Department Of History

“Creating cuisines is about building community through agriculture and bridging the local with the global,” said Ted Fischer, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Anthropology, during the opening session of “Food for Thought”—a free program presented by Vanderbilt University and the Frist Art Museum. This series brings together Vanderbilt faculty, Frist curators and local leaders to explore cultural and societal issues through art. The Spring 2025 season focused on two Frist exhibitions: Farm to Table: Art, Food, and Identity in the Age of Impressionism and Tennessee Harvest. Read More

Vanderbilt University has joined the Urban Humanities Network (UHN) as a consortium campus, solidifying the university’s place among leading institutions at the forefront of urban humanities scholarship. Established in 2022, UHN unites universities, organizations, and researchers dedicated to interdisciplinary study within the urban humanities, which operates at the nexus of humanities, urbanism, and design. Read More

See how historian Jane Landers and her team are rescuing enslaved Africans’ stories from oblivion and honoring thousands of lives. Read More

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 More

Eight exceptional Vanderbilt students are embarking on transformative global journeys as this year’s cohort of the Michael B. Keegan Traveling Fellowship program. Read More

See how a group of Vanderbilt student storytellers are weaving AI and imagination to inspire transformational change. Read More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More