BARNARD HISTORIANS FEATURED IN COLUMBIA HISTORY SERIES
During the month of April, Barnard historians Robert McCaughey and Rosalind Rosenberg will join their faculty colleagues at Columbia as lecturers in series exploring significant points in the University's history, "Our Past Engaged: Four Turning Points in Columbia's Recent History." Professor McCaughey is the moderator for the series, which begins April 7 and continues on April 13, 20 and 27. A third Barnard faculty member, Monica Miller, will be a respondent in the series, part of Columbia's 250 th anniversary celebration.
In a written introduction to the series, Professor McCaughey writes that "the very centrality of Columbia's history to the history of New York City and American urban life generally, to the history of higher education and American intellectual life writ large, to the history of discrimination and access, privilege and inclusiveness, makes it incumbent upon Columbians to take up the challenge of reexamining our institutional history."
He is the author of Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University , which was the subject of a recent article on the Barnard website.
The Barnard-Columbia community is invited to the series, wh ich will take place in the Rotunda of Low Memorial Library on the Columbia campus.
Details follow:
"Our Past Engaged: Four Turning Points in Columbia's Recent History"
The Rotunda, Low Memorial Library
Columbia University
6:00 p.m.
April 7
"The University and the City: Columbia and New York from the Civil War to the Progressive Era"
Kenneth T. Jackson , Jacques Barzun Professor in History and the Social Sciences
Respondents:
Mike Wallace
Professor of History, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY ('64 CC, '73 GSAS)
Evan Cornog
Associate Dean, School of Journalism, Columbia University ('96 GSAS)
April 13
"Columbia at Mid-Century: The Intellectual Capital of the Nation?"
Alan Brinkley , Provost and Allan Nevins Professor of History
Respondents:
Fritz Stern
University Professor Emeritus; Provost Emeritus, Columbia University ('46 CC, '53 GSAS)
Casey Blake
Professor of History and Director of American Studies, Columbia University
April 20
"Beyond the Knickerbockers: Inclusive Columbia"
Rosalind Rosenberg , Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History, Barnard College
Respondents:
Gillian Lindt
Professor of Religion Emerita, Columbia University ('65 GSAS)
Monica Miller
Assistant Professor of English, Barnard College
April 27
"Columbia '68: A Chapter in the History of Student Power"
Robert McCaughey , Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History, Barnard College
Respondents:
Wm. Theodore de Bary
John Mitchell Mason Professor Emeritus; Provost Emeritus ('41 CC, '53 GSAS)
Lewis Cole
Professor of Film, School of the Arts, Columbia University ('68 CC)
Jacqueline Russo ('04 CC)
A Word from Series Moderator Robert McCaughey, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History, Barnard College, and author of Stand, Columbia : A History of Columbia University
Of all America's major universities, Columbia has been the most cavalier about its own history. That this has generally spared us on ceremonial occasions from filiopietistic paeans to our forefathers is a blessing not to be minimized. One might even credit the absence of self-congratulatory chronicles to our institutional diffidence, were that virtue otherwise observed on Morningside Heights. Some see the neglect of our own past as one with our urban condition, where to "get over it" is the first order of the day and "creative destruction" an accepted means of doing so. And there is something to be said for the notion that if some aspect of Columbia's history is worth reexamining, let it be undertaken by non-Columbians, whose disinterestedness is more certifiable. The effect of this last rationalization has been that much of the best work on Columbia's history has been done by outsiders.
And yet the very centrality of Columbia's history to the history of New York City and American urban life generally, to the history of higher education and American intellectual life writ large, to the history of discrimination and access, privilege and inclusiveness, makes it incumbent upon Columbians to take up the challenge of reexamining our institutional history. Accordingly, I am cheered by the alacrity and enthusiasm with which three of the University's most distinguished American historians have joined me in this series of talks sponsored by Columbia 250 and hosted by the Provost of the University. Likewise our respondents, each of whom brings a distinctive view to the Columbia matters at hand. And to members of the audience, who are urged to bring their perspectives to bear. If it is true that Columbia's history is too important to be left to Columbia historians, it is no less true that Columbia historians - indeed, all Columbians -- need to join in an ongoing effort of critically engaging our past. To do so can only inform our thinking, as Columbians and Americans, about our future.
Bob McCaughey
March 8, 2004
Speakers:
Kenneth T. Jackson , Jacques Barzun Professor in History and the Social Sciences, specializes in American social and urban history. His publications include The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915-1930 (1967); Cities in American History (1972); Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (1985); Silent Cities: The Evolution of the American Cemetery , with Camilo Vergara (1990); and, as editor, The Encyclopedia of New York City (1995). Jackson received the Great Teacher Award at Columbia in 1999; in 2001, the NY Council for the Humanities selected him as the Council's Scholar of the Year.
Alan Brinkley is University Provost and the Allan Nevins Professor of History at Columbia University. His publications include Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression (1982), winner of the National Book Award; The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (1995); and Liberalism and Its Discontents (1998). Brinkley was the recipient of the Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize at Harvard in 1986 and of the Great Teacher Award at Columbia in 2003. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Rosalind Rosenberg , Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History, Barnard College, teaches American history with an emphasis on women's history. She is the author of Beyond Separate Spheres: Intellectual Roots of Modern Feminism (1982) and Divided Lives: American Women in the Twentieth Century (1992), as well as articles on gender, race, law, and comparative feminisms. Her new book, Changing the Subject: How the Women of Columbia Shaped the Way We Think About Sex and Politics , will be published by Columbia University Press in September 2004. Rosenberg has chaired the American Studies Program and the History Department.
Robert McCaughey, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History, Barnard College, has taught American history since 1969. His principal publications include Stand Columbia, A History of Columbia University in the City of New York, 1754-2004 (2003); Scholars & Teachers: The Faculties of Select Liberal Arts Colleges (1994); [With John A. Garraty] The American Nation (1987); International Studies and Academic Enterprise: A Chapter in the Enclosure of American Learning (1984); and Josiah Quincy: The Last Federalist, 1772-1864 (1974). A John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, 1975-76, he won the Emily Gregory Teaching Award in 1987. From 1987 - 1994, he was Dean of Faculty, Barnard College.
For more more information, visit the Columbia web site here.
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