The Department of History is saddened to note the passing of alumnus Tyler Stovall (PhD, 1984). Dr. Stovall studied with Harvey Goldberg at UW-Madison and became a distinguished historian of modern France with a particular interest in race and class, Blackness, postcolonial history, and transnational history. He authored 10 books and numerous articles during his lifetime, including his most recent publication White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea (Princeton University Press, 2021), which was published just before the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021 and reflects on how our ideas about freedom are shaped by our views of race.
His service to the field of history and to higher education is immeasurable, having held positions as the president of the American Historical Association, dean of the Humanities Division and distinguished professor of history at the University of California-Santa Cruz, dean of the Undergraduate Division of Letters and Science at the University of California-Berkeley, and most recently as the dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Fordham University. He passed away at the age of 67 at his home in Manhattan.
On his personal website, he wrote: “For me, history is the record not only of how things change, but how people make things change, how they act individually and collectively to create a better world.”
Read more about the life of Tyler Stovall at Fordham News.