November 25, 2024: Remembering Bhopal: The World's Worst Industrial Disaster
The presentation commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Disaster (2-3 December, 1984 in Bhopal, India), the world’s worst industrial disaster. Dr. Madhumita Dutta will discuss the disaster, the immediate and ongoing health repercussions for the people of Bhopal, and their global legal and activist fight for justice and corporate accountability.
- Madhumita Dutta, Associate Professor of Geography, The Ohio State University.
- Nicholas Breyfogle (Moderator), Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, The Ohio State University.
November 7, 2024: What was Wrong with the Judges at the Salem Witch Trials?
While most of the books written about the Salem witch trials concern those who were accused of witchcraft and their accusers, Matt Goldish's new book, Science and Specters at Salem, turns the spotlight on the judges. They were, after all, the men who decided to accept these accusations and move the trials forward. Historians have long wondered why the judges accepted evidence based on visions of apparitions and "touch tests.” Goldish offers some unexpected answers.
- Matt Goldish, Samuel M. and Esther Melton Chair in History at The Ohio State University.
- Nicholas Breyfogle (Moderator), Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, The Ohio State University.
October 23, 2024: Postwar Decolonization and its Discontents
After the Second World War, national self-determination became a recognized international norm, yet it only extended to former colonies. Groups within postcolonial states that made alternative sovereign claims were disregarded or actively suppressed. This talk showcases their contested histories, highlighting little-known regions in South Asia and Southern Africa, marginalized individuals, and their hidden (or lost) archives. Personal connections linked disparate nationalist struggles across the globe through advocacy networks. However, these advocates had their own agendas and allegiances, which could undermine the autonomy of the claimants they supported. This webinar features material from Lydia Walker’s new book, States-in-Waiting (Cambridge, 2024) which illuminates the unfinished and improvised ways that the state-centric international system replaced empire, which left certain claims of sovereignty perpetually awaiting recognition. The book is available Open Access for free download.
- Lydia Walker, Provost Scholar Assistant Professor, Seth Andre Myers Chair in Global Military History, Department of History, The Ohio State University.
- Nicholas Breyfogle (Moderator), Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, The Ohio State University.
March 7, 2024: From College Towns into Knowledge Towns: On the Future of Town/Gown Relations
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated existing trends that put at risk the viability of many colleges and universities, as well as that of the towns and cities in which they are located. With the post-COVID-19 shift to more remote work, and millions of people moving to more affordable and livable cities, a place that wants to attract talent will require a thriving academic environment. This represents a new opportunity for “town and gown” to create dynamic, thriving communities. Join us as David Staley outlines a talent magnet strategy that offers colleges and towns a plan of action for regeneration, affording institutions of higher learning the opportunity to reinvent themselves and become talent magnets.
- David Staley is an historiographer, writer, designer, futurist, and journalist. He is an Associate Professor in the Departments of History, Design and Educational Studies at The Ohio State University
- Nicholas Breyfogle (Moderator), Associate Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, The Ohio State University
January 10, 2024: Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust
Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry.
Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war. She offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world by touching thousands of lives, including those of the chaplains who officiated their weddings, the Allied authorities whose policy decisions structured the couples' fates, and the bureaucrats involved in immigration and acculturation. The stories Judd tells are at once heartbreaking and restorative, and she vividly captures how the exhilaration of the brides' early romances coexisted with survivor's guilt, grief, and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life of starting a new life in a new land.
- Robin Judd, Associate Professor, Department of History, The Ohio State University
- Nicholas Breyfogle (Moderator), Associate Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, The Ohio State University
November 15, 2023: The U.S. and The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Historical Perspectives
Conflict has defined Arab-Israeli relationships for many decades, with the interstate warfare of the 1940s-1980s giving way in the 1990s and after to a roiling confrontation between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people of the Israeli-occupied territories. Since the 1940s, the United States has striven to contain, manage, or resolve the conflict, with some notable successes and numerous pronounced failures. While not without precedent, the crisis that erupted in early October 2023 marks an especially difficult, deadly and portentous phase of conflict, and thus poses acute policy dilemmas for US. Officials who seek to achieve stability and peace in the region.
In this webinar, Professor Peter L. Hahn will analyze the complicated situation in Gaza in its historical and contemporary contexts, focusing on the American role and aiming to bring clarity and balanced perspective about this difficult and dangerous moment in the Middle East.
- Peter L. Hahn, Professor, Department of History, The Ohio State University
- Nicholas Breyfogle (Moderator), Associate Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, The Ohio State University
October 4, 2023: Country Capitalism
The rural roads that led to our planet-changing global economy ran through the American South. Acclaimed scholar Bart Elmore explores that region's impact on the interconnected histories of business and ecological change. He uses the histories of five southern firms—Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Walmart, FedEx and Bank of America—to investigate the environmental impact of our have-it-now, fly-by-night, buy-on-credit global economy. Drawing on exclusive interviews with company executives, corporate archives and other records, Elmore explores the historical, economic, and ecological conditions that gave rise to these five trailblazing corporations. He then considers what each has become: an essential presence in the daily workings of the global economy and an unmistakable contributor to the reshaping of the world's ecosystems. Even as businesses invest in sustainability initiatives and respond to new calls for corporate responsibility, Elmore shows the limits of their efforts to “green” their operations and offers insights on how governments and activists can push corporations to do better.
- Bart Elmore, Professor of Environmental History and Core Faculty, Sustainability Institute, The Ohio State University
- Nicholas Breyfogle (Moderator), Associate Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, The Ohio State University
May 8, 2023: 1588: the Spanish Armada Still Loses
World-renowned historian Geoffrey Parker provides a definitive history of the Spanish Armada. In July 1588 the Spanish Armada sailed from Corunna to conquer England. Three weeks later an English fireship attack in the Channel—and then a fierce naval battle—foiled the planned invasion. Many myths still surround these events. The genius of Sir Francis Drake is exalted, while Spain’s efforts are belittled. But what really happened during that fateful encounter? In his recent book, Armada, (co-authored with Colin Martin), Parker draws on archives from around the world and deploys vital new evidence from Armada shipwrecks off the coasts of Ireland and Scotland. In a gripping account, he will provide a fresh understanding of how the rival fleets came into being; how they looked, sounded, and smelled; and what happened when they finally clashed. Looking beyond the events of 1588 to the complex politics which made war between England and Spain inevitable, and at the political and dynastic aftermath, Armada deconstructs the many legends to reveal why, ultimately, the bold Spanish mission failed.
- Geoffrey Parker, Distinguished University Professor and Andreas Dorpalen Professor of European History, The Ohio State University
- Nicholas Breyfogle (Moderator), Associate Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching
April 4, 2023: Politics, Cinema, and Liberation in Burkina Faso
On August 4, 1983, Captain Thomas Sankara led a coalition of radical military officers, communist activists, labor leaders, and militant students to overtake the government of the Republic of Upper Volta. Almost immediately following the coup’s success, the small West African country—renamed Burkina Faso, or Land of the Dignified People—gained international attention as it charted a new path toward social, economic, cultural, and political development based on its people’s needs rather than external pressures and Cold War politics. Join James E. Genova as he recounts in detail the revolutionary government’s rise and fall, demonstrating how it embodied the critical transition period in modern African history between the era of decolonization and the dawning of neoliberal capitalism. He will uncover one of the revolution’s most enduring and significant aspects: its promotion of film as a vehicle for raising the people’s consciousness, inspiring their efforts at social transformation, and articulating a new self-generated image of Africa and Africans. The talk is based on Genova’s new book Making New People: Politics, Cinema, and Liberation in Burkina Faso, 1983–1987 and spotlights the revolution’s lasting influence throughout Africa and the world.
- James E. Genova, Professor of History, The Ohio State University
- Nicholas Breyfogle (Moderator), Associate Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching
March 22, 2023: Water Crisis on the Blue Planet: What Water’s Past tells us about Humanity’s Future
Across human history and throughout this very diverse planet, water has defined every aspect of human life: from the molecular, biological and ecological to the cultural, religious, economic and political. Water stands at the foundation of most of what we do as humans. At the same time, water resources — the need for clean and accessible water supplies for drinking, agriculture and power production — will likely represent one of the most complicated dilemmas of the twenty-first century.
- Nicholas Breyfogle, Associate Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching
- Bart Elmore, (Moderator), Associate Professor of Environmental History and Core Faculty, Sustainability Institute