Research

The Celluloid Atlantic changes the way we look at American and Italian cinema in the postwar period. In the thirty years following World War II, American and Italian film industries came to be an integrated, transnational unit rather than two separate, nation-based entities. Written in jargon-free prose and based on previously unexplored archival sources, this book revisits the history of Neorealism, World War II combat cinema, the "Western all'Italiana," and the career of John Kitzmiller, the African American star who made Italy his home and was the first person of color to win the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival.  Giovacchini argues that the waning of the Celluloid Atlantic in the early 1970s was due to the economic policies of the first Nixon administration, specifically its important, but largely neglected, Revenue Act of 1971, as well as to the ideological debates between Europeans and Americans that intensified during the American intervention in Vietnam. 

Rape in Period Drama Television considers the representation of rape and rape myths in a number of the most influential recent television period dramas. Like the corset, has become a shorthand for women's oppression in the past. Sexual violence has long been, and still is, commonplace in television period drama, often used to add authenticity and realism to shows or as a sensationalist means of chasing ratings. However, the authors illustrate that the depiction of rape is more than a mere reminder that the past was a dangerous place for women (and some men). In these series, they argue, rape functions as a kind of “anti-heritage” device that dispels the nostalgia usually associated with period television and reflects back on the current cultural moment, in which the #MeToo and #Timesup movement have increased awareness of the prevalence of sexual abuse, but in which legal and political processes have not yet caught up. In doing so, Rape in Period Drama Television sets out to explore the assumptions and beliefs which audiences continue to hold about rape, rapists, and victims.

Piotr Kosicki  recently had his article published in the Journal of the History of Ideas. Titled "Channeling Erasmus in Communist Poland: Leszek Kołakowski, Vatican II, and the Reinvention of 'Counter-Reformation'", this article appears in Issue one of Volume eighty-five. You can access the issue in which this article was published HERE.

The official publication date for Jeffrey Herf's Three Faces of Antisemitism: Right, Left, and Islamist is December 22, 2023. Published by Routledge/Taylor and Francis, the voume is a collection of essays written by Jeffrey over the past 40 years. A few are old, most are revised and some are new.  Here is the link to the book webpage with table of contents and pre-publication comments HERE.

It appears in a series, "Studies in Contemporary Antisemitism" from the new London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. Link to that series HERE.

Antoine Borrut demonstrates that a robust culture of historical writing existed in 2nd-8th centuries Syria and offers new methodological approaches to access this now-lost history.

You can find more about the book HERE.

Zachary Dorner has authored two pieces in the most recent issue of History of Science (Vol. 61 No. 4), a special issue of the journal devoted to defining science as work and connecting the histories of science and labor.

The first, an article, recovers enslaved and otherwise precarious workers in the eighteenth-century pharmaceutical trade to consider the range of labor just below the surface of the commercial archive of pharmacy (plus the implications for histories of science, labor, and slavery). You can find it HERE.

Zachary Dorner has authored two pieces in the most recent issue of History of Science (Vol. 61 No. 4), a special issue of the journal devoted to defining science as work and connecting the histories of science and labor.

The second, a co-authored syllabus, proposes one way to teach the history of invisible labor in science, either intentionally or unintentionally hidden from the historical record. Each author brought a unique perspective and set of experiences to the syllabus which gives it quite a bit of breadth and theoretical heft. You can find it HERE.

Zach Dorner published a short piece titled "Ordering Medicines and Ordering People on Caribbean Plantations" in the November 6 installment of the Medicine and the Making of Race, 1440-1720 blog.

MMoR is a four-year UKRI FLF-funded project  which seeks to explore the role of medical practitioners in the early years of the slave trade, and the relationship their practical experiences had to early modern ideas of ‘race’.

link to the piece his here:
https://www.mmor.co.uk/blog/ordering-medicines-and-ordering-people-on-caribbean-plantations

Thomas Zeller's newest article, "Imaging Landscapes: Road, Race, and Power" is published in Technology and Culture 64.4 (Oct. 2023): 1261-1273.
DOI: https://doi-org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/10.1353/tech.2023.a911005

Paul Landau has been awarded the Martin A. Klein Prize from the American Historical Association for his book Spear: Mandela and the Revolutionaries (Ohio University Press, 2022). 

The Martin A. Klein Prize in African History recognizes the most distinguished work of scholarship on African history published in English during the previous calendar year. The prize is named for Martin A. Klein, who is currently professor emeritus of history at the University of Toronto.