Events
- Annual Convention
- Great Teaching Round-up
- Leading from the middle
- fall conference for faculty leaders
- The Texas Network
"I think there is something more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren't enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision."
Events: 2012 History Schedule
History Summary
Friday, 11:15 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.
"The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield"
Speaker: H.W. Brands, Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History, University of Texas
Friday, 2:30 - 3:45 p.m.
"The Fiery Trial"
Speaker: Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, Columbia University
Saturday, 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.
"Women and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe"
Speaker: Brian P. Levack, John E. Green Regents Professor of History, University of Texas
Friday, March 2nd, 11:15 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.
"The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield"
Speaker: H.W. Brands, Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History, University of Texas
A love triangle in Gilded Age New York goes fatally wrong, scandalizing the city, titillating the country, and revealing to students of history how the intimate experiences of individuals intersect and illuminate the great issues confronting the nation at large.
Biography:
Henry William Brands was born in Oregon, went to college in California, sold cutlery across the American West, and earned graduate degrees in mathematics and history in Oregon and Texas. He taught at Vanderbilt University and Texas A&M University before joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is the Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History. He writes on American history and politics, with books including Traitor to His Class, Andrew Jackson, The Age of Gold, The First American, and TR. Several of his books have been bestsellers; two, Traitor to His Class and The First American, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. He lectures frequently on historical and current events, and can be seen and heard on national and international television and radio programs. His writings have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Friday, March 2nd, 2:30 - 3:45 p.m.
"The Fiery Trial"
Speaker: Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, Columbia University
Based on Professor Foner's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, this talk traces Abraham Lincoln's changing views and policies regarding slavery and race from his early life to the end of his presidency. It delineates his progress from a person who strongly disapproved of slavery yet remained devoted to the compromises of the Constitution, and who shared many of the racial prejudices of his era, to the president who issued the Emancipation Proclamation and began to think seriously about the rights African-Americans should enjoy in a post-slavery society.
Biography:
Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D. In his teaching and scholarship, Foner focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and nineteenth-century America. His most recent book, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the Lincoln Prize. He is the author of Give Me Liberty! An American History, the leading American-history survey textbook. In 2006 Foner received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching at Columbia University. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Society of American Historians.
Saturday, March 3rd, 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.
"Women and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe"
Speaker: Brian Levack, John E. Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin
This illustrated lecture will address the question why more than three-quarters of theindividuals prosecuted for the crime of witchcraft in Europe between 1450 and1750 were women. It will explore the contemporary belief of inquisitors, demonologistsand artists that women were more likely to have made pacts with the devil and the belief of the accused witches’ neighbors that women were more likely to have practiced maleficent magic.
Biography:
Brian Levack is the John E. Green Regents Professor in History at the University of Texas. The winner of several teaching awards, he offers a wide variety of courses on early modern British and European history and the history of witchcraft. His books include The Civil Lawyers in England, 1603-1641: A Political Study (1973); The Formationof the British State: England, Scotland and the Union, 1603-1707 (1987); The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (3rd edition, 2006); and Witch-Hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics, and Religion (2008). He is the co-author of The West: Encounters and Transformations (3rd edition, 2011), published by Pearson.
History Section Chair:
Chase Machen, Grayson County College