Upcoming Events

Date: September 24, 2021
Time: 3:00-5:00 PM
Place: Park 532 and Zoom 

Join us for Dr. Jeannette Jones' presentation "Rethinking America in Africa: U.S. Expansion and the Scramble for Africa."

This is a hybrid event. Attendees can participate in person in Park 532 or online via Zoom. In person attendance will be limited to 20 people. Attendees must register for this event and indicate if they will be attending in person or online. Zoom attendees will receive an event link by email closer to the event date.

Registration Link 

Dr. Jeannette Jones is a 2021-2022 Center for Diversity Innovation Visiting Scholar. Dr. Jones is an Associate Professor of History and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dr. Jones’s current book project, tentatively titled, America in Africa: U.S. Empire, Race, and the African Question, 1847-1919 (Yale University Press) explores the roles of American officials and non-state actors in shaping U.S. imperial foreign policy regarding Africa during the “new imperialism.” Her first book, In Search of Brightest Africa: Reimagining the Dark Continent in American Culture, 1884-1936 (The University of Georgia Press, 2010) examines competing visions of Africa in American print and visual culture. Her writing has appeared in Journal of American Culture, Journal of American Studies, American Studies, Process: A Blog for American History, and Perspectives on History. She is Project Director and Co-PI with Nadia Nurhussein, Nemata Blyden, and John Gruesser on the digital project “To Enter Africa from America”: The United States, Africa, and the New Imperialism, 1862-1919.

Date: Ocotber 8, 2021
Time: 3:00-5:00 PM
Place: Park 532 and Zoom

Join us to celebrate the release of Dr. Sarah Handley-Counsins' book Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North (University of Georgia Press, 2019). This event will include a discussion of Dr. Handley-Counsins' new book with guest scholar Dr. Stephen Berry from the University of Georgia.

This is a hybrid event. Attendees can participate in person in Park 532 or online via Zoom. In person attendance will be limited to 20 people. Attendees must register for this event and indicate if they will be attending in person or online. Zoom attendees will receive an event link by email closer to the event date.

Registration Link coming soon

Dr. Sarah Handley-Cousins is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of History. Dr. Handley-Cousins research interests include: 19th century United States History, Civil War and Reconstruction, Social and Cultural History, Gender and Sexuality, History of Medicine, Disability and Science, and History of Discipline. She has published articles and chapters in edited collections, including a publication in The Journal of the Civil War Era. Dr. Handley-Cousins is also the founder and producer of DIG: A History Podcast . 

Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North

In the popular imagination, Civil War disability is virtually synonymous with amputation. But war affects the body in countless ways, many of them understudied by historians. In Bodies in Blue, Sarah Handley-Cousins expands and complicates our understanding of wartime disability by examining a variety of bodies and ailments, ranging from the temporary to the chronic, from disease to injury, and encompassing both physical and mental conditions. She studies the cases of well-known individuals, such as Union general Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, alongside many cases drawn from the ranks to provide a more comprehensive view of how soldiers, civilians, and institutions grappled with war-related disability in the Civil War-era North.

During the Civil War and long after, the bodies of Union soldiers and veterans were sites of powerful cultural beliefs about duty and sacrifice. However, the realities of living with a disability were ever at odds with the expectations of manhood. As a consequence, men who failed to perform the role of wounded warrior properly could be scrutinized for failing to live up to standards of martial masculinity. Under the gaze of surgeons, officers, bureaucrats, and civilians, disabled soldiers made difficult negotiations in their attempts to accommodate impaired bodies and please observers. Some managed this process with ease; others struggled and suffered. Embracing and exploring this apparent contradiction, Bodies in Blue pushes Civil War history in a new direction.