Alumna Vaneesa Cook (Ph.D. 2015) has written a blog post about her work with the Missing in Action Recovery & Identification Project at UW–Madison. The piece is titled “The Legacy of the 5307th Merrill’s Marauders: Wisconsin MIAs in Burma.” The MIA Project is a joint initiative between UW–Madison and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) …
Graduate student Leslie Bellais has published a chapter in the edited collection Home Front in the American Heartland: Local Experiences and Legacies of WWI (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020). The chapter is titled “‘Lest We Forget’: Remembering World War I in Wisconsin, 1919-1945” and is the second chapter in a volume aimed at offering a multifaceted exploration …
Alumna Tyina Steptoe (Ph.D. 2008) has written a piece on hip-hop and the Black Lives Matter movement for The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit online publisher of commentary and analysis. The piece is titled “Hip-hop is the soundtrack to Black Lives Matter protests, continuing a tradition that dates back to the blues.” Steptoe explains the long …
Today is Juneteenth, a day that commemorates an important moment in U.S. history – the liberation of nearly 200,000 enslaved Texans in 1865. Although President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 pronounced freedom to all enslaved people in areas still under Confederate rule, by 1865 Texas still remained very much a slave state in practice. …
Why have Asian Americans often been the target of xenophobic and racist attacks during disease outbreaks? The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a spike in anti-Asian, especially anti-Chinese, racism. Why have Asian Americans often been the target of xenophobic and racist attacks during past disease outbreaks? Professor Cindy I-Fen Cheng puts the past and …
Grad student Jennifer Stitt has published a personal essay on COVID-19 in Guernica, an online magazine dedicated to global arts and politics. The article is titled “Will COVID-19 Strengthen our Bonds?: Living with Chronic Illness in the Midst of a Pandemic Requires a New Map.” A thoughtful, personal piece about Stitt’s journey through life, a …
The story of the rise of the segregated suburb often begins during the New Deal and the Second World War, when sweeping federal policies hollowed out cities, pushed rapid suburbanization, and created a white homeowner class intent on defending racial barriers. Paige Glotzer offers a new understanding of the deeper roots of suburban segregation. The …
Professor Emerita Colleen Dunlavy presents her research about the history and significance of UW–Madison’s Department of History. Presented and recorded Blackboard Collaborate on Thursday, April 16, 2020. The video can be found here: “The History of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison”
In a press release this week, it was announced that Professor Gregg Mitman had received a coveted Advanced Investigator Grant from the European Research Council. Mitman is a Professor of History of Science, Medical History, and Environmental Studies at UW–Madison, and is an affiliated researcher with the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at …
As a response to the recent uptick in incidents of racism and discrimination towards Asian and Asian American individuals amidst COVID-19, Professor Cindy I-Fen Cheng spoke to a local Madison news station about the history of these types of “immigrant scapegoating.” Cheng, Professor of History and Director of the Asian American Studies Program, said in …