Past Events
Past events of the College of Arts and Humanities
Spring 2022
Dr. Dreger presented “What Happens to Democracy When Anatomy Is No Longer Destiny?” A lecture on how the body fits within a changing American democracy on Feb. 10 fin the Fine Art’s Theatre on the Armstrong Campus as part of the annual lecture series funded by the family and friends of the late Mark Finlay, a History professor who passed away in 2013.
On Thursday April 21st, Dr. Knoerl and six students (Kaitlynn Perry, Marchello Graddy, Ozalynn Davis, Evan Joiner, Kaleb Craft, and Zachary Graham) presented African-American Maritime Sites in Coastal Georgia at the Jepson Center for the Arts. The speakers discussed their semester long project for their Maritime Archaeology course.
On Thursday March 31st, Dr. Dan Royles visited the Statesboro campus and presented, “Why Black AIDS History Matters.” Dr. Royles is an Assistant Professor of history at Florida International University, He is an award-winning historian of the late twentieth-century United States with specialties in the history of sexuality and African-American history. His recently published book, To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle Against HIV/AIDS (UNC Press, 2020), focuses on African-American responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic throughout the eastern United States in the latter decades of the twentieth century. In addition, Professor Royles’ work also examines South African responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The Department of History and the College of Arts and Humanities gratefully acknowledges the generous financial support of the Teagle Foundation for this speaker.
Spring 2020
Race, Law, and Justice: Meditations on Bryan Stevenson’s Just MercyWednesday, February 19 at 5:30 p.m.IAB 1020Statesboro CampusDr. Jonathan Bryant – The Legal Structure of White Supremacy: Jim Crow Dr. Julie de Chantal – The Extra-Legal Enforcement of White Supremacy: Lynching Attorney Francys Johnson – Race and Current Trends in Criminal Justice Reform Moderator: Dr. Michelle Haberland |
Come support our students at Mellow Mushroom! It’s on Tuesday, February 25 from 5-9 and if you say our name when you pay, they get 10%! Phi Alpha Theta needs to get at least 20 people to rsvp on the event site by the 22nd or Mellow Mushroom will cancel the event. So commit to eat if you can and share the link with your friends! We hope to see you there! https://www.groupraise.com/events/132770
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Join us on this afternoon:
Join us for the opening of a new exhibit in the IAB building and a special talk by Dr. Kwaku Nti in IAB Room 1012 at 5 p.m. on Thursday January 23rd.
Fall 2019
Need a break before finals? Come watch “Tora! Tora! Tora!” tonight in IAB 1012 at 6:30 p.m.!
This afternoon from 6:00-7:30, we will be holding the Public History Internship and Career Fair in the lobby of the Interdisciplinary Academic Building. We recommend that anyone wishing to secure an internship for credit or for pay come with resumes and dress professionally. We hope to see as big a crowd as we’ve gotten in past years to explore the many opportunities available!
Join History professors Johnathan O’Neill and Alan Downs, and University Executive Counsel Maura Copeland, to learn about the history of protected speech and expression in the United States and what kinds of speech and expression are allowed on campus.
Georgia Southern College of Arts and Humanities
Georgia Southern University professors Dr. Alena Pirok, Department of History and Dr. Kendra Parker, Department of Literature will present the second lecture in the 2019-2020 season of the Moveable Feast Lecture Series titled, “Harnessing the Shadows: Ghosts, Vampires and Undying Relationships to Our Past” on Sunday, Nov 3rd at 5 p.m. at The Mansion on Forsyth Park!
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Teach-in with Department of History faculty, on the Statesboro Campus, October 15, 2019.
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Phi Alpha Theta will be having a Book and Bake sale on Thursday, October 30 from 10-3 outside the Interdiscipliniary Academic Building. Stop by for a chance to buy some delicious baked goods and amazing books!
Phi Alpha Theta will be having a Book and Bake sale on Wednesday, October 30 from 10-3 outside the Interdiscipliniary Academic Building. Stop by for a chance to buy some delicious baked goods and amazing books!
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Come support Phi Alpha Theta on October 22nd between 5 and 8 p.m. at Zaxby’s on Chandler Road!
Hey everyone! One of our big fundraiser efforts this semester is our Zaxbys night! On Tuesday, October 22, 10% of all proceeds will benefit our organization! So please, stop by on the 22nd to get some delicious food and help our community grow!
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Two projects related to the local history of Savannah and the Georgia Southern History Department are being honored by the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council and the USG Chancellor’s Office. Susan Earl, Tom Kohler and Professor Robert Batchelor have received the 2019 Award for Excellence in Local History Advocacy for the “Waddie Welcome Archive—Savannah Signs Project.” (https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/savannah-signs/) The archive contains over 700 pictures of hand-painted African-American signs from Savannah, GA dating from the 1970’s to the present. A Georgia Humanities Council grant made digitization possible. Autumn Johnson (Special Collections, Henderson Library) and photographer Emily Earl (Sulfur Studios) helped enable recent public exhibitions. Retired professor of history John Duncan will also be receiving an award for his book The Showy Town of Savannah: The Story of the Architect William Jay (Mercer University Press, 2019), co-authored with Sandra Lee Underwood, a retired professor from St. Marys in Maryland.
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If you’re in Atlanta on October 4, please join us for “Off Script,” a one-day symposium held at Emory University to share cutting-edge research about the history of print and the book in global perspective. The event features scholarship on how Native American artifacts shaped American literature, papermaking and manuscript traditions in East Asia, global bookselling networks, and the afterlives of the “Codex Mendoza.” Co-organized by Corinna Zeltsman, Hwisang Cho (Emory), and Nick Wilding (Georgia State), the event brings together book historians working throughout the Southeast, including Georgia Southern’s own Robert Batchelor. RSVP at emorylib.info/offscript.
Join us for an Armstrong campus Phi Alpha Theta Field Trip to the 1839 Savannah – Ogeechee Canal on Saturday 28 September 2019 at 11 AM We’ll be meeting at the Canal Museum at 681 Fort Argyle Road [another name for HWY 204 going West after you go under I 95], and experience an area full of wildlife and history. Bring your walking shoes! The entrance fee is $3. We can do lunch afterwards.
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Rethinking Press Freedom and the Politics of Information: Lessons from 19th-Century Mexico By Dr. Corinna Zeltsman
Friday, November 15, 12:15 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.
Student Union, Ogeechee Theater, Armstrong Campus
In 1820, a revolution abolished the Mexican Inquisition and inaugurated freedom of the press as the new law of the land. Dr. Zeltsman explores the lively debates triggered by this legal transformation. These debates swirled around the printers who controlled access to Mexico’s printing presses and had suddenly become gatekeepers to an emerging world of free expression. Today, as powerful social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter inspire similar discussions around the world, the case of Mexico helps us think through the relationship among media purveyors, individual rights, politics, and society.
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We had a great turnout for the open house in Statesboro on Friday afternoon! If you didn’t have a chance to stop by, come talk to us in the IAB lobby on Wednesday from 11-1.
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A new exhibit featuring a Native American birch-bark canoe has just opened in the history department office on the Armstrong campus. The seventeen foot traditionally built craft, named Muskeego, was built in Grand Portage, Minnesota in 1998 by a group of Grand Portage Chippewa Band members and Mr. Erik Simula, a teacher at the Ely Folk School. Muskeego is an Ojibwa long-nose style canoe that was paddled annually in the Boundary Waters area of Minnesota and Canada until 2017 and was then put on display at the school.
This past spring the Museum of Underwater Archaeology (MUA) acquired Muskeego as part of its small boat collection housed in Savannah. The MUA sponsored the current exhibit created by Georgia Southern University Assistant Professor Dr. Kurt Knoerl. The exhibit features Muskeego, the tools used to build the canoe, images and text describing birch-bark canoes used in a Native context, and a touch table of materials used in birch-bark canoe construction.
Students in Dr. Knoerl’s Introduction to United States History will view the canoe as part of their discussions on Native American history and the fur trade. Visitors to the history department can also access the exhibit.
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Phi Alpha Theta’s will be hosting its first movie night of the semester on September 4th, at 7 p.m. in IAB 1012. It’s open to everyone! Don’t miss it!
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Are you interested in the major? Are you wondering about career opportunities in history? Want to know about our events for the Fall? Come visit us during the Weeks of Welcome!
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Spring 2019
Have you checked out “Peace Officers of Georgia: The Evolution of Law Enforcement”?
The new exhibit in the Interdisciplinary building was curated by Anna McIntyre, a graduate student in the Department of History Georgia Southern University. The exhibit features photographs, publications, and even oral histories from Zach S Henderson Library Special Collections. Details in the comments!
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The Department of History’s Professor Emerita Dr. Anastasia Sims delivered a wonderful commencement speech that reminded us all that students learn from faculty, but we faculty also learn so very much from our students. As Dr. Sims explained to the Class of 2019, just as you will remember certain faculty, please know that we will remember you, too. Congratulations to the Class of 2019! As you commence the next stage of your life and you have occasion to think back on your Georgia Southern History degree, remember the words of William Faulkner: “The past isn’t dead. It’s not even past.”
https://www.facebook.com/historygeorgiasouthern/videos/453303248807382/
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The Department of History is co-hosting! Join us!
https://calendar.georgiasouthern.edu/…/beyond_the_spotlight…
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Congratulations to Dr. Robert Batchelor and students in the Digital Humanities program! Be sure to tune in to GPB tonight at 7 p.m. for the LIVE BROADCAST of the Georgia InVenture Prize. Watch Georgia Southern students compete for a cash prize and a US Patent.
https://news.georgiasouthern.edu/…/georgia-southern-studen…/
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Join our own Professor Melissa Faris Gayan for a presentation this Wednesday, April 3, at noon in the Zach Henderson Library, room 1300. You may have heard something about the history of the nation of Georgia in reference to the recent terrorist attack in Christchurch, NZ–the shooter wrote the names of several historical figures, including a Georgian king and his consort, on his guns–but you almost certainly need to know more.
***Please excuse typos in the poster; we have brought them to the attention of the library.***
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Film Screenings
Join Prof. De Chantal for her presentations of two films: _Detroit_ tomorrow, 2/20, and _Moonlight_, next Wednesday, 2/27. Both are in IAB 2026 and start at 6:30. These are part of our occasional history film series, in which departmental experts lead a conversation about movies with historical content or historical interest. This month’s offerings relate to Black Heritage Month.
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The Department of Geology and Geography is excited to host a free and public Gullah Geechee film event this Friday, Feb 15th on the Statesboro campus from 3-5 p.m. Heather Hodges, the executive director of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor will be present for Q&A, as well as other community leaders.
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Phi Alpha Theta trips
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FALL 2017
History Department Launches Lecture Series
The Department of History’s R. Frank Saunders, Jr. Fall History Lecture will feature Kurt Knoerl, Assistant Professor at Armstrong State University. The title of his talk is “The Online Museum of Underwater Archaeology: Public Outreach and the Internet.”
An Internet search on shipwrecks conducted in 2004 would have shown numerous website dedicated to treasure hunting and the sale of artifacts but very little on historic preservation or maritime history. The online Museum of Underwater Archaeology (MUA) was created to encourage underwater archaeologists and maritime historians to counter the treasure hunting message of “Go for the Gold!” Since its incorporation the MUA has helped hundreds of researchers publish over 300 pages of content viewed in over 90 countries worldwide. Through online exhibits, public lectures, and education materials the MUA has helped educate the public about the need to preserve their maritime past.
Date: October 17, 2017
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Arts Building, Room 2071
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Fall 2016
History Department Launches Lecture Series
Professor Emeritus Donald Rakestraw, Georgia Southern University/Winthrop College
Lying in State: The Diplomacy of Daniel Webster Sponsored by the Department of History
Time: 630 p.m.
Spring 2016
Graduate Student Lisa Vaughn was featured in a story about Georgia History day and the Georgia Historical Society shown on local tv station WSAV.
http://wsav.com/2016/02/17/watch-live-2016-georgia-day-parade/
Dr. Lisa Denmark’s lecture “The State of Chatham” at City of Savannah Feb 26, 2016
Dr. Solomon K. Smith was featured in a story and video on Mulberry Grove Plantation by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Spring 2015
THE GREAT WAR THAT CHANGED THE WORLD, 1914-1918
A Student Conference at Georgia Southern University
THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015│1-6 p.m. │NESSMITH-LANE CONFERENCE CENTER
SCHEDULE
Session 1
Panel 2, 1-2:15 p.m. , Room #2908
Memories & Consequences—Chair, Dr. Brian Feltman
- Amanda Kinchen (Georgia Southern Alumna): “Hidden from Memory: Remembrance and Commemoration of the Sherwood Foresters’ Involvement in Easter, 1916”
- Dillan Lee (Georgia Southern): “World War I Origins and Consequences”
- Elisa Purvis (Georgia Southern): “Masculinity and Femininity in Britain During World War One”
- Allison Rogers (Georgia Southern): “’We Ourselves Are the War’: The German Freikorps and Their British Counterparts?”
Concurrent Session 2
Panel 3, 2-3 p.m. , Room #2908
Policy and Practice—Chair, Dr. Mao Lin
- Sheila Boone (Georgia Southern): “The Makings of Canadian Foreign Policy”
- Thomas McIntyre (Georgia Southern): “Pontificus Pacis: Papal Policy During the First World War and Its Effect on the Second”
- Jake Walker (Georgia Southern Alumnus) : “American Indians in World War I”
Poster Session, 2-3:30 p.m. , Room #2911
“Poets at War–German Expressionist Poetry”
Readings in German Literature class (Georgia Southern)
- Eduardo Arteaga
- Maggie Edmonson
- Mystery Ellert
- Ryan Howard
- Charlotte McDonald
- Rebecca Niezen
- Matt Piper
- Lyndsey Shelton
- Selina Stanley
- Leisa Vaughn (Georgia Southern): “American Captors: Prisoners of War and Civilian Internment in America During World War I”
Break, 3:30-4:15
- Reception for conference participants & faculty
Keynote Speaker, Professor Emeritus, Dr. Charles Thomas
- 4:30-5:45, Room #1915
- “Blowback: Calculation, Miscalculation, and Unintended Consequences in the First World War.”
Concluding Remarks, Dr. Jonathan O’Neill, Department of History Chair
Last updated: 4/25/2022
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