Memphis Historians

Happy Holidays, all! ☃️❄️

Please check out the latest edition of the department's newsletter, History Happenings:

https://www.memphis.edu/history/newsletter/pdfs/historyhappenings_fall2024.pdf

Please join us for the Department of History's Belle McWilliams Lecture with Dr. Amrita Myers from Indiana University. The lecture will be held Thursday, November 14, 2024, at the Maxine A. Smith University Center's Memphis Room (UC 340). The event is free and open to the public and is jointly sponsored by the History Department and the Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities.

Please join us for this semester’s History Matters Talk:

“Circus World: A Labor History of the Big Top.”
presented by Dr. Andrea Ringer, Associate Professor of History, Tennessee State University

Details: September 19 at 3:00 pm, Mitchell Hall 200

Dr. Aram Goudsouzian has a new piece out in The Conversation contrasting the 1968 presidential election with current situation:

https://theconversation.com/kamala-harris-is-no-hubert-humphrey-how-the-presumed-2024-democratic-presidential-nominee-isnt-like-the-1968-party-candidate-235358?fbclid=IwY2xjawEQtxJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHUfoJ7O-N18QSLI-cMgySa5a2ScJQdZACd6cAY87jwe7A6E2MXKD8l_lUQ_aem_AFxW6pY4uggEFBc6GJT4fg

Kamala Harris is no Hubert Humphrey − how the presumed 2024 Democratic presidential nominee isn’t like the 1968 party candidate With the huge task of a late presidential run against Donald Trump, Kamala Harris faces challenges distinct from those faced by Vice President Hubert Humphrey after LBJ decided not to seek reelection.

Professor Cookie Woolner was interviewed for this National Geographic article for Pride Month. Our Alum, Rebekkah Mulholland, now a faculty member at Cal State University at Sacramento, is also featured:

How the rainbow flag became a symbol of the LGBTQIA+ community The Pride flag is continuously evolving, with the latest intersex-inclusive design highlighting diverse identities within the community.

Congratulations to Professor Woolner on a strong first review of her new book:

I Would Like to Know Her: On Cookie Woolner’s “The Famous Lady Lovers” | Los Angeles Review of Books Leigh-Michil George reviews Cookie Woolner’s “The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Q***r Desire Before Stonewall.”...

Drs. Graham and Goudsouzian had a special guest visit from Dr. Gaggioli while taking students to the Parthenon as part of their ‘Sites of Power, Sites of Death’ study abroad trip in Italy and Greece!

Congratulations to Professor Onstine! Her team mapping lost branches of the Nile and their relationship to the construction of the pyramids is getting a great deal of press:

https://www.cnn.com/.../egypt-pyramids-nile.../index.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01449-y....
https://www.newscientist.com/.../2431679-a-lost-branch.../
https://theconversation.com/we-mapped-a-lost-branch-of...

--Some of the articles include photos of Dr. Onstine and Branson Anderson, current PhD student in Ancient Egyptian History.

A major article on the project coauthored by Professor Onstine has just been published in Nature:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01379-7

The Egyptian pyramid chain was built along the now abandoned Ahramat Nile Branch - Communications Earth & Environment The pyramids of the Western desert in Egypt were built alongside a now extinct branch of the Nile River named as the Ahramat Branch and identified using a combination of radar satellite imagery, geophysical data and deep soil coring.

Dear History Graduates!

On behalf of the entire Department of History I extend sincere congratulations on your graduation! Your time in our programs overlapped with the unprecedented disruptions of the deadly COVID pandemic, yet you persevered. You pushed through; you rose to new challenges; you gained new insights into the historical developments that have shaped our world. You are ready to help shape the future as active and informed citizens.

War, rapid economic and social developments, migration, and constant change and transformation in the ever more globalized reality in which we live underscore one of our department’s central messages: History Matters!

Please consider liking our Memphis Historians page and keep in touch!

Best wishes,

Dr. Daniel Unowsky

The Spring Department of History has just be published on our website:

https://www.memphis.edu/history/newsletter/index.php

This issue honors the careers three professors who are retiring this academic year (Charles Crawford, Guiomar Duenas-Vargas, and Stephen Stein), one professor who retired in August 2022 (James Fickle) as well as one of our beloved long-term adjunct instructors (Robert Griffin). There is also a feature on our students who participated at this year’s Phi Alpha Theta conference and short updates for some of our alumni. We encourage alumni to consider sending in their own updates for future editions!

Department of History Newsletter Archive November 2023 | March 2023 | December 2022 | April 2022 | October 2021 | March 2021 | October 2020 | April 2020 | Sept 2019 | March 2019 | September 2018 | February 2018 | October 2017 | February 2017 | September 2016| February 2016 | February 2015 | September 2014 | February 2014 | Septem...

Dr. Cookie Woolner was interviewed for this NBC article of the resurgence of "sapphic" identity which was published today in honor of Le***an Visibility Week:

What does 'Sapphic' mean? An ancient term is having a modern moment From the Sapph-lit book club to the Sapph-o-rama film series and the Sapphic Sandwich Instagram account, a word with an ancient Greek namesake is being reclaimed by women-loving women.

You’re invited to Novel on Monday, April 29, at 6:00 pm, for an event featuring Aram Goudsouzian, Bizot Family Professor of History, and Geoff Calkins, the award-winning columnist for the Daily Memphian.. Goudsouzian is the editor of OUT OF LEFT FIELD, the recently published memoir of the late Stan Isaacs, who was an irreverent and iconoclastic sports columnist for the Long Island newspaper Newsday in the 1960s. Please join us for a conversation about the past, present, and future of sportswriting. It should be fun!

ARAM GOUDSOUZIAN & GEOFF CALKINS: OUT OF LEFT FIELD: A SPORTSWRITER'S LAST WORD Join us as we welcome ARAM GOUDSOUZIAN in conversation with GEOFF CALKINS on MONDAY, APRIL 29 at 6:00 pm to discuss OUT OF LEFT FIELD: A SPORTSWRITER'S LAST WORD. ABOUT THE BOOK: Iconoclastic and irreverent, Stan Isaacs was part of a generation that bucked the sports establishment with a skepticism....

Our History department's Phi Alpha Theta faculty advisor (Epsilon Nu chapter) Prof. Beverly Tsacoyianis accompanied three students from our department to the closest regional Phi Alpha Theta conference this past weekend. In this photo (right to left) are Prof. Tsacoyianis, undergraduate Molly Yates, graduate student Shiann Cupples, graduate student RaSean Jenkins (who received the sole graduate paper and presentation prize awarded at the conference), and Prof. James Conway, who is an assistant professor at Arkansas State University and is currently the Phi Alpha Theta advisor for ASU's chapter. Prof. Conway is a proud alum of the University of Memphis History Department, having earned his Ph.D. in 2015.

Congratulations to Professor Cookie Woolner! Professor Woolner presented her work and her new book this past week at the annual Organization of American Historians conference:

Thursday Highlights at OAH 2024 The 2024 Annual Meeting for the Organization of American Historians opened Thursday. Attendees braved storms and flood warnings to arrive at the Marriott Hotel in New Orleans, located in the historic French Quarter on Canal Street. We are lucky enough to be here during the French Quarter Festival, g