical inequalities. It will also examine how the environmental changes wrought by canal construction actually created many of the conditions conducive to malaria and yellow fever transmission, and how it was scientists working in Panama who came to notice the disconnect between an environmental ideology that naturalized tropical disease and a material reality that implicated environmental changes as critical to the Isthmus’ public health challenges.
hm 5/6/11

21st Century Socialism and Venezuela
2011-05-10 00:00
Eva Golinger will discuss the Bolivarian project for participatory democracy in Venezuela that has occurred through the empowerment of the country’s poor majority during the last decade. As an advisor to elected President Hugo Chávez, she will also address some of the problems and conflicts facing Venezuela and the leftist South American-Caribbean bloc it helped found: the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América.
Eva Golinger, winner of the International Award for Journalism in Mexico (2009), is an Attorney and Writer from New York, living in Caracas, Venezuela since 2005 and author of several best-selling books, including The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela
hm 5/6/11

Harvest of Loneliness: the Bracero Program
2011-05-11 00:00
This documentary explores the historical accounts of migrant Mexican farm workers brought into the U.S. from 1942 to1964 under the temporary contract worker program known as the Bracero Program to work as cheap, controlled, and disposable workers. Discussion with Gonzalez following the screening. Gilbert G Gonzalez, Vivian Price, and Adrian Salinas,. Co-sponsored by the Hull Chair in Feminist Studies.
hm 5/6/11

CASTE, RACE, AND CLASS IN SPANISH CALIFORNIA
2011-05-12 00:00
Presidio Chapel at El Presidio de Santa Bárbara SHP123 East Canon Perdido Street, Santa Barbara, CA
Independent scholar Vladimir Guerrero is author of the book The Anza Trail and the Settling of California.
Guerrero will discuss the concepts of caste, race and class among the Anza settlers and the population of Alta
California at the end of the eighteenth century.
FREE event
For more information contact SBTHP at (805) 965-0093 or www.sbthp.org
hm 5/9/11

Civil Rights Protest and Labor Union Autonomy: The 1966 Hilton Hotel Protests and the Fate of Postwar Liberalism
2011-05-13 00:00
Please join us for a talk by Reuel Schiller, University of California, Hasting College of Law.
“Civil Rights Protest and Labor Union Autonomy: The 1966 Hilton Hotel Protests and the Fate of Postwar Liberalism.” Schiller’s areas of academic interest are twentieth-century American legal history, administrative law, and labor and employment law. A forthcoming book compares the legal strategies of the labor movement and the civil rights movement in the years since the Second World War.
The talk, and subsequent discussion, is part of the History 294: Colloquium in Work, Labor, and Political Economy, 2010-2011 lecture series.
The Spring Quarter series is on Worker Rights and the Law 20th Century America.
The Colloquium meets on Friday, May 13 at 1 p.m. in 4041 Humanities and Social Science Building.
jmj 04/09/2011

How California Invented Nanotechnology
2011-05-17 00:00
Despite its seeming newness, nanotechnology already has many different historical narratives. From seminal speeches at the start of the Space Age to futuristic imaginings in the 1980s to industrial commercialization in the 1990s, nanotechnology is always linked to California in some fashion. In this talk, McCray will explore how the West Coast version of nanotechnology resonated among researchers, policy makers, the media, and the public within and beyond the Golden State. Seen more broadly, this California-infused perspective gives insights into the nature of technological ecosystems, historical analogies, and the challenges posed by competing historical narratives.

Senior Honors Seminar Colloquium
2011-05-18 00:00
In the following schedule, the name of the student’s mentor appears in parenthesis and that of the commentator in brackets.
1-1:30 pm: Benjamin Lopez, “The Sullivan Campaign of 1779 and the New York Frontier: an American General Fails to Grasp Victory” (Pat Cohen) [Ann Plane]
1:30-2 pm: Christos Potamiamos, “The Function of the Roman Spectacle in Ephesos” (Christine Thomas, Beth DePalma Digeser) [Hal Drake]
2:10-2:40 pm: Rebekah Dunn, “‘Africa a-liberate Zimbabwe’? Music and Pan-Africanism in Zimbabwe and South Africa, 1950-1995” (Mhoze Chikowero) [Stephan Miescher]
2:40-3:10 pm: Alexa Greco, “Thorns Amongst the Tentacles: A Look into the Private and Public Depictions of the Standard Oil Company “ (Mary Furner) [John Majewski]
3:20-3:50 pm: Doug Wagoner, “A Crossroads of Racial and Gender Preferences: Affirmative Action and the University of California’s War Within” (Laura Kalman) [Greg Graves]
3:50-4:20 pm: Miles Freeman, “Heroes and Traitors: the China Hands, the China Lobby, and the War for America’s China Policy” (Randy Bergstrom) [Nelson Lichtenstein]
4:30-5 pm: Ian Anderson, “The Architecture of Totalitarianism” (Volker Welter)
[Al Lindemann]
hm 5/8/11
