Emilye Crosby: Ten Things You Should Know About Selma

Emilye Crosby's essay on the historical background to the new film Selma has been featured in a number of different places this month.  With commemorations of the Selma to Montgomery March and the 1964 Voting Rights Act coming up later this year, Emilye's work serves as a good critical introduction to the key issues and the ways that the civil rights movement is represented in contemporary American culture.

A short version of her essay, "Ten Things You Should Know About Selma Before You See the Film" is available here, and a longer discussion with curriculum materials and other resources for teachers in available here.

Campus Visit by Tom Ingrassia (Class of 1974)

Geneseo was fortunate to have alumnus Tom Ingrassia back on campus for a week as part of a writer-in-residence program.  He made several campus presentations, including a reading of his book One Door Closes:  Overcoming Adversity by Following Your Dreams and a class visit with students from Professor Cathy Adams's African-American History since 1877 course.  Tom spoke with the students about "Motown and the Civil Rights Movement", drawing on his personal experiences as former Creative Director and Executive Assistant for Mary Wilson of the Supremes.  His visit to campus was profiled in this article from the Genesee Sun.

Professor Michael Oberg has been featured in a number of recent events in connection with two major forthcoming research projects on the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua and the 19th century missionary Eleazer Williams.  This past week, Oberg was one of the featured panelists on "WXXI Connections with Evan Dawson", a local program that airs on Rochester's NPR affiliate.  You can listen to his discussion of the Treaty of Canandaigua here.  Earlier this fall, Oberg also wrote an editorial about the controversy centering around the problematic stereotypes associated with the Washington Redskins nickname for the Albany Times-Union.  His essay can be read here.

Professor Tze-ki Hon's New Book: Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes)

The department congratulates Professor Tze-ki Hon on the publication of his new book Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes).  The book is co-authored by Geoffrey Raymond and is available from Oxford University Press, with more detail available here.

Professor Hon is one of the department's most active scholars, and has been honored on several occasions by the College for his work.  This includes a 2002 SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and a 2011 SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activities.  He has also held international appointments at the Modern East Asia Research Center at the University of Leiden and at the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

Geneseo Hosts 64th Annual New York State Association of European Historians Meeting

Geneseo hosted the New York State Association of European Historians' Annual Meeting for the first time since 1998 over the weekend of October 3-4.  Scholars from across the state and country participated in this academic conference, with several panels devoted to the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of World War I.  Geneseo alumni Todd Goehle, Kristin Burger Cruz, and Rick Fogarty presented original research at the conference and Professor Helena Waddy gave the keynote address on "Romantic Royals:  The Anglo-German Connection from Britain's George IV to Bavaria's Ludwig II".

Geneseo Alumnus Alec Tare Wins Phi Alpha Theta National Award

May 2014 graduate Alec Tare was named recipient of Phi Alpha Theta's Lynn W. Turner Prize.  This is the highest national award granted by Phi Alpha Theta (the history national honor society) for a piece of undergraduate research.  Alec's paper was based on the senior thesis he wrote under the supervision of Professor Justin Behrend, entitled "Nobody Should Use Them Ill...Strike One and Strike All:  Patterns of Evolving Resistance among Slave Trade Sailors during the 18th Century".  Congratulations to Alec!

Geneseo Welcomes New Faculty Member Ryan Jones

The History Department is pleased to welcome Professor Ryan Jones as our newest tenure-track faculty member.  Ryan comes to us from Washington University in St. Louis where he spent a year as a visiting professor.  With a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Jones brings expertise in Latin American history, cultural history, and the history of gender and sexuality.  Ryan came to Geneseo as part of a cluster hire in Latin American Studies that included searches in the departments of History, Political Science and International Relations, Anthropology, and Languages and Literatures.  You can learn more about Ryan and the cluster hire here.