Department Of History
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History’s detective: Jane Landers and her team rescue enslaved Africans’ stories from oblivion
See how historian Jane Landers and her team are rescuing enslaved Africans’ stories from oblivion and honoring thousands of lives. Read MoreApr 17, 2025
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Graduate School recognizes excellence among students, faculty at Honors Banquet
The third annual Honors Banquet commemorated excellence in academics, leadership and innovation among Graduate School students and faculty. On March 20, the banquet was held to honor and reflect on remarkable achievements in research and creative expression from the more than 50 graduate programs and departments represented in the Graduate School. Read MoreApr 14, 2025
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Exploring the world, one fellowship at a time
Eight exceptional Vanderbilt students are embarking on transformative global journeys as this year’s cohort of the Michael B. Keegan Traveling Fellowship program. Read MoreMar 31, 2025
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Student team uses AI and filmmaking to inspire change
See how a group of Vanderbilt student storytellers are weaving AI and imagination to inspire transformational change. Read MoreMar 4, 2025
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Heard Libraries’ Digital Lab awards seed grants to four emerging digital initiatives
Four digital technology projects in the initial stages of development will advance at Vanderbilt, thanks to funding from the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries’ Digital Lab. The project proposals were evaluated for their cultural importance, global impact and potential for interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as their ability to be preserved in perpetuity. Read MoreJul 1, 2024
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Vanderbilt wins top awards at 2024 ARL Film Festival
Vanderbilt University and the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries won three awards at the ninth annual Association of Research Libraries Film Festival on May 8 at the Harvard Film Archive in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The “ARLies” recognize excellence in multimedia projects that highlight library collections and their impact. This year’s festival featured 34 submissions from major research libraries across North America. Read MoreMay 16, 2024
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VPA and history department examine how the New Deal was run
On May 3 and 4, the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator for Political Economy and Regulation and the Vanderbilt University Department of History hosted “How the New Deal Was Run,” a conference about the implementation of the New Deal programs that transformed American life in the 1930s and beyond. Read MoreMay 13, 2024
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Prestigious honor supports historian’s upcoming project
Jefferson Cowie, James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, was recently honored with a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship—in part, in anticipation of his upcoming project, tentatively titled Crosswinds of a Common History, which will take a visionary approach to historical nonfiction. Read MoreApr 29, 2024
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Cowie named Guggenheim Fellow
The Board of Trustees of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced the appointment of 188 Guggenheim Fellowships to a distinguished and diverse group of culture creators working across 52 disciplines. Jefferson Cowie, the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, was named to this 99th class of Guggenheim Fellows. Read MoreApr 15, 2024
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Eight Vanderbilt students engage with the world in a year of record growth for the Keegan Traveling Fellowship
Four students will be Keegan Fellows and travel the world for one year, and for the first time, Vanderbilt has also awarded four students a Keegan Fellowship to travel in summer 2024. The Keegan Fellowship reflects the promise from the university and Keegan Fellowship alumni to provide transformative global experiences that foster the growth of future leaders. Read MoreApr 1, 2024
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Hananeel Morinville, BA’25, selected for highly competitive leadership program
Morinville, a history major in the College of Arts and Science, was named to the next class of the John Robert Lewis Scholars & Fellows Program for 2024-2025. Selected through a highly competitive process, the scholars and fellows represent a wide range of backgrounds, ideologies and faiths, creating an environment that fosters open dialogue, empathy and understanding. The program is run by the Faith and Politics Institute. Read MoreFeb 19, 2024
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Vanderbilt authors, works highlighted at 2023 Southern Festival of Books
Vanderbilt University will be well represented at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word, where a significant number of faculty and authors with ties to the university will discuss their works Oct. 18–22. Read MoreOct 16, 2023
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‘Confronting Hate: Antisemitism and Racism’ panel is March 28
Vanderbilt University will host a panel discussion, “Confronting Hate: Antisemitism and Racism,” on Tuesday, March 28, at 7 p.m. in the Central Library Community Room. The discussion will address the historical links between antisemitism and other forms of racism and their contemporary resonances in the United States today. Read MoreFeb 16, 2023
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Stories Worth Telling: Professor Paul Kramer discusses how narrative journalism can lead to positive social change
Vanderbilt Magazine talks with Associate Professor of History Paul Kramer about his Writing for Social Change course, in which students complete their own pieces of social reporting on issues that matter to them, and why this kind of writing is, as he says, “necessary for any kind of substantial democracy.” Read MoreOct 3, 2022
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Matthew Ramsey, emeritus history professor and founding director of Center for Medicine, Health and Society, has died
Matthew Ramsey, professor of history and medicine, health and society, emeritus, who taught at Vanderbilt for more than three decades and was the founding director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society, died Sept. 2. Read MoreSep 22, 2022
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‘Before Roe; After Roe? A Reproductive Rights History Teach-in’ is Sept. 17
Vanderbilt’s Department of History and Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies will host “Before Roe; After Roe? A Reproductive Rights History Teach-in” on Saturday, Sept. 17, from noon to 2 p.m. in Wilson Hall, Room 103. The event is open to the Vanderbilt community. Read MoreSep 7, 2022
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Conkin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus and eminent American intellectual historian, has died
Paul K. Conkin, Distinguished Professor of History, Emeritus, former chair of the Department of History and author of more than 20 books on a wide range of American intellectual history, died July 23 in Nashville. Read MoreAug 8, 2022
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Vanderbilt History Seminar event to examine the work of Kara Walker, ‘artist of her generation’
This semester’s inaugural Vanderbilt History Seminar will explore the work of artist Kara Walker and the memory of slavery. The Sept. 30 lecture corresponds with the Frist Art Museum’s ongoing exhibition "Kara Walker: Cut to the Quick" and the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery’s "Sympathetic Magic: Works of Faith, Healing and Transformation," which includes Walker's works. Read MoreSep 27, 2021
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Inside the Data Science Institute: Slave Societies Digital Archive
Daniel Genkins, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of History, worked with the Data Science Institute to build a machine learning pipeline to process digitized ecclesiastical records that touch on the lives of people of African descent, both free and enslaved, in the early modern Atlantic. Read MoreMay 5, 2021
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Vanderbilt professor shares history of Juneteenth and its significance today
Celebrations of Juneteenth, the oldest known celebration in the United States commemorating the end of slavery, will be shaped this year by the 2020 political landscape, according to Brandon Byrd, assistant professor of history at Vanderbilt. Read MoreJun 19, 2020