Around the Courtyard | 2019

  • 2019 News Archive

    • Congratulations to Drs. Carrie Ritter and Casey Nochols who won REP awards for 2020-2021!


      Congratulations to Distinguished Professor Emeritus Victoria Bynum on the publication of her essay “Disordered Households: Reconstruction, Klan Terror, and the Law,” which has come out in a publication by UGA Press entitled Household War: How Americans Lived and Fought the Civil War, edited by Lisa Tendrich Frank and Leann Whites!


      Congratulations to the Center for Texas Music History and its publishing partner, Texas A&M University Press. Their John & Robin Dickson Series biography of Guy Clark (authored by Tamara Saviano) has been selected by Publisher's Weekly for its "10 Essential Music Biographies" list!


      Congratulations to Dr. Ron Johnson who has a new publication out:

      “Enslaved by History: Slavery’s Enduring Influence on the Memory of Pierre Toussaint,” in Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World, edited by Lawrence Aje and Nicolas Gachon. The book is part of the Routledge Studies in the History of the Americas series.


      Congratulations to Dr. James McWilliams for his recent publication "John Kennedy Toole @50" on publicbooks.org.


      Congratulations to Public History student, Jason Rivas, who was recently featured in the Texas Historical Commission Blog.


      Congratulations to Dr. Elizabeth Makowski’s whose new book, Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages (Boydell Press, 2019) is now available. 


      Congratulations to Dr. Louie Valencia who has been busy. Below are some of his accomplishments of the summer:

      • A chapter titled “An Impulsive Teen from the Future: Imaging Youth, Virtual Reality and the Digital Future at the Turn of the Millennium” in the edited volume The Ages of the Flash: Essays on the Fastest Man Alive (McFarland and Co.)
      • A piece published by Open Democracy.
      • Named founding Co-Chair of “Critical European Studies Research Network,” which “fosters the emergence of an interdisciplinary community of scholars who examine education cultures, systems, and practices in European Studies—engaging with issues of equality and justice in learning environments.” This project receives funding from the European Commission.
      • Quoted in an article for Yahoo News.
      • Quoted in this story from Vice News.

      Congratulations to Dr. John Mckiernan-González!  An edited collection he published in – Keywords in Latina/o Studies – just received the Choice award of being an “outstanding academic title 2018,” according to NYU press and Choice.


      Congratulations to Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson whose article “‘A Very Curious Game’: The Racialized Public Diplomacy of Toussaint Louverture in the United States” was published in June’s special edition of the Journal of Caribbean History commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Association of Caribbean Historians.


      Congratulations to Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson who has been elected to a three-year term on the Society of the Historians of the Early American Republic Advisory Council!


      A big congratulations to Dr. J.C. de la Puente on his new article in Ethnohistory: Calendars in Knotted Cords: New Evidence on How Khipus Captured Time in Nineteenth-Century Cuzco and Beyond


      The History Department is happy to announce that Drs. Debra Law and Josh Paddison (who have both taught for us for 3-plus years) are now designated as senior lecturers and are permanent members of the department’s faculty!  Dr. Allison Robinson, who is moving into her second year with us, has also been approved as a permanent lecturer. We are lucky to have such accomplished lecturers in our department – all of them – and the addition these three talented educators as permanent faculty only make our program stronger.


      Congratulations to Shannon Duffy who will serve as a Faculty Senate Fellow in 2019-2020! As fellow, Shannon will be looking into academic freedom issues for non-tenure line faculty.


      Congratulations to Jeff Helgeson whose essay “Thoughts on a Critical Regional History of the Midwest: Examining the Legacies of the Dream of a White Yeoman’s Republic,” was just published in a symposium on Midwestern History the Middle West Review 5:2 (Spring 2019).

       

    • Our former MA grad Alex La Rotta, who is receiving his doctorate from UH in May, 2019, has accepted a two-year post-doc with the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. He will be teaching courses in Latinx history and popular music and race while completing his book manuscript on San Antonio's West Side Sound.


      Announcing Dr. Louie Dean Valencia's latest publication, a chapter titled “Is He a Fascist?”, in the edited volume, Tracking the Rise of the Radical Right Globally, published in Europe by Ibidem-Verlag, and Columbia University Press in the US.


      Congratulations to Dr. Ronald Angelo Johnson who has been chosen to be the Texas State University Presidential Fellow for the 2019-2020 year. As fellow, Dr. Johnson will be part of the President’s Cabinet and will be working on a project that emphasizes recruiting, retaining, and graduating male students at Texas State.

      Dr. Trauth said of his appointment: “As we look at the demographics of Texas, and the composition of the student body at Texas State, we are compelled to conclude that work urgently needs to be done to attract and graduate more males of all ethnicities, but particularly males of color.” She expressed confidence in Dr. Johnson's ability to take the lead in developing a process to address this “multilayered” challenge.


      Congratulations to Dr. Jessica Pliley who recently had an article published in Federal History.


      Congratulations to Dr. Shannon Duffy for a successful talk given on April 23, 2019: "'The Guardian of every other Right': The First Amendment and the Right of Freedom of Speech.”


      Congratulations to Madelyn Patlan who received the Honors College Mary Lou Bishop Staff Advisor of the Year Award!


      Congratulations to Paul Hart who was asked to headline at the Emiliano Zapata Commemoration events at University of Arkansas and in Cuernavaca, Mexico


      Congratulations to Paul Hart who has won the 2019 Harvey L. Johnson Book Award, given out by the Southwest Council of Latin American Studies (SCOLAS)! The award is for his book, Emiliano Zapata: Mexico’s Social Revolutionary.  

      This year’s award was presented to Dr. Hart at the annual SCOLAS conference, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico, on March 22, 2019.


      Congratulations to Dr. Louie Valencia who was named one of the Alpha Chi honors society favorite professors for Spring 2019. Nominating students have to have attained at least 60 credit hours, and have a GPA of 3.50. Louie  will be recognized at the Alpha Chi induction ceremony in this Friday, 12 April at 6 pm.


      Congratulations to Dr. Carrie Ritter who recently did a long interview about British politics and Brexit for a Boston radio station.  You can listen to the interview on Boston's 98.5 Radio


      Congratulations to Dr. Jose Carlos de la Puente whose book won the Flora Tristán Book Prize, awarded by the Latin American Studies Association (LASA)! The prize is given to "the best book, on any topic, that contributes significantly to the advancement of knowledge about Peru," published in English or Spanish the previous year.


      Congratulations to Dr. Paul Hart whose essay, “Emiliano Zapata and Revolutionary Mexico, 1910-1919,” was published in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mexican History and Culture.


      Congratulations to Dr. Joshua Paddison whose essay, "The Mystery of Everything Out There: Bigfoot and Religion in the 21st Century," was published in The Paranormal and Popular Culture: A Postmodern Religious Landscape, ed. Darryl Caterine and John W. Morehead (New York: Routledge, 2019).


      Congratulations to Dr. Ron Johnson who has been accepted for an NEH-funded  Migration, Mobility, and Sustainability: Caribbean Studies and Digital Humanities Institute. The Institute’s overarching goals are that participants will learn and adapt Digital History tools and practices to meet their own needs for their students and for teaching and inclusion in a community of practice for Digital History pedagogy. All events will be held at the University of Florida (UF), in Gainesville, Florida, May 20-24, 2019.


      Texas State Model Arab League Chapter Competes At Nationals

      Texas State MAL At Nationals

      The Model Arab League Chapter at Texas State University competed in the National University Model Arab League (NUMAL) competition April 4-7, winning awards and one member being chosen for a chair position.
      Representing Comoros, Texas State delegates participated in debates, discussions and wrote resolutions on economic, political and social affairs as well as on joint defense, women and children’s rights, and Palestinian affairs.
      Following two full days of hard work, Texas State students were given the following awards:

      • Social Media Award given to Devin Barrett for his online engagement during the competition
      • Distinguished Delegates for the representation of Comoros on the Joint Defense Council
      • Distinguished Delegates for the representation of Comoros on the Council of Social Affairs

      Chapter member Brittlin Richardson was also selected to serve as the chair for the Political Affairs Council at NUMAL next year.

      The Model Arab League chapter at Texas State is an all-inclusive organization where students learn about the politics and history of the Arab world through the arts of diplomacy and public speech.


      Congratulations to Dr. Louie Dean Valencia on the publication of : “Reinventing a Carnivalesque Public Sphere: (Re)imagining and (Re)drawing Madrid in the Long 1970s” in “I’m just a Comic Book Boy”: Essays on the Intersection of Comics and Punk, edited by Christopher B. Field, Keegan Lannon, Michael David MacBride and Christopher C. Douglas. It is published with McFarland and Company, and is available now digitally (and in print on April 2nd.)


      MAL Bilateral Awards Spring 2019

      The Model Arab League Chapter at Texas State University competed in the Bilateral Chamber Regional MAL Feb. 16 -17, winning seven awards including Outstanding Delegation.

      Representing Comoros and Bahrain, Texas State delegates participated in debates, discussions and wrote resolutions on economic, political and social affairs as well as on joint defense, and women and children’s rights.
      Following nine and half hours of hard work, Texas State students were given the following awards:

      • Distinguished Delegates for the representation of Comoros on the Special Council for Women and Children
      • Outstanding Delegates for the representation of Bahrain on the Special Council for Women and Children
      • Outstanding Delegates for the representation of Comoros on the Joint Defense Council
      • Distinguished Delegates for the representation of Comoros on the Council of Political Affairs
      • Distinguished Delegates for the representation of Comoros on the Council of Social Affairs
      • Overall Outstanding Delegation for the representation of Comoros
      • Best Social Media Engagement

      The Model Arab League chapter will be traveling to Washington D.C. April 4-7 to compete in the National University Model Arab League competition.


      A big congratulations to Dr. Jose Carlos de la Puente who has been appointed as a research fellow for 2019-2020 at the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas! As a fellow he will participate in the Institute’s programs on the year’s theme of Collectives and Commons: Global Histories, Emerging Futures


      Congratulations to Dr. Louie Valencia who has been named the Honors College Faculty-in-Residence, starting in July. In the position he will be organizing programming for Honors students and mentoring students who are interested in both research and graduate school. This is a great position for Louie who has a long history with the Honors college.


      Congratulations to Jessica Pliley on the publication of the following essay:

      “Archival Trouble: Researching the History of Sex Trafficking,” in Researching Forced Labour in the Global Economy: Methodological Challenges and Advances, ed. Genevieve LeBaron, Proceedings of the British Academy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).