Graduating senior and double history and political science major Ben Wallis received the Outstanding Student Award in history at the May 11, 2018 academic honors awards ceremony. Wallis was a 2017 recipient of a TruScholars award, and was a preceptor in two student-initiated courses,”Understanding the Black Lives Matter Movement” (Spring 2017) and “Introduction to the Marxist Theory of Capitalism” (Spring 2018). His senior seminar research project was “The Moving Contradiction: The Status of Marxism in the Black Panther Party.” Wallis was also a leader of Truman’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

On Thursday, April 19, 7pm, in Baldwin Hall Little Theater (BH 102), students from a Spring Break Study Abroad trip to Cuba will present on their experiences.

Topics will include a discussion of gender, race, US-Cuba relations, healthcare, education, elections and political systems, infrastructure, agriculture, and capitalism vs. Cuban socialism.

This presentation is part of the Global Issues Colloquium that is designed to provide new perspectives on issues that impact our global community.

Please come with questions and curiosity!

Tuesday, 17 April 2018, 7 pm
Baldwin Hall Little Theater (102)

Professor Lorri Glover,
John Francis Bannon Endowed Chair in History
Saint Louis University

Why do the Founding Fathers Still Matter?

On 16 March 2018, Rebecca Ohmer and Travis Rolstead, history majors who graduated from Truman in 2017, presented papers at the Missouri Conference on History in Jefferson City. Ohmer, who is currently completing an MAE degree at Truman, delivered a presentation entitled “The ‘Attentive Superintendent’: Harry H. Laughlin’s Leadership of the Kirksville Public School System, 1905–1907.” She was able to complete her research for this paper with a grant from the Office of Student Research. Rolstead’s paper, “‘Backward and Diseased’: American Newspapers’ Perceptions of Arabs and Muslims, 1945–1950,” was an outgrowth of research conducted on the TruScholars Program in the summer of 2017. Both papers formed part of a panel entitled “Identity Formation and Projection in Historical Perspective,” which was chaired by Dr. Jason McDonald of the Department of History at Truman.

Picture shows (left to right): Travis Rolstead, Rebecca Ohmer, and Dr. Jason McDonald.

Information sessions on this intensive international learning experience will be held

Wednesday, November 15, 3:30 p.m., MC211

and

Thursday, 30 November at 5 p.m.in  MC209.

For more information and an application, students can go to http://witnessforpeace.org/event/revolutionary-cuba/ or contact Marc Becker at MC 227, marc@truman.edu, x6036.

History professor Marc Becker is offering a new study abroad opportunity to learn about the history and contemporary events in Cuba.

During the midterm break (March 10-18, 2018), students will have a unique opportunity to travel to Cuba to take a close look at issues of global economics, conflict and peace, race, culture, the environment, and U.S. relations.

Participants will examine Cuban national priorities, such as universal education and health care; visit schools, museums, cultural and historical sites; discuss with Cubans the effects of recent changes in U.S. and Cuban relations including the longstanding U.S. embargo on Cuba; travel to the Che Guevara Mausoleum at Santa Clara; learn about Cuba’s history of sugar production and slavery; and experience the sights, sounds, and tastes of old Havana, its neighborhoods, and the surrounding countryside.

Information sessions on this intensive international learning experience will be held on Wednesday, November 15, 3:30 p.m., MC211 and Thursday, November 30, 5 p.m., MC209.

Students can earn one credit for this study abroad experience (CUB 310). The course is open to all majors, and has no prerequisites or language requirements. The course runs parallel to Latin American Revolutions (HIST 391), but enrollment in that class is not a requirement.

Applications and a $350 non-refundable deposit are due by Friday, January 19, 2018.

For more information and an application go to http://witnessforpeace.org/event/revolutionary-cuba/ or contact Marc Becker, MC 227, marc@truman.edu, x6036.

Historical perspective is now more in demand than ever. Made By History, a new blog on WashingtonPost.com, offers historians a brand new platform to help the public “understand the history behind the breakneck news.”

Senior History and Political Science double major Ben Wallis presented his summer TruScholars research “The Status of Marxism in the Black Panther Party” at the Summer Research Symposium on August 26, 2017. Founded in 1966 during a period of racial upheaval, war, and widespread disillusionment with the United States government, the Black Panther Party articulated a political program that broke with the liberal-oriented civil rights movement, promoting instead Black nationalism and anticapitalism. Wallis explored how the writings of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, and Malcolm X were of particular importance in shaping their ideology. He argues that the Panthers can be understood as one of the most important Marxist-inspired movements in United States history.

Travis Rolstead presented his paper “Backward and Diseased: American Perceptions of Arabs and Muslims in the Era of the First Arab-Israeli War.” Rolstead examined the extent and nature of coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict in American national and regional newspapers during the late 1940s. He found that media coverage heavily favored the Jewish-Israeli cause. Articles favorable to the Israeli cause outnumbered those favoring the Palestinian Arab one. Similarly, the media regularly conflated the terms Arab and Muslim, ignoring the presence of non-Muslim Arabs, and generally portrayed Arabs and Muslims in negative and stereotypical terms.