Howard Jones to Speak at the 2013 Vietnam Center and Archive Conference

Howard Jones to Speak at the 2013 Vietnam Center and Archive Conference

University of Alabama Research Professor Emeritus Howard Jones will speak at the 2013 Vietnam Center and Archive Conference. This year’s conference will explore the events of 1963, a year that has “long been viewed as a watershed in both the history of the Vietnam War and in the evolution of the United States’ intervention in that conflict. The Battle of Ap Bac, the ‘Buddhist crisis’ and the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc, the abortive ‘Kennedy withdrawal’ of U.S. military advisors from South Vietnam, the overthrow and death of Ngo Dinh Diem in the Saigon coup of November, the Kennedy assassination that same month, the Ninth Plenum of the Vietnam Worker’s Party—all of these events and many others shaped the subsequent escalation of the Vietnam War and contributed to its transformation into a major international conflict.”

Jones’s presentation, entitled “JFK’s Plan For a Partial Withdrawal From Vietnam,” explores President Kennedy’s plan for gradual disengagement in Vietnam and challenges the popularly-held notion that the Kennedy Administration had no serious plans to withdraw from the Vietnam conflict.

Opening the (Graduate) Schoolhouse Door at UA: 21st Century National Leadership in African American Graduate Education

The University of Alabama is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1963 "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" with a series of special events throughout 2013. The Graduate School’s contribution to this year of commemoration is the symposium “Opening the (Graduate) Schoolhouse Door at UA: 21st Century National Leadership in African American Graduate Education” on Thursday September 12, 2013, from 9:45 AM – 11:30 AM in the Ferguson Center Theater. The symposium will feature a panel comprised of African American pioneers in graduate education at UA, including Dr. Joffre Whisenton, the first African American PhD recipient at UA  in 1968, as well as current African American graduate faculty and graduate students. Together, our panelists will lead us on a journey outlining where UA has been, where we are now, and where we need to go as an institution to  continue to move forward as an inclusive and welcoming campus.

Dr. Daniel Riches to Deliver Keynote Lecture

  Dr. Daniel Riches to Deliver Keynote Lecture

University of Alabama Assistant Professor of History, Dr. Daniel Riches, will deliver the keynote lecture, entitled “Diplomacy and Cosmopolitanism,” at The Premodern Diplomats Network’s “Splendid Encounters: Diplomats and Diplomacy in Europe, 1500-1750” conference on September 20, at the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Institute of History, in Warsaw.

The Premodern Diplomats Network is a organization for scholars studying the birth and early development of the diplomatic arts.

UA Professor Examines Cultural Impact of Barbecue on Alabama | University of Alabama News - The University of Alabama

UA Professor Examines Cultural Impact of Barbecue on Alabama | University of Alabama News - The University of Alabama

There are places that love barbecue and do it well. Then there’s the South, where barbecue could be considered a second religion (behind only college football). A University of Alabama professor is set to explore how barbecue became a cultural phenomenon within the borders of the state.

Dr. Joshua Rothman, UA professor of history and African American Studies, received an $18,000 grant from the Southern Foodways Alliance to study barbecue in the state of Alabama as well as the state’s foodways — meaning how the regional cuisine of Alabama developed over time.

“As a professor of Southern history and director of the Summersell Center for Study of the South, I try to take in as many aspects of the South and Southern culture as possible,” Rothman said. Then comes a wry smile. “Plus, I like to eat.”

And eating is a key part of Southern culture. However, barbecue is one of those things that brings people together from all walks of life. And, from a historical perspective, it’s a relatively new point along the foodways path.

“Smoking meat has been around for a long time,” Rothman said. “It was a key way to preserve meat before refrigeration became widespread. But barbecue as we know it in the modern day is something that didn’t really become so hugely popular outside the South until much later.”