Around the Courtyard
“Around the Courtyard” provides news of history faculty and students. In addition to publications and presentations, it also includes information about the community that makes up the history department.
Visit our History Event Calendar to learn about our upcoming Departmental events as well as those from our affiliates.
Visit our Departmental News Archive to learn more about the past accomplishments of our outstanding students and faculty.
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History Newsletter
Around the Courtyard | Spring 2025
New Book From Dr. McWilliams
Congratulations to Dr. Jimmy McWilliams, whose new book, The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford, will be released in July 2025. This is the first comprehensive study of Stanford and his work. You can learn more about the project and the poet and order the book from The University of Arkansas Press.
Martin Luther King Jr | Intersection of Civil Rights and Labor | Lunch and Discussion
History department faculty members, Dr. Dwonna Goldstone, Dr. Casey Nichols, and Dr. Jeff Helgeson, will be on a panel with Dr. Peniel Joseph of UT Austin and Dr. Scott Bowman of TXST School Criminal Justice & Criminology. The panel will honor Dr. King by highlighting the historical connections that he helped facilitate between movements for civil rights and workers' rights in the 20th-century United States.
Date | January 21, 2025
Time | 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
Location | LBJSC
Visit the event website for more information and registration.
Remembering Dr. Audwin Anderson
The History Department is saddened to share that Department of Sociology Professor, Dr. Audwin Anderson, passed away in early January. Many friends of the History Department knew him and held him in high esteem. Though he was in the Sociology Department, he played a critical role in the growth of our department as a key force in developing the African American Studies program here at TXST. We counted ourselves deeply fortunate to work with him and could not imagine a kinder or more creative colleague.
More information on Audwin's memorial service and be found on the Sociology Department's Memorial Page.
Public History Internship Info Session
Are you a graduate student interested in summer internships? The Texas Center for Public History is hosting our annual Internship Info Session at 3:30pm in Taylor Murphy 105 on January 17th! This session provides info on internship course requirements and application tips for grad students in the public history program. We'll also answer all your questions about requirements, where to apply, and provide tips and advice form a panel of experienced student interns. All students interested in public history internships are welcome to attend!
Email Dr. Ruby Oram to attend via Zoom.
Date | Friday, January 17, 2025
Time | 3:30 pm
Location | TMH 105
Dr. Nichols Publishes New Book
Congratulations to Dr. Casey Nichols on the release of her book, Poverty Rebels: Black and Brown Protest in Post-Civil Rights America (UNC Press).
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Around the Courtyard | Fall 2024
Publication of “Federal Crimes and Policing in the Early-Twentieth Century”
Congratulations to Dr. Jessica Pliley whose essay “Federal Crimes and Policing in the Early-Twentieth Century” appeared in The Routledge History of Crime in America published in December 2024.
History Department REP Winners
Please join us in congratulating the History Department’s four REP winners (four of the ten REP awards in the College of Liberal Arts went to historians)!
- Sarah Coleman | Crafting Congress: Sam Rayburn and Congressional Power
- Alana Bunstock de Hinojosa | The Unruly, Unresolved Terrains of the Chamizal Land Dispute
- Alexandra Montero Peters | Representations of Power: Alfonso X, the Book of Games, and the Islamic Tradition
- Louis Porter | Global Gromyko: The Life and Times of the Soviet Union’s Top Diplomat
Way to go Alana, Ali, Louis, and Sarah! And thanks to the Research Committee for all their hard work! This is a truly outstanding showing, and it clearly promises a sustained future of excellent scholarship in our department.
Thanks also to the members of the Research Committee: Jessica Pliley (chair), Casey Nichols, Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez , and Margaret Menninger, who supported our REP proposals through the pipeline and continued our tradition of excellence in collaborative research development.
Comic Book on The Jerry Rescue
TrueFiktion, a company that produces educational comic books, has produced a comic book on The Jerry Rescue, on which faculty member Angela Murphy, who wrote the book, The Jerry Rescue: The Fugitive Slave Law, Northern Rights, and the American Sectional Crisis, consulted. The book is entitled Jamie's Decisions and the Jerry Rescue, and it presents a fictionalized story that illustrates the choices Black Americans in the Northern states were faced with after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
Former MA Student, Steven Bradford, Awarded 2025 Schlesinger Fellowship
PhD Student Steven Bradford Awarded 2025 Schlesinger Fellowship
November 25, 2024
SIS PhD student Steven Bradford has been awarded the highly selective Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Research Fellowship, administered by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, to study in their Cold War archives for an important mid-20th century historical layer of his doctoral project on geopolitical drivers and impacts of the weaponization of food in Syria.
Bradford’s research proposal examines the historical and contemporary factors influencing Syria's conflict, with a focus on external actors and the use of food as a tool of war. It seeks to explore the Syrian government's mass violence against civilians, hypothesizing that Russia's support—bolstered by its UN Security Council veto power—emboldened such actions. The project will analyze Cold War-era relations to understand the roots of these dynamics, drawing on archival research at the JFK Presidential Library and other archives to study American and Soviet bloc influences.
The proposal highlights the intersection of food studies, geopolitics, and conflict, particularly how the weaponization of food during Syria's war affected civilian life and cultural identity. It aims to bridge top-down policy analysis with bottom-up ethnographic insights, focusing on Syrian refugees' experiences. The research also aims to inform humanitarian organizations about the political origins of food insecurity and the cultural significance of sustenance preparation and consumption. By connecting Cold War-era diplomacy to modern conflicts, the study aspires to contribute to understanding how international relationships influence state behavior during crises.
Frank de la Teja Published in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Congratulations to Dr. Frank de la Teja on the publication of his latest article, “Slavery and Antislavery in the Hispanic World and Texas, 1789-1827,” in the October issue of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly.
Fall 2024 Graduate Thesis Colloquium
Graduate students: come support your classmates and learn about their research in progress. Six of our students will be presenting their thesis prospectuses Dec. 6, 9:30 AM-4:30 PM, TMH 105. PAT will be providing sandwiches, chips and sodas for lunch in the Quad, 12-1 PM.
Date | Friday, December 6, 2024
Time | 9:30 am - 4:30 pm
Location | TMH 105PAT Holiday Muppet Party and Potluck
PAT will be hosting a holiday bash at in TMH 201 at 6 PM on Reading Day, Dec. 6, after the Prospectus Colloquium. We will have a potluck dinner at 6 PM, and then Alkek Research Librarian will give a brief presentation on that immortal classic, "A Muppet Christmas Carol," and we will watch the film. Everyone welcome, including family and kids. Let us know if you would like to contribute something to the potluck menu: phialphatheta@txstate.edu.
Date | Friday, December 6, 2024
Time | 6:00 pm
Location | TMH 201Phi Alpha Theta Book ‘n’ Bake Sale
PAT officers and members are out on the Quad in front of Comal today, Wed. Nov. 13 and tomorrow from 11-2, raising money for our organization: come out and support them!
Date | Wednesday and Thursday, November 13 and 14, 2024
Time | 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
Location | The QuadDr. Rivaya-Martínez gives guest lecture on “Indigenous Dispossession on the Southern Plains: The Comanche Case"
On November 14 at 7:30 pm, Dr. Rivaya-Martínez will be giving a guest lecture at the Humanities Center at the Texas Tech campus in Lubbock, Texas, as part of the 2024-2025 programming theme “Celebrating Indigenous Resilience and Cultural Survival: Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Red River War.”
Bill Malone: Country Music USA
In 1968, Bill Malone published Country Music U.S.A. – the first definitive academic history of country music. Since then, the book has become a cornerstone of American music history. Malone is now widely recognized as the senior authority in country music scholarship. He was granted a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for American Music in 2008, and consulted with Ken Burns on his 2019 miniseries, Country Music.
Date | Wednesday, November 11, 2024
Time | 2:00 - 3:30 pm
Location | Brazos HallMore Information and Registration
Film Screening: A Strike and an Uprising
Join the History Department for a screening of, A Strike and Uprising, a documentary film on the hidden history of Texas radicals and women of color who engaged in union and civil rights struggles. Film maker Anne Lewis in attendance to discuss the film.
Date | Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Time | 6:30pm
Location | Cent 157Paper Prizes for 2024 Phi Alpha Theta Student History Conference
Congratulations on a great 12th Annual PAT History Conference. We had 18 panels and 40+ people in attendance, including guests from Baylor, A&M, and St. Edward's. We could not have done it without the hard work of our PAT Officers and PAT Conference Committee, as well as our commentators, chairs, judges, and alumni panelists. A special thank you to Dr. Frank de la Teja, our keynote speaker.
First Place:
Undergraduate Paper | Abigail Chetelat, Undergraduate Student at Texas State University, “Misrepresentation of the Madam: Sex Worker Rhetoric on the Pornography Wars, 1973-1986”Graduate Paper | Shelby LaBonte-Torres, Texas State University, MA Candidate, “Tejana Property Rights to 1848”
Second Place:
Undergraduate Paper | Jacquelyn Burrer, Undergraduate Student at Texas State University, “Applying an Intersectional Lens to Chinese Exclusion as seen in Comparing Cartoons from The San Francisco Wasp and Harper’s Weekly”Graduate Paper | Gabriel Odom, Texas State University, MA Candidate, “Apaches and Aguinaldo: The Indian Wars and the Philippines”
Third Place:
Undergraduate Paper | Merisa Lee, Undergraduate Student at St. Edward’s University, “Courting Controversy: Prostitution in Early Modern England”Graduate Paper | Luiz Osorio, Texas State University, MA Candidate, “'A Fourth Humanity':-Eugenics and Utopian Visions of Citizenship in Brazilian Integralism, 1932-1939”
Fourth Place:
Undergraduate Paper | Jesse Flecha, Undergraduate Student at Texas A&M University, “Terror on Trial: The South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials of 1871-1872”Graduate Paper | Issac Nelson, Texas State University, MA Candidate, “Caribbean Encounters of a British New World (Jamaica, 1939-45)”
Bias on the Bench: Judge Jack Hampton and the Gay Struggle Against State-Sanctioned Homophobia in Texas
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the gay rights movement in Texas focused largely on issues related to violence, and activists argued that the state was in the throes of a hate crime epidemic threatening its gay population. The 1988 double-murder of Tommy Lee Trimble and John Lee Griffin in Dallas’ Reverchon Park was one of the major events that shaped the early hate crime movement in Texas. Richard Bednarski was convicted of the murders, and Republican Judge Jack Hampton sentenced him to 30 years in prison—a notably light sentence for a Texas double-murder. This talk focuses on the Bednarski case and examines the central role of the Hampton episode in the formation of the Texas hate crime movement.
Monday, November 5, 2024 | 6:30 pm
TMH 104Now What?! An Election Debrief
On November 7, History Department Chair, Dr. Helgeson, will moderate a panel on what to expect after the November 5 election. The event will be in LBJ Student Center Rm 3-14.1 (aka rm. 323) from 7 to 8:30 pm. On the panel will be Dr. Scott Bowman (criminal justice), Dr. Jillian Ament (journalism), Dr. Vance McMahan (political science), and Vaughn Baltzly (philosophy). All are welcome.
Thursday, November 7, 2024 | 7:00 - 8:30 pm
LBJ Student Center Room 3-14.1Predicting Outcomes from the Election
Students, faculty, and staff are invited to join a conversation about the potential outcomes from the 2024 election. College of Liberal Arts Dean Mary Brennan will moderate the event and will be joined by Dr. Mike Faber, Political Science; Dr. Hyun Yun, Political Science; Dr. Ken Ward, Political Science; and Dr. Ann E. Burnette, Communication Studies. October 30 from 7:00 to 8:30 in LBJ Student Center Room 323 (formally LBJSC 3-14.1).
Wednesday, October 30, 2024 | 7:00 - 8:30 pm
LBJ Student Center Room 3-14.1Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez Wins Ray Allen Billington Prize
Congratulations to Dr. Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez, who has won the Western History Association’s Ray Allen Billington Prize for the best article in the field of western history for "The Unsteady Comanchería: A Reexamination of Power in the Indigenous Borderlands of the Eighteenth-Century Greater Southwest" published in the April 2023 issue of The William and Mary Quarterly. This is the same article that was given honorable mention by the American Society for Ethnohistory’s Robert F. Heizer Award for the best peer-reviewed work in the field of ethnohistory.
Phi Alpha Theta/History Club Halloween Party
Phi Alpha Theta & History Club invite you to our Halloween Costume Party. We will have pizza, snacks and sweets, and will award prizes for best costumes. Friends and family welcome!
Friday, November 1, 2024
TMH CourtyardHistory Department Sponsored Student Panel on the Election
On October 9, 2024, the Department of History co-hosted a student-led panel on the 2024 election. History MA student, Luiz Osorio (pictured with the microphone), brought insights from his experience on how to engage politics beyond voting. All eligible voters can vote early in LBJ Student Center Room 306 from October 21 to November 1, and on Election Day, November 5.
Study in America (SIA) Sum II 2025: Philadelphia @ 250
“Philadelphia @ 250, Directed by Dr. Shannon E. Duffy, History Dept.
Program Description: After a 4-week course of study, we will travel to Philadelphia, to visit numerous historical museums, attend scholarly talks, and participate in historical tours of the city. Our itinerary includes tours of Independence Hall National Park, the National Constitution Center, the Museum of the American Revolution, the Liberty Bell, the Betsy Ross home, Elfreth’s Alley, the Eastern State Penitentiary, the Reading Terminal, and the Grim Philly True Crime Tour.
The program fee is $2500; financial aid can applied to the program costs.
Application deadline | January 24, 2025.Courses Fulfilled:
HIST 4365: Revolutionary American History (3 credit hours)
HONS 2306V/3369V: Capital Crime in Early America (subs for HIST 1310 or upper-level history course)For more information visit the Online and Extended Studies website.
Phi Alpha Theta History Conference
The History Department and Phi Alpha Theta, Sigma Zeta Chapter, are pleased to announce the 12th Annual Phi Alpha Theta History Conference to be held on Saturday, October 26, 2024.
The conference will consist of live panel presentations (15 minutes per presenter) moderated by a chair and a commentator. Panelists will be eligible for prizes in the undergraduate and graduate categories. Papers can be on any area of history or history-adjacent subject matter, although we encourage topics related to presidential politics, in keeping with Texas State's theme for Fall 2024.
Presenters should submit a 250-500-word abstract and a brief (3-5 sentence) biographical abstract to our conference portal no later than 5:00 PM on Friday, October 11, 2024. Presenters will be notified of acceptance by Monday, October 14. Full papers will need to be submitted to the portal by Friday, October 18 at 5:00 PM. Papers should be 8-10 pages, in Microsoft Word or PDF format. Presenters should plan for presentations no longer than 15 minutes.
Visit the Conference Website for more information.
Troublesome Women: A History of Witches
Join as Dr. Jessica Pliley, Professor of Genders and Sexualities, presents the 5th Annual Halloween Lecture on the History of Witches!
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
6:00 pm
Cibolo Hall LobbyBitcoin, China, and Authoritarianism
Join for a conversation with Grant McCarty, co-founder/co-director of the Bitcoin Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank researching the intersection of cryptocurrency, US public policy interests, financial inclusion, energy, and the future of money. McCarty will be joined in conversation with Dr. Louie Dean Valencia (Digital History) and Dr. Yifan Liu (Finance).
Thursday, October 24, 2024
11:00 am | The Witliff Collections, 7th Floor, Alkek LibraryFree and open to the public. Refreshments to be served.
Dr. Jessica Pliley Published in The Cultural History of Slavery and Trafficking
Dr. Jessica Pliley has a new article published in The Cultural History of Slavery and Trafficking, Vol 5: In the Age of Global Conflict. It is a synthetic essay that covers the global history of sex trafficking in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Dr. Angela Murphy Publishes Book Chapter
Congratulations to Dr. Angela Murphy whose contribution to the Routledge History of Irish America, "Race, Labor, and Slavery in Antebellum Irish America" has been published.
Dr. Louis Porter wins Shulman Prize
Congratulations to Dr. Louis Porter who co-won the Marshall D. Shulman Prize from the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) and the Harriman Institute of Columbia University. The prize is awarded to "an outstanding monograph dealing with the international relations, foreign policy, or foreign-policy decision-making of any of the states of the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe."
History Club | History Speed Dating
The History Club will be having its first meeting of the school year Wednesday, September 18, at 7 p.m. in TMH 104.
The event is "History Speed Dating." Students will assume roles of historical figures and see if they are compatible. The club did a similar event last year that was a success, and students had fun with itDate/Time | Wednesday, September 18, 2024 | 7:00 pm
Location | TMH 104Dr. Juliana Barr | The Woman in Blue
On Friday September 27, Juliana Barr, Associate Professor of History at Duke University, will give a public lecture entitled "The Woman in Blue: How Native Storytellers Turned a Bilocating Nun into an Expression of Indigenous Geopolitics." The lecture will take place at 1:00 pm in Flowers 230, with a reception to follow the lecture. This event is sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Southwest and the History Department Speakers Fund.
More information can be found on the Event Website.
Dr. Romo's Book Shortlisted for the 2023 Award for Best Book on the African Diaspora by a Senior Scholar
Dr. Romo's latest book, Selling Black Brazil: Race, Nation, and Visual Culture in Salvador, Bahia, was one of three works shortlisted for the P. Sterling Stuckey Prize for 2023. The prize recognizes exceptional books by senior scholars on the African diaspora and is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD).
Joe Boyd at Texas State
Joe Boyd has been an integral part of music for decades. Playing a quintessential role in the careers of Muddy Waters, Pink Floyd, and Nick Drake, among others; opening the countercultural UFO club in London; and plugging in Bob Dylan's guitar at the Newport Folk Festival are just a few of the accolades that Boyd has earned throughout his career.
Please join the Center for Texas Music History as we welcome Joe Boyd to the TXST campus. For questions or more information, contact Avery Armstrong.
Date/Time | Tuesday, October 8, 2024 | 11:00 am
Location | The Wittliff CollectionsFrom Connecticut to Cash: Why I Wrote About the Man In Black
Join the Center for Texas Music History for a talk with Dr. Jonathan Silverman about his work on the national and international legacy of Johnny Cash.
For questions or more information, contact Avery Armstrong.
Date/Time | Wednesday, October 2, 2024 | 2:00 pm
Location | Brazos HallDr. Bryan Glass | Presidents and Pirates
Dr. Bryan Glass will be giving a lecture entitled “Presidents and Pirates from George Washington to Google” on September 4, 2024. This lecture will look at the ways US Presidents have handled the problems of piracy. Special attention will be paid to the Jefferson and Madison administrations and their battles with the Barbary corsairs during the early years of the nineteenth century.
Date/Time | Wednesday, September 4, 2024 | 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Location | Alkek Teaching TheaterDr. Dwight Watson Appears in A&E Documentary
Congratulations to Dr. Dwight Watson appeared in the A&E documentary, “The Chicano Squad.” The episodes aired on September 2 and 3, 2024
Dr. Jessica Pliley interviewed in an article about Pittsburgh vice
Dr. Jessica Pliley was quoted in an article that delves into the history of brothel madams and Pittsburgh.
Dr. Rivaya-Martínez Publishes Essay
Congratulating to Dr. Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez on the publication of his latest essay, "Problematizing the Peoples and Places Without Historiography" in Overlooked Places and Peoples: Indigenous and African Resistance in Colonial Spanish America, 1500-1800, edited by Dana Velasco Murillo and Robert C. Schwaller, 208-226. New York: Routledge, 2024.
Public History Alumni help with foundation document for Blackwell School National Historic Site
In late August, TXST Public History alumni Avery Armstrong and Tori Villarreal had the opportunity to participate in the foundation document workshop for the new Blackwell School National Historic Site in Marfa, TX with the National Park Service. Avery and Tori have both worked extensively on collecting and documenting the histories of local communities throughout the Southwest – from Hays County to far West Texas. The creation of the Blackwell School's foundation document is an essential step in the site's designation as a National Historic Site.
Dr. Murphy Publishes Article on Freedom Purchase
Congratulating to Dr. Angie Murphy on the publication of her latest article, "My Freedom I Derived from God": Jermain Wesley Loguen's Rejection of Freedom Purchase,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History 44, no. 2 (July 2023): 1-18.
PAT 1st General Meeting
We will be discussing our upcoming events, as well as holding mid-year elections for open officers. There will be pizza, chips and drinks. All are welcome!
Date | Thursday, September 5, 2024
Time | 5:00 - 6:20 pm
Location | TMH 101 & Online via ZoomJoin Phi Alpha Theta for their Book ‘n’ Bake Sale!
We will have a variety of scholarly books (mainly history) as well as fiction for sale, and cookies, $2 each. All proceeds go towards funding our future events. Please encourage your students to come out and support us!
Date | Tuesday, August 27 and Thursday, August 28, 2024
Time | 12:30 - 2:00 pm
Location | The QuadDr. De la Puente publishes children's book about Machu Picchu, its construction in the 15th century and its rediscovery in the early 20th century
Dr. De la Puente has coauthored a profusely illustrated book for children on the construction of Machu Picchu by the Inka in the 15th century and its "rediscovery" by American explorer and Yale professor Hiram Bingham in the early 20th century.