Department of History
Arts & Science Building 216       
302 Buchtel Common                  
Akron, OH 44325-1902
330 972-7006 330 972-7007 
FAX: 330 972-5840

History Chair: Michael M. Sheng

 

Associate Dir. of Gen. Ed. Programs: Rosemarie Eichler
Director of Graduate Studies: Kevin Kern
Humanities Director: Michael Levin
World Civilizations Director:  Martin Wainwright
Asst to Chair on Undergraduate Advisement: Rosemarie Eichler
To schedule an appointment to speak with an advisor call
330 972-7006 or stop by History Department, CAS 216
Admin. Asst History Gen. Ed.: Kym Rohrbach, 330 972-7007
Admin. Asst.: Wade Wilcox 330 972-8535.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Congratulations to Jenifer (Knight) Barclay

The Department of History at The University of Akron congratulates alum Jenifer (Knight) Barclay (M.A. 2006), currently a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University, for winning the prestigious Carter G. Woodson Pre-Doctoral Fellowship for 2009-2011 to support her dissertation research. 

The Carter G. Woodson fellowship program of the Institute for African and African-American Studies at the University of Virginia is the premier of its kind in the field of pan-African studies.  Fellows have at their disposal an incomparable library and opportunities to  share their research with one another and with a larger community of scholars in the field.   This award is unparalleled for scholars-in-training in the discipline of History.

Jenifer's dissertation, "Cripples All!  Or, the Mark of Slavery':  The Invisible Link between Disability and Race in the Old South and Beyond," takes a close look at how race was percieved, represented and treated as a physical deformity in the Antebellum period in ways that have profound implications for post-slavery understandings of race in America.  Her title echoes the infamous pro-slavery tract written in 1857 by George Fitzhugh , "Cannibals All! or Slaves Without Masters," to drive home the links between the freakish qualities attached to blackness in this period and the stigmatizing power of slavery.   Jenifer's work contributes to the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of 'disability studies' and draws on theories of race, including whiteness, as well as gender to build her case that black people in the antebellum period, and since, have been percieved as freaks on a continuum with 'cripples' and women.  Her approach to the study of U.S. slavery is fresh and original will be a great contribution to our understanding of the meaning of race, gender and disability .

11th Annual Sally A. Miller Humanities Lecture

The University of Akron
11th Annual Sally A. Miller Humanities Lecture
Sponsored by the Sally A. Miller Humanities Center and the Department of History
“Language and Globalization: Towards a Geolinguistic Imagination”

Mary Louise Pratt

Silver Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis
New York University
Thursday March 12, 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Martin University Center Ballroom
Free and open to the public
Itinerary
Writing Sample