Department of History Faculty
Courses in the History Department span all the areas of study and are taught by professors in classes small enough for dialogue between students and professors.
James Smith Allen
Office: Faner 3321
Phone: 618/453-7896,
jsallen@siu.edu
Dr. James Smith Allen arrived at SIUC in 1991, twelve years after he earned his Ph.D. in modern European History at Tufts University. A specialist in nineteenth-century French social and intellectual history, Dr. Allen is interested primarily in the social history of romanticism, reading, feminism, and memory. His publications include three books, Popular French Romanticism: Authors, Readers, and Books in the 19th Century (1991), In the Public Eye: A History of Reading in Modern France (1991), and Poignant Relations: Three Modern French Women (2000). In 1994 he also edited In the Solitude of My Soul: The Diary of Genevieve Breton, 1867-1871. His current research project is a book-length study of women in modern civic culture, with particular attention to their role in Freemasonry. He has just completed an autobiographical study of personal and historical memory, entitled A Privileged Past.
Jo Ann E. Argersinger
Office: Faner 3335
Phone: 618/453-3380
jarger@siu.edu
Dr. Jo Ann E. Argersinger earned her Ph.D. from the George Washington University in 1980. Before coming to SIUC in 1998, she was at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and Dickinson College. Professor Argersinger teaches courses on World War II, the Cold War, and U.S. Labor History, including Women and Work. She is the author of Toward a New Deal in Baltimore: People and Government in the Great Depression (1988) and Making the Amalgamated: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Baltimore Clothing Industry (1999), and The Triangle Fire: A Brief History with Documents (2009). She is a co-author of The American Journey (1998, 2001, 2004), Twentieth Century America: A Social and Political History (2005), and Women At Work (A. B. Longman). She is currently working on a study entitled "Contested Visions of Democracy: Public Housing from the Great Depression to the Cold War."
Peter H. Argersinger
Office: Faner 3340
Phone: 618/453-7074
parger@siu.edu
Dr. Peter H. Argersinger earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1970 and, before coming to SIUC in 1998, taught at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Professor Argersinger teaches American Heritages, American Political History, Modern American History, History of the American West, and American Rural History. He is the author of Populism and Politics: William Alfred Peffer and the People’s Party (1974); Structure, Process and Party: Essays in American Political History (1991); Populism: Its Rise and Fall (1992); The Limits of Agrarian Radicalism: American Politics and Western Populism (1995); and co-author of The American Journey: A History of the United States (1998, 2001, 2004) and Twentieth-Century America: A Social and Political History (2005). His research interests are American Political History, American Rural History, Populism, Third Parties, and Farm Labor.
Jonathan Bean
Office: Faner 3266
Phone: 618/453-7872
jonbean@siu.edu
Dr. Jonathan J. Bean received his Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 1994 and came to SIUC in 1995. He teaches undergraduate courses on U.S. history, including business history, the Great Depression, and a senior seminar on "The Business of Vice." Bean is active in digital history: former Senior Editor for H-Business, an on-line journal for business historians, and now the Web Projects Coordinator for that international association. He has two active blogs: http://i-history.blogspot.com/ and http://www.independent.org/blog/ He is the author of Beyond the Broker State: Federal Policies Toward Small Business, 1936-1961 (1996), Big Government and Affirmative Action: The Scandalous History of the Small Business Administration (2001), and a forthcoming book on the classical liberal tradition of civil rights. News outlets frequently interview Bean, from CBS Evening News to his role as election analyst for the Brazilian newspaper Correio Braziliense. Bean is also a Research Fellow with the think tank Independent Institute.
Getahun Benti
Office: Faner 3334
Phone: 618/453-6847
benti@siu.edu
Dr. Getahun Benti received his Ph.D. in African history from Michigan State University in 2000 and came to SIUC in the same year. He teaches courses in African and world history, including a comparative slavery course. Professor Benti’s research interests include urbanization-migration studies and the relationship between migration, language, and nationalism in Ethiopia.
Ras Michael Brown
Office: Faner 3332
Phone: 618/453-5242
rasmlb@siu.edu
Ras Michael Brown is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the Africana Studies program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He completed his B.A. in History at South Carolina State University and earned his doctorate from the University of Georgia in 2004. Brown taught classes in History and African World Studies at Dillard University in New Orleans from 1998 until 2006. He has been at SIUC since the fall semester of 2006. His research interests center on the presence and cultural influence of West-Central Africans in the African-Atlantic diaspora from the seventeenth century through the early-twentieth century. Additionally, he explores the dynamics of historical change in African-Atlantic religions, particularly those shaped by Kongo (and more broadly “Bantu”) cultures. He is currently revising a book manuscript that examines perceptions of the natural world in the religious ideas and practices of African-descended communities in the South Carolina Lowcountry from the colonial period into the twentieth century. Brown teaches classes in World History, Bantu Diasporas, and African-Atlantic Spirituality and is in the process of developing a Black Latin America (1600 to 1900) course.
Kay J. Carr
Office: Faner 3263
Phone: 618/453-7877
kjcarr@siu.edu
Dr. Kay J. Carr obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1987 and became a member of the department in 1989. She teaches courses in American environmental history and early nineteenth-century America. In addition to these specialties, Dr. Carr's research interests include Illinois history, immigration, the frontier, and historical geography. She is the co-editor of The Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor: A Guide to its History and Sources (1988) and the author of Belleville, Ottawa, and Galesburg: Community and Democracy on the Illinois Frontier (1996).
Professor Carr has taught: History 101a (History of World Civilization to 1500), History 210 (American Heritages), History 300 (Origins of Modern America 1492-1877), History 301 (Modern America from 1877 to Present), History 392 (Historical Research and Writing), History 451 (United States History, 1815-1850), History 457 (American Environmental History), History 500 (The Historian's Craft), History 554 (Colloquium in United States History), and History 555 (Research Seminar in United States History).
Germaine Etienne
Office: Faner 3326
Phone: 618/453-7879
getienne@siu.edu
Dr. Germaine Etienne received her Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a specialist in African American history, particularly the pre-Civil War period. Her research interests include slavery and the Old South, abolition, and northern free black communities. Etienne is currently working on a book that examines the political implications of the nineteenth century black moral reform movement.
Holly Hurlburt
Office: Faner 3272
Phone: 618/453-7867
hurlburt@siu.edu
Dr. Holly Hurlburt earned her Ph.D. from Syracuse University in 2000 and came to SIUC in the same year. She teaches western civilization and world history as well as courses in early modern Europe, and women, family, gender and sexuality. Her research focuses on women, gender and political power in late medieval and early Modern Italy. Palgrave Macmillan press published her book, The Dogaressa of Venice: Wife and Icon in 2006, and she spent 2007-08 at Villa I Tatti, Harvard University's Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy, working on her second project, the focus of which is gender in the Venetian overseas empire.
Robbie Lieberman
Office: Faner 3330
Phone: 618/453-7882
robl@siu.edu
Dr. Robbie Lieberman received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1984, and came to SIUC in 1991. A specialist in recent U.S. history, her particular areas of interest include war and peace, social movements, and music. She is the author of My Song Is My Weapon: People's Songs, American Communism, and the Politics of Culture, 1930-1950 (1989); The Strangest Dream: Communism, Anti-Communism, and the American Peace Movement, 1945-1963 (2000); and Prairie Power: Voices of 1960s Midwestern Student Protest (2004). Her most recent publication is a book co-edited with Clarence Lang, Anticommunism and the African American Freedom Movement (2009). Her current project focuses on the relationship between civil rights and peace movements in the early cold war years. She has served as the editor of Peace & Change: A Journal of Peace Research since 2006.
Professor Lieberman was named "Outstanding Faculty Member in the University Core Curriculum" in 1999, Outstanding Teacher in the College of Liberal Arts in 2001, winner of the SIUC Women of Distinction Award in 2003, given for demonstrated commitment to diversity, and Outstanding Scholar in the College of Liberal Arts in 2007.
Professor Lieberman has taught: History 110 (Twentieth Century U.S. History), History 210 (American Heritages), History 354 (The Contemporary Unites States), History 355 (The Radical View in American History, History 456 (The U.S. In the 1960s), History 554 (Colloquium in U.S. History - American Radicalism), and History 555 (Seminar in U.S. History - American Radicalism). She is developing a course on the history and historiography of the civil rights movement.
Joseph Sramek
Office: Faner 3273
Phone: 618/536-2233
sramek@siu.edu
Dr. Joe Sramek, a lifelong New Yorker until moving to Carbondale, received his B.A. in history from SUNY-Binghamton in 1998 and his Ph.D. from CUNY Graduate Center in 2007. His research interests center on British imperialism in South Asia before 1850 and, particularly, how politics and colonial administration intersect with masculinity and gender as well as race and class. He is currently revising his dissertation into a book and has published an article from his dissertation on British tiger hunting and masculinity in the summer 2006 edition of Victorian Studies. Prior to coming to SIU, Dr. Sramek taught at various campuses of CUNY, the New School, and Manhattan College. He teaches (or plans to teach) courses in world history, British imperialism, nineteenth-century Europe, and gender. Interests outside the classroom include watching baseball and ice hockey (Go Mets and Rangers!), playing pool, and skiing.
Rachel Stocking
Office: Faner 3269
Phone: 618/453-7875
stocking@siu.edu
Dr. Rachel L. Stocking earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University and came to SIUC in 1994. She is a specialist in late antique and early medieval Iberian History. Her particular areas of interest include Christian culture, religious and political identities, Christian Anti-Judaism, Catholic political theology, and the relationship between law and local communities. She is the author of Bishops, Councils, and Consensus in the Visigothic Kingdom, 589-633, and is currently working on a series of articles about Anti-Jewish policies and ideologies in the Visigothic Kingdom. Dr Stocking teaches courses on ancient and medieval Mediterranean, European, World history, and Historiography.
Professor Stocking has taught: History 101a (The History of World Civilization to 1500), History 205a (History of Western Civilization from Ancient Times to the Sixteenth Century), History 311 (Ancient Civilizations), History 315 (Medieval Civilizations), History 412 (World of Ancient Rome), History 413a (Medieval Society - The Early Middle Ages 400-1000), and History 522 (Colloquium in European History - Early Medieval).
Theodore R. Weeks
Office: Faner 3270
Phone: 618/453-7874
tadeusz@siu.edu
Dr. Theodore R. Weeks earned his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992 and came to SIUC in 1993. He teaches courses in world, European, Eastern European, Polish, and Russian history. His research interests focus on nationality and ethnicity, in particular in the context of East- Central Europe. He is the author of Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on Russia’s Western Frontier 1863-1914 (1996) and From Assimilation to Antisemitism: The "Jewish Question" in Poland, 1850 – 1914 (2003). He is presently working on a history of Vilnius, Lithuania's present-day capital, as a multi-ethnic city from 1795 to 2000.
Professor Weeks has taught: History 101B (World History since 1500), History 205A & B (History of Western Civilization from Ancient Times - Present), History 338 (Eastern Europe), History 339 (Twentieth-Century Russian Culture and Society), and History 437A & B (History of Russia 1860-Present). For more information about Professor Weeks, including his research and current class offerings, visit his website.
Gray Whaley
Office: Faner 3263
Phone: 618/453-7871
gwhaley@siu.edu
Dr. Gray Whaley's research and teaching interests focus on Native American history. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 2002 and he has previously taught at the University of Oregon, Western Michigan University, and Grand Valley State University. He will be teaching History 301 (Modern America since 1877) and History 493 (American Indians and Government) this fall.
S. Jonathan Wiesen
Office: Faner 3271
Phone: 618/453-7873
jwiesen@siu.edu
Dr. Jonathan Wiesen earned his Ph.D. from Brown University in 1997 and, before coming to SIUC in 1998, he taught at Colgate University. Professor Wiesen’s teaching interests are Modern European and Modern German history, and the history of the Holocaust. He has written articles on historical memory, transatlantic relations, and anti-Semitism in Modern Germany. His book West German Industry and the Challenge of the Nazi Past (2001) was co-winner of the 2002 book prize from the Hagley Museum and Library, and he is coeditor of Selling Modernity: Advertising in Twentieth Century Germany (2007). His latest book, Creating the Nazi Marketplace: Commerce and Consumption in the Third Reich, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011. He is now working on a book about the relationship between Blacks, Germans, and Jews. In 2008, he won the university distinguished teacher award.
Professor Wiesen teaches: History 101b (History of World Civilization Since the Age of Encounter), History 205b (History of Western Civilization Seventeenth Century to Present), History 425A & B (Twentieth Century Europe), History 433 (Modern Germany), and History 444 (The Holocaust), along with graduate courses.
Hale Yilmaz
Office: Faner 3328
Phone: 618/453-7870
yilmaz@siu.edu
Dr. Hale Yilmaz received her Ph.D. from the University of Utah in 2006. Her research and teaching interests center on Middle Eastern history, including Turkish history and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Dr. Yilmaz previously taught at the University of Montana. She has taught History 101B (World History since 1500), History 207B (World History since the 15th Century), History 383 (Islamic Civilization), History 486 (The Arab-Israeli Conflict), and History 493 (Islamic Political Movements).
Natasha Zaretsky
Office: Faner 3330
Phone: 618/453-7876
zaretsky@siu.edu
Dr. Natasha Zaretsky received her Ph.D. in 2003 from the Department of American Civilization at Brown University. Her research interests include U.S. history after 1945, American cultural history, women's and gender history, history of the family, and contemporary theories of race and ethnicity. Her book, No Direction Home: the American Family and the Fear of National Decline, 1968-1980, explores the place of the family in debates about American national decline between 1968 and 1980. It was published in April 2007 by The University of North Carolina Press. Her essays have also appeared in The World the Sixties Made: Politics and Culture in Recent America (Temple University Press, 2003) and Race, Nation, and Empire in American History (The University of North Carolina Press, 2007). An essay entitled “Restraint or Retreat? The Debate Over the Panama Canal Treaties and U.S. Nationalism After Vietnam,” is forthcoming in the journal Diplomatic History. She is currently working on two new books. The first, tentatively entitled Struggle Baby, is a collection of oral history interviews with the children of activists from the 1960s and 1970s. It will be an accompanying volume to a documentary film on the same subject. The second book, tentatively entitled The Invisible Accident, is a social and cultural history of the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. The book explores the accident as an illuminating moment in the history of declining public trust in the 1970s. In 2009, Zaretsky was named a Top Young Historian by the History News Network.
She teaches courses in modern American history (History 354 and 110), historical research and writing (History 392 and 499), and historiography (History 501). She has also taught both graduate and undergraduate courses on gender and the family in modern U.S. history. In the Fall 2010, she will also be teaching a new, introductory course on the interdisciplinary field of American Studies.
