Graves Award in the Humanities
My new research and teaching project “Trans-Saharan History: Centering Connectivity in African Studies” wins the 2016 Graves. The Graves Award is sponsored by Pomona College, with oversight from the American Council of Learned Society (ACLS). Its intent is to encourage and reward outstanding research and teaching in the humanities.
Trans-Saharan Trade routes, 15th century
Public History/African History Lecture & Performance
Organized in collaboration with students in my Expressive Cultures in African History course. We welcome Professor Chikowero and Thomas Mapfumo “The Lion of Zimbabwe” & The Blacks Unlimited this month!
“Teaching with Tumblr: Building a Digital Archive of Gender, Race & Empire” appears in Notches
My pedagogy has always been student-centered, participatory, and interactive. While I am excited about the possibilities of digital technology to enhance historical research and reach broader publics, I am also interested in the potential of digital media as a way to engage students. Currently, I teach at a private liberal arts university focused on undergraduate study. While I have long used in-class activities, group projects, and on-line discussion boards, last semester was the first time I considered social media as a method of classroom instruction and historical training…
“Jean-Léon Gérôme – Le charmeur de serpents” by Jean-Léon Gérôme, ca. 1879-80. (The Bridgeman Art Library, Object 339940. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons.)
My new chapter in Consuming Behaviours
About Consuming Behaviours
In twentieth-century Britain, consumerism increasingly defined and redefined individual and social identities. New types of consumers emerged: the idealized working-class consumer, the African consumer and the teenager challenged the prominent position of the middle and upper-class female shopper. Linking politics and pleasure, this collection explores how individual consumers and groups reacted to changes in marketing, government control, popular leisure and the availability of consumer goods. From football to male fashion, tea to savings banks, leading scholars consider a wide range of products, ideas and services and how these were marketed to the British public through periods of imperial decline, economic instability, war, austerity and prosperity. The development of mass consumer society in Britain is examined in relation to the growing cultural hegemony and economic power of the United States, offering comparisons between British consumption patterns and those of other nations. Bridging the divide between historical and cultural studies approaches, Consuming Behaviours discusses what makes British consumer culture distinctive, while acknowledging how these consumer identities are inextricably a product of both Britain’s domestic history and its relationship with its Empire, with Europe and with the United States.
