Students in the course Women in World War II, co-taught by Dr. Kerry Wynn and Dr. Courtney Sullivan (Department of Modern Languages), pose outside the Paris Liberation Museum. Read more about the course and trip below.
Message from Dr. Tom Prasch, Chair
Sitting at my final conference of the semester—Midwest Victorian Studies in Richmond, IN, the weekend before finals week—I could almost think things were getting back to normal. The setting helped: a fabulous desanctified turn-of-the-century Presbyterian church, Tiffany stained glass filtering the light, the massive pipes of a 1906 organ behind the speaker. But that was only part of it. It was also colleagues from multiple disciplines sharing their research, live and not on Zoom, eating meals together, talking between sessions, catching up after two years away from such events. Look a little closer, however, and you noticed it wasn’t quite the same yet. Everyone but the speakers were masked. Attendance was down about half from the group’s last live conference. To accommodate those at a distance, a couple of hybrid events were planned, but—hadn’t any of these people been doing hybrid classes for the last year or so? didn’t they know how well that always worked?—those were rather dismal events. And, of my five conferences this semester, two were still all-virtual. So, close to normal, sure, but not quite there yet, if “there” is even something to expect anytime soon.
But you didn’t have to be going to conferences to get that not-quite-there-yet sense of things. Washburn held most classes in person this semester, and stopped requiring masks in March. Some classes kept a hybrid option, however, and some masks remained in place; rather more as a fresh spike of infection hit near the semester’s close. That steady stream of confidential notifications about students quarantining, if slower for most of the term, still trickled into my email all semester long. Live events were back, but it seemed the habit of coming to them wasn’t quite restored. We had movies, but very small groups coming to them; I noticed this paralleled events elsewhere on campus, like the International House’s brown-bag series (for which both Kerry Wynn and I gave talks originally slated for spring of 2020). We kept that Zoom option for our forums, and got as many tuning in that way as showing up live. International travel was a possibility again; Kerry Wynn and Modern Languages professor Courtney Sullivan took students abroad as part of their Women in World War II class, visiting Normandy and Paris. But it took a lot more work to get there: vaccinations and testing and certificates.
Still, we carry on, finding our way toward this near-normal. Much of our faculty got involved in one way or another with the WUmester theme of Truth, some of us participating in the faculty colloquium centered on the subject, developing special programming (like our film series, all Truth-linked in one way or another), integrating material into our curricula. We sponsored other events as well, like our forums "Uncivil Religion and the Insurrection" and "What's at Stake in Ukraine?" Graduation was live in Lee Arena again, and the Department proudly graduated 6 of our majors. And our recent alumni have not let COVID stop them from accomplishing terrific things in the last few years, as you'll read about below. We do our work: we teach, research. We hope that the normal nears even closer come fall.
WUmester 2022: Truth
The topic for Washburn’s WUmester 2022 was “Truth.” The WUmester initiative, which aims to engage the entire university in a shared conversation about a topic related to social justice, continued to benefit from the support of the Department of History & Geography again this year. For the topic truth, WUmester aimed to consider such important and timely questions as, “How do power and privilege shape who gets to make truth claims?” "What forces affect which ‘truths’ are heard and believed and which are hidden, ignored, or discredited?” and “What happens when people living in a society together—especially a multicultural democracy—do not agree on what is true?”
These questions certainly resonate with the Department's teaching and research objectives and, once again, faculty members embraced the WUmester topic, deeply enriching its curricula and programming.
Dr. Kim Morse incorporated the theme into her honors section of HI 101: Early Modern History while each month of Phi Alpha Theta's historical film series also took up the topic in important and entertaining ways (see story below).
Several History Department faculty presented work as part of a WUmester-themed faculty colloquium offered through the College of Arts and Sciences. This work included an exploration of the miscegenation hoax of 1863–64 offered by Tom Prasch. Kerry Wynn investigated the history of settler colonialism and military land transfers in Kansas. Bruce Mactavish and Kelly Erby shared their research into the role former Missouri Senator and pro-slavery advocate David Rice Atchison did or did not play in the 1856 raid on Lawrence, Kansas Territory.
Though the annual Lincoln Harman Lecture had to be postponed to February 2023 due to the Omicron variant, the WUmester keynote event featuring Albert Woodfox went on as planned.
Woodfox, a member of the Black Panther Party, was wrongfully convinced of murder and held in prison for 43 years. He spent much of that time in solitary confinement until his conviction was overturned with the assistance of the Innocence Project. Mr. Woodfox wrote Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement. My Story of Transformation and Hope, a 2019 non-fiction National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist. His talk offered powerful reflections on the importance of history and the inevitability of change.
Phi Alpha Theta Presents Monthly "Truth" Historical Movie Nights
As part of the programming for Washburn’s “Truth” WUmester, the History honorary society Phi Alpha Theta’s Historical Film Nights offered a full slate of Truth-related film features.
January's selection was F for Fake (1973). “I’m a charlatan,” Orson Welles proclaims in his sly something-like-a-documentary, which, even if that’s hardly news (this is the man, after all, responsible for the infamous “War of the Worlds” radio hoax), makes him the perfect director and host for this playful tour of fakery, forgery, and the elusive truth. The film focuses particularly on art forger Elmyr de Hory, famous for fake Modernist masterpieces that hung on museum walls until he was caught and convicted, and his biographer Clifford Irving, best remembered less for that faux-artist’s biography than the hoax autobiography he penned of Howard Hughes. Welles enhances his tour with assorted magic tricks, of both the carnival and cinematic variety.
In February, Phi Alpha Theta screened Through Martha's Eyes (2006). Kansas was destined to become a free state, we all know that. Or we know it until we see the bill of sale for the purchase in 1856, by Reverend Thomas Johnson (after whom Johnson County is named), of a “a Negro girl named Martha of a Black complexion aged about fifteen years.” It is through Martha’s eyes that Charles Cranston’s film portrays uncomfortable truths about Territorial Kansas, dealing not only with Johnson’s role as a slaveholder but also his operation of the Shawnee Methodist Mission, one of those Indian schools (like Haskell and Carlisle) that sought to “educate” Native Americans by taking the Indian out of them: renaming them and converting them while exploiting their labor. Special discussant for the film was Marcia Cebulska, who wrote the film’s screenplay.
March featured The Return of Martin Guerre (1982). In 1549, after being gone for eight years of war, Martin Guerre returned to Artigat, the southern French village he had left behind, and to his wife and child. That is one version of events. The other version, promoted by his in-laws as the returned Martin begins to challenge traditional ways of doing things, claims that this returned “Martin” was a fraud, engaged in a self-serving masquerade, stealing another man’s identity (and sleeping with another man’s wife). But how, in early-modern Europe, an era without birth certificates or passports or driver’s licenses, do you determine someone’s identity? Daniel Vigne’s film, featuring Gerard Depardieu in the title role, explores the historical trial of Martin Guerre, hewing closely to historian Natalie Zemon Davis’s study of the events.
April's selections included Metropolis (1927). Fritz Lang’s silent futurist classic poses a question of identity similar to that of Martin Guerre: once the evil inventor Rotwang has crafted a robot Maria to replace the kidnapped woman who had been preaching a message of redemptive hope to oppressed workers in the catacombs deep beneath the future city, how can we tell the real Maria from the robot? OK, ok, the search for a true Maria is not the real focus of the film; we’ve just had lots of requests for a screening. Still, Lang’s work, a product of the deeply-riven political turmoil of Weimar Germany, offers a range of ways to think about the true ideals toward which a future should build. Following recent convention, Matt Nyquist (Mass Media) and Tom Prasch (History) talked over the film (it’s silent anyway), providing Mystery Science Theatre-style commentary and wisecracks.
Later in April, Phi Alpha Theta screened The 24th (2020). The “Houston Riot” of 1917, also known as the Camp Logan Mutiny--in which Black military forces in training at Camp Logan, near Houston, took to arms in response to an extensive array of racial provocations from Houston whites--resulted in the deaths of 15 Houston whites, including four policemen, and five Black soldiers. The events led to the largest murder trials in American history, a series of three courts martial in which 110 soldiers (of 118 charged) were found guilty of mutiny, and 19, designated as leaders of the rebellion, were hanged. Kevin Willmott’s film may be a fictional work—changing names, imagining dialogue, interpolating events—but it seeks to get at the truth behind the Houston race riot.
Finally, for the last Historical Movie Night of the semester, Phi Alpha Theta selected an old favorite, Life of Brian (1979). So how do you know who the true Messiah is, anyway? Maybe it’s that Jesus guy, but maybe instead it’s… oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s Brian. Monty Python’s hilarious deep dive into the religio-political struggles and millennialist movements of Roman Imperial-era Palestine provides (or maybe doesn’t) the answer to that question, complete with musical interludes. As they sing at the end, “Always look on the bright side of life.”
Spring Phi Alpha Theta Forums
Phi Alpha Theta sponsored two forums this spring, one on Uncivil Religion and the January 6 Insurrection, and another on the war in Ukraine.
The forum Uncivil Religion and the Insurrection was prompted by a digital Smithsonian exhibition. As Smithsonian curators amassed materials related to the failed insurrection of January 6, they began to notice a clear linkage between the artifacts they were collecting and religious themes. This prodded them to create the cite, "Uncivil Religion: Jan 6, 2021," featuring a range of interpretive essays and several curated collections (see it here). The rich range of materials begged for some scholarly response, and we had the right people to do that: Dr. Chris Jones from Religious Studies; Dr. Lindsey Ibañez, whose range of work includes the sociology of religion; Dr. Jennifer Wiard, of Mabee Library, whose history dissertation examined early twentieth-century evangelical movements in the United States; and Dean of Libraries Alan Bearman, whose study of the history of American religion ranges from publications on Puritan divines to time in the Billy Graham archive. The presentations and lively discussion was taped, so if you missed it you can catch up here:
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is exactly the sort of current event that calls out for historical contextualization and interdisciplinary scholarly analysis. For a forum, that is, and we put one together shortly after the invasion began. The event featured Tom Prasch, filling in some historical background on Ukraine as a framework for understanding the unfolding war; Kris Ailslieger (Political Science), drawing on his own military background to examine the early course of the war on the background; Lindsey Moddelmog (Political Science), providing a geopolitical perspective; and Daria Hart, the Russian-born wife of Washburn History alum Johnathan Hart, discussing the impact of the war on ordinary Russians. Again, a lively discussion followed. And, again, we got it all on tape if you'd like to watch:
A month later, Prasch, Ailslieger, and Moddelmogg reprised and updated their presentations for a noon talk at the International House.
Stay tuned for more forums once classes resume. For one, Kerry Wynn and Tom Prasch almost talked themselves into a forum during finals week once Supreme Court Justice Alito's draft opinion on abortion rights was leaked. We decided there really wasn't time, but you can count on us coming back to the theme.
Ichabods Abroad
Faculty members Dr. Kerry Wynn (Department of History) and Dr. Courtney Sullivan (Department of Modern Languages) reprised their popular Women in World War II class this spring, adding an exciting new element: travel to Paris and Normandy over spring break week. The course explores women’s roles during WWII in French and American fiction, film, autobiography, and history. Frequently cast as victims, resistors, collaborators, patriots, and protesters, women were expected to play a wide spectrum of roles during WWII and the period immediately afterward. This course examines the female experience during the war and its aftermath, and aims to investigate the various representations of women as agents or victims of change. While abroad, students had the additional opportunity to explore locations that figure prominently in the sources they read.
2022–2023 Scholarship Awardees:
Gunnar Alknis Scholarship: Lylah Keyes
Bright/Bader Scholarship: Jadyn Nachtman
Robert Davis Scholarship: Chandler Mix
Marilyn Geiger Scholarship: David White
Gilbert Galle Scholarship: Carlos Cedillo-Silva
Robert C.Haywood Scholarship: Alex Baldwin
William Wagnon Scholarship: Cheyanne Colwell
Linda Wahl-Stoltenberg Scholarship: Kathryn Munoz, Jessie Revell, Nick Sargent, & Nicholas Courtney
History Department Scholarship: Anastasia Dillon, Hannah Rogers, & Macie Lemarr
Deans Scholarship: Lylah Keyes & Rebbekah Stewart
Congratulations!
Alumni Update with Dr. Gerald R. Butters, Jr.
Dr. Butters is professor of history at Aurora University in Aurora, Illinois. He graduated from Washburn University with a Bachelor of Arts in history and political science before going on to earn a Master's degree in history from the University of Missouri and a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. Dr. Butters's areas of specialization include United States history since 1865, gender, race, and American popular culture. He recently answered some questions for us about his time at Washburn and current research interests.
Why did you decide to pursue a major in history as an undergraduate? How did your time at Washburn shape your approach to history? I originally thought I would go to law school. But my love of history led me to the belief that I would be much happier exploring and teaching it. I am a proud Kansan and the state has played a significant role in my work.
You have developed a strong research focus, in your four published books and your forthcoming one, on African American cinema. Could you talk about how you came to this research interest?My first job was teaching in a predominantly Black junior high school. I saw my students profoundly impacted by popular images of African American men and women in the 1980s. I began exploring this field and found it fascinating. I have been extremely lucky to have a group of colleagues all with the same interests and we have networked and helped each other along the way. I just completed my first Criterion DVD commentary so I feel like I have made it now!
A couple of your books--Banned in Kansas and Race and the Silver Screen in Chicago's Loop--focus in interesting ways on the public reception of films. What research challenges did such work present, and how did you deal with those challenges? That is easy! You often begin a project, believing you know what you are going to argue but the primary source material often tells a very different story. I found the Kansas censorship story non-linear; judicial, state-political and cultural events could suddenly project the Censorship Board in a different direction. In From Sweetback to Super Fly, I originally just wanted to write a book about the demise of all of the great theaters in Chicago, having no idea that race would factor so prominently in their eventual destruction.
I have also learned over the years that you need to talk to a broad group of people to get the complete the story. And never ever ever forget the "nerds" in a particular subject. There are people out there who are passionate about a subject but they may not have a PhD. You ignore their expertise at your own peril because they often know more than you do.
Your next book, we have noticed, centers on one of our own favorite African-American filmmakers (we've had him to Washburn a number of times), Kevin Willmott. Could you share some of the insights you have had about his work? Kevin is a remarkable man. He has "made it" and won an Academy Award based solely on his talent. I call Kevin an "emotional historian." He not only takes us back to various periods in African American history, but he lets us know how people "felt" during that time. I am at the point in my career when I want to highlight people I really respect and he is one of them. Kevin always has screenplay ideas and I am intrigued what he has produced the last couple of years during Covid.
Congratulations to alumnus Austin Main on his new position with the Kansas State Historic Preservation Office.
Fall 2022 Upper-Division Course Offerings
HI 300A John Brown: This class explores one of the most controversial figures in U.S. history, abolitionist John Brown. Born in 1800, Brown came of age during a period of profound social, cultural, economic, and religious upheaval. We will seek to understand John Brown in the context of the rapidly changing world in which he lived. We will treat Brown as neither lunatic nor martyr, but as a son, businessman, father, and political activist whose stance on abolitionism gradually evolved to a point where he saw the use of violence as the only means through which to stop the evil of slavery. We will further explore Brown’s place in America’s historical memory and the ways in which history has been appropriated both during his own time and in the 150 years since his execution. In the process, we will discuss how historians seek out the “truth” about the past and the limits they face as they do so. (11:00-11:50 MWF) Erby
HI 328 African-American History: The black experience in America from African origins to the present. Themes to be emphasized include: the process of enslavement, the emergence of African-American culture, the nature of slavery, the struggle for freedom, the migration to the North, the Civil Rights movement, and contemporary issues. (11:00-12:15) Mactavish
HI 300B Ancient Greece: This course covers the history of ancient Greek civilization from its origins in the Hellenistic period. This course is divided into two major sections. The first section covers the early development of Greece during the Minoan and Mycenaean ages, and the establishment and development of key institutions during the Archaic and early Classical Ages, especially the innovation of democracy in both Sparta and Athens. The second section of the course examines the development of high Classical culture (including philosophy, history, drama, architecture and the visual arts), and the transformation of the Greek world in the Hellenistic age after Alexander. In-between the two sections is planned an extended simulation game in which students will represent members of the Athenian Assembly in 403 B,C.E., dealing with a host of issues and themes, including the possibility of a trial of Socrates.Built into the fabric of the course is an examination of the skills of the historian, Most especially close analysis of primary and secondary source material, and various types of historiographic research and writing. Through regular readings and related writing students will study different types of sources, varying in length and difficulty from brief excerpts to entire works and accompanied by study-questions, discussion and/or assigned writing. Student grades will be based on quizzes, homework assignments, writing assignments on required reading, midterm and final exams, a research assignment, and class participation.(9:30-10:45 TR) Silvestri
HI 339 History of France: Study of the development of French history and culture from the earliest times to the presentThis course will treat the history of France from ancient times to the resent, although with an emphasis on history since the early modern period, When France played a critical role in shaping the modern nation state and the modern era, when events like the French Revolution shaped world history and in which the French role was central in conflicts like the world wars of the twentieth century. Heavy emphasis will be placed on reading primary sources (in translation or in the original language, as you prefer). (11:00-12:15 TR) Prasch
HI 360 The History of Mexico: Origins of Mexican Civilization in the blending of the Indians and Spanish races and civilizations and the historical development of that civilization to the present. The intersection of physical, economic and social forces in the shaping of that civilization is emphasized. (1:00-2:15 TR) Morse
Additional Alumni Updates & News
Teacher Licensure student Rob Geotz has landed a position teaching ASL for the Topeka 501 school district. Rob will start this summer teaching 8th-graders and this fall he will be based at Topeka High. He's excited for the district's potential for expanding the ASL program and sees himself as a bridge between the Deaf community and the hearing community. He also anticipates teaching history and/or government classes, as those positions become available. Currently, Rob is wrapping up his student teaching semester at Shawnee Heights High School. Rob, Congratulations!
Kat LaFever began a full-time teaching position at Southwest Middle School in Lawrence, teaching seventh-grade Kansas history.
Cal Lyle began a full-time history and government teaching position at Burlingame High School.
Amanda McGuire is in her second year in a history Ph.D. program at the University of East Anglia. In March she spent a week completing data collection in Edinburg at the National Museum of Scotland.
Congratulations to Dr. Rachel Goossen on Her Retirement and Professor Emeritus Status
This semester, we bid farewell to Rachel Goossen, retiring after 22 years of teaching at Washburn. Goossen came to Washburn in 2000, after teaching at Goshen College in Hesston, Kansas. She was brought in to supervise our history/education track as well as to teach courses in U.S. History. She was the principal advisor to students taking history/education and supervised all student teachers, teaching the methods course for social science for the Department of Education, working closely with Education to ensure the continuing accreditation of the program, and of course endeavoring (with striking success) to get graduating students placed in teaching jobs.
Once installed at Washburn, however, Goossen’s range of activities rapidly expanded. She was a central figure in the History Department’s sponsorship of the annual regional History Day competition. She oversaw our student internship program, which connected her with regional institutions like the Kansas Historical Society, Ritchie House, Topeka Center for Peace and Justice, Mabee Library, Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, Brown V. Board of Education National Historic Site, Kansas Statehouse, and Baker University Archives. She also helped to develop Washburn’s Peace Studies interdisciplinary minor.
Goossen got her BA from North Newton’s Bethel College, her MA from the University of California in Santa Barbara, and her PhD from the University of Kansas. Her early research work on conscientious objectors led to the publication of Women Against the Good War: Conscientious Objection and Gender on the American Home Front, 1941-47 (1997). Later research investigated the war-toy industry and its impact on American culture. More recent work has included a ground-breaking investigation of accusations of sexual abuse against Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder (her nearly book-length article, “’Defanging the Beast’: Mennonite Responses to John Howard Yoder’s Sexual Abuse,” appeared in the Mennonite Quarterly in 2015; ; her research on Yoder was also featured in a range of related publications). Her current research, focusing on the struggles of LGBTQ+ leaders in the Mennonite Church, has already led to two published articles: “’Repent of the Sins of Homophobia’: The Rise of Queer Mennonite Leaders” in Nova Religio (2021) and “Transnational Perspectives: LGBTQ Mennonites,” in the edited collection On a Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace (2022). Her work has been recognized at Washburn by the Roy A. Myers Excellence in Scholarship award and by being selected to give the College of Arts and Science’s Distinguished Lecture; beyond Washburn, her recognitions have included the Peace History Society’s DeBenedetti Prize, a visiting regional fellowship at KU’s Hall Center for the Humanities, Bethel College’s Menno Simons Lectureship, and, most recently, second prize in the Thomas Robbins Award for Excellence in the Study of New Religious Movements (2021).
Her changing research interests have also fueled Goossen’s innovations in teaching. Her research work on war toys contributed to the development of her course on the History of American Childhood, which traced changing ideas about childhood over the course of US history. Goossen drew on her Mennonite roots to develop a course on Anabaptism: The Radical Reformation. A Sweet Sabbatical trip to Vietnam informed her course Remembering Vietnam, which sought to incorporate perspectives from both sides of the conflict.
Harder to summarize is the rich contribution Goossen made to the life of the History Department. Always collegial, always supportive, almost always patient, she played an important role guiding History students (even beyond those in the Education track), helping mentor new faculty in the department and throughout the University, and developing important interdisciplinary connections with others in the campus community. Rachel's numerous contributions were recognized this spring when the Washburn Board of Regents granted her emeritus status. She will be deeply missed.
Welcome, Phi Alpha Theta Inductees
The Department extends a warm welcome to the newest members of Phi Alpha Theta. Students inducted into Phi Alpha Theta include our scholarship winners and other students with at least 12 credit hours in history and at least a 3.1 GPA, demonstrating excellence in their history coursework. The Department honored inductees at a ceremony in early May (below).
Spring Commencement, 2022
The Department was thrilled to celebrate spring and summer graduates at the College of Arts and Sciences commencement ceremony in Lee Arena on May 14.
Cheers to Our Spring and Summer Graduates
Alexander Baldwin (with honors)
Isaac Conner (with honors)
Jordan Dickens (with honors)
Katie Johnson (with honors)
Kassadee Clark
Steven Cornwell
Graduates, good luck in your future endeavors! Stay in touch!
Connect with the Washburn Department of History on Twitter (@wuhistory), Instagram (@HistoryBods), & Facebook (@ WashburnUniversityHistory).
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