History – Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

Opinion: Parenting as violence erupts around the corner

Austin American Statesman Originally Posted: August 12, 2019 By Jo Guldi Jo Guldi is a professor at Southern Methodist University and a mother of a three-year-old. I am raising my child in a terrifying time from which I can’t protect her, nor have I done anything, with all my education and privilege, to fix the problems that inspire such rage and fear in me. My friend Rebekkah, a child therapist and descendant of survivors of pogroms, agrees. “I feel sickened,” she writes. Here we were, a child therapist and a professor, both mothers of small children, trying to digest the disturbing news of climate change, detention centers and mass shootings. The event we fixed on was not the incomprehensible gun violence in El Paso, but one [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-08-19T08:37:39-07:00 August 19th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, History|Comments Off

Congratulations to Hunter Kolon and Amanda Oh. They were recently awarded the Hatton Sumner Foundation Scholarship.

Tower Center Blog Originally Posted: July 8, 2019 The John G. Tower Center for Political Studies is thrilled to announce the recipients of The Hatton Sumner Foundation Scholarships. SMU incoming seniors Hunter Kolon and Amanda Oh were awarded scholarship that will support their interests in diplomacy and international affairs. READ MORE

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-07-15T10:04:31-07:00 July 15th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, History, Political Science, Statistical Science, World Languages and Literatures|Comments Off

History Professor John Chávez Chairs Panel For World History Association Annual Conference

Dedman College News Originally Posted: July 8, 2019 History Professor John Chávez of SMU organized and chaired a panel for the World History Association’s annual conference held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on June 29, 2019. Presenting with him were John Mwangi Githigaro of St. Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya, and Dittmar Schorkowitz of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany. The panel, especially Schorkowitz’s paper, briefly compared continental and overseas colonialism together with other forms, such as settler, internal, neo-, and post-colonialism, concepts that have developed into distinct theories within the larger colonial paradigm in world history. Mwangi’s paper investigated the enduring legacies of colonial rule including the related practices, strategies, and mechanisms of political control in Kenya and Rwanda after independence. [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-07-08T06:49:28-07:00 July 8th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Faculty News, History|Comments Off

Jo Guldi and Sanderia Faye Smith, Festival of Books and Ideas serves up 5-day buffet of ideas for Dallas

Dallas Morning News Originally Posted: June 6, 2019 The fifth annual Dallas Festival of Books and Ideas delivered an extravagant buffet of thought. Ideas overflowed, like the flash floods caused by downpours during the festival's final day on June 1. The talking points flitted from caring for the city's elderly to Dallas' cultural and racial diversity, to its need to be more welcoming, to its emerging status as a beacon of science and technology. As a kind of dessert to the main course, the festival also treated us to a candid look at Dallas' growing identity as a haven for people who write books. Speakers ranged from poets and novelists to scientists and architects, who over five days pondered a range of topics, underscoring the theme "The Open City." [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-06-17T09:29:39-07:00 June 14th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Events, Faculty News, History|Comments Off

Jeffrey Engel: The lesson of D-Day for Americans today

Twin Cities Originally Posted: June 6, 2019 Jeffrey Engel is director of Southern Methodist University’s Center for Presidential History and co-author of “Impeachment: An American History.” He wrote this column for the Washington Post. The views here are his own. “Lest we forget.” Expect to hear those words often as we mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day this week. More than half a million Allied airmen, soldiers and sailors invaded France that cold and blustery morning. More than 4,000 would be dead by day’s end. So, too, a thousand German soldiers and an estimated 3,000 French civilians. It was carnage. Lives were lost every day of the war — in the Soviet Union, one life every four seconds — but D-Day holds a special place [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-06-13T08:38:39-07:00 June 13th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Faculty News, History|Comments Off

History offers little precedent for impeaching U.S. presidents

Washington Times Originally Posted: May 26, 2019 With Democrats debating whether to impeach President Trump, it’s worth remembering that no president has ever been removed via the impeachment process. Not so for the governors of Oklahoma. After Oklahoma gained statehood in 1907, the Legislature went on an impeachment tear, bringing charges against four governors and booting two from office. Still, voters didn’t hold it against them: One of the ousted governors later served in the state Senate, and the other was elected to the state’s Corporation Commission. READ MORE

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-06-04T08:17:05-07:00 June 5th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Faculty News, History|Comments Off

Does Tony Horwitz’s New Book Get Texas Right?

Texas Monthly Originally Posted: May 2019 Andrew R. Graybill is the chair of the History Department at Southern Methodist University and the author of The Red and the White: A Family Saga of the American West. Several years ago Tony Horwitz was tasked by his wife to “ruthlessly cull” the books he had amassed as a college student during the Carter administration. Sifting through boxes stashed at their house on Martha’s Vineyard, Horwitz came across The Cotton Kingdom, an 1861 book by the New York journalist Frederick Law Olmsted—better known today as the landscape architect who co-designed Manhattan’s Central Park. The book was the culmination of several trips Olmsted had made to the American South, including Texas, in the 1850s. (His account of his rambles [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-05-14T10:22:30-07:00 May 15th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Faculty News, History|Comments Off

Listen: On the Origins of the Impeachment Process

WNYC Studio Originally Posted: April 29, 2019 We’ve had only two presidential impeachment trials in the Senate — for Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton — and both ended in acquittals. While we have little experience with this presidential removal apparatus, there’s much to learn from the history of impeachment, going back to the framers who wrote the measure into our constitution. Jeffrey Engel is founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, and coauthor of Impeachment: An American History. He explains to Bob that the authors of the constitution, having just freed themselves from a tyrant, wanted to make sure that there would be a way to counter what seemed to be an inevitable impulse toward tyranny in their new United States. LISTEN

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-05-01T10:10:21-07:00 May 1st, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Dedman College Research, Faculty News, History|Comments Off

The Latino Arts Project is all about passion, not profit, in seeking a shared humanity — in Dallas

Dallas Morning News Originally Posted: April 18, 2018 Jorge Baldorhas a history degree from Southern Methodist University and serves on the Dedman College Executive Board. The Latino Arts Project is a museum, not a gallery. And the difference is crucial. Galleries dominate Dragon Street, but the difference is, galleries are driven by profit. The Latino Arts Project is driven by passion — not profit. The artwork on its walls and floor will not be sold. Instead, it will serve as the driving force of a philosophical mission shared by two men who talk endlessly about art, culture and community, and a shared humanity in Dallas. The first exhibition in this pop-up museum will open May 5 (Cinco de Mayo) and run through Sept. 22, in an effort to [...]

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-04-22T08:49:49-07:00 April 23rd, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, History|Comments Off

Tonight’s Stanton Sharp Lecture: Borderlands: A Global History of the Mexican Second Empire is cancelled due to severe weather

EVENT CANCELLED: April 17, 2019 Tonight’s Stanton Sharp Lecture: Borderlands: A Global History of the Mexican Second Empire is cancelled due to severe weather.

By Katherine Nickles| 2019-04-17T13:37:31-07:00 April 17th, 2019|Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, History|Comments Off