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History Department
History Department

Introducing the New Faculty

John Grigg arrived at UNO in 2006. If there is a traditional -- or typical -- way into the history profession, John Grigg probably didn't follow it. Born in New Zealand, he grew up in Australia, completed a science degree (with a chemistry major), worked for the state government, spent two years with his church helping coordinate youth activities, drove taxis for a year, and finally worked in a warehouse until venturing overseas for the first time in 1990. For almost six years he worked with an interdenominational Christian group based first in New Jersey and then in Montana, traveled to twenty states and ten countries including Norway, Hungary, Chile, and Japan.

In his early thirties he decided to grow up and made history his chosen career. In 1997 he started graduate school at the University of Kansas. His doctoral dissertation studied the life and legacy of eighteenth century missionary David Brainerd. Oxford University Press will publish a revised version. Dr. Grigg published several articles based on Brainerd, eighteenth century church development in Kansas, and the early years of an eighteenth century Scottish missionary organization. His next project will focus on evangelical religion in New Jersey in the early 1700s.

Dr. Grigg began his career at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. He has taught American history surveys, World Civ., colonial America, revolutionary America, and a graduate seminar in the colonial Atlantic world. He developed a fascination for the widespread ac-ceptance of conspiracy theory and has taught several courses which seek to help students understand why logical people can hold illogical beliefs. His interests include mountain-biking (something of a challenge in Nebraska), travel, and hanging with his friends. A keen sports fan, he follows the fortunes - and misfortunes - of a number of teams in the US, Australia, and England. He continues to celebrate KU's national championship.

June L. Mecham joined the faculty at the University of Nebraska-Omaha in 2005 as assistant professor of European Medieval History. She spent the 2004-2005 academic year as Visiting Assistant Professor of Medieval History at Virginia Tech. She earned her docto-rate at the University of Kansas in 2004 under the direction of Lisa M. Bitel and graduated with honors. Dr. Mecham's research and teaching interests focus on female spirituality, monasticism and material culture. She has published several articles related to these inter-ests and served as researcher and advisor to Monasticmatrix (http://%20monasticmatrix.usc.edu/), an academic site promoting the study of female mo-nastic life in pre-modern Europe. During the 2006-2007 academic year, Dr. Mecham re-ceived a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship to study at the Medieval Institute at the Universi-ty of Notre Dame. She is completing a monograph on female monastic devotion and reli-gious culture in late medieval Germany. Dr. Mecham has taught classes on Women in the Middle Ages, Female Spirituality, European Witchcraft, Medieval Pilgrimage, and the Medieval Church.

Continuing Faculty

Maria Arbalaez is the current chair of the Missouri Valley History Conference. She is the editor of Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies. She assisted Omaha's Film Streams with its Cinemateca, August-October, 2008. She attended conferences Nuestra America at the University Kansas-Lawrence, Organization of American Historians and Berkshire Women's Conference. She has been awarded a Civic Participation Project Grant for her project, "Living on One Planet: Positive Perspectives on Immigration."

Bruce Garver was succeeded by Sharon Wood as chair of the department on September 1, 2008. Bruce had served as chairperson for more than 15 years, of which the last 12 years and 8 months were consecutive. During those years, the Department hired eight of its cur-rent fifteen tenure-track faculty members, five of whom have earned tenure. Bruce reports that his service has been enjoyable thanks to colleagues who have been productive, per-sonable, and dedicated to the welfare of their students. Bruce improved his Italian and tra-veled to Italy in 2001, 2004, 2007, and 2008. He developed three new courses on the history and historiography of Renaissance Italy, the Risorgimento, and 20th century Italy. Currently, he is doing research on Czech-Italian relations from 1859 to 1870. Along with Dr. Mila Saskova-Pierce of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Bruce is coordinating the Center for Great Plains Studies' April 2010 Symposium on "Czech immigration to the Great Plains in international perspective." Bruce and Dr. Karen Garver celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary in August 2008. Their children, Lee and Val, are college pro-fessors respectively at Butler (English literature) and at Northern Illinois (medieval Euro-pean history).

Moshe Gershovich continues to study and teach the modern history of North Africa and the Middle East. In February 2008 the Middle East Institute published his on-line Policy Brief "Democratization in Morocco: Political Transition of a North African Kingdom." In November 2007 he presented a paper entitled "Military Mobilization and Social transfor-mation: World War II and the Integration of the Middle atlas within the Moroccan State" at the Middle East Studies Association meeting in Montreal. As a member of the steering committee for the newly formed Center for Islamic Studies, Gershovich is engaged in shaping a new minor in Islamic Studies at UNO. He is involved in the establishment of a Center for Israel and Judaic Studies. He reinforced his commitment to teaching courses re-lated to the Holocaust and modern Jewish history by participating in the 2008 Summer In-stitute at Northwestern University in Illinois, organized by the Holocaust Education Foun-dation. Gershovich's innovative teaching continues through his involvement with the First Year Experience (FYE) program at UNO, and the newly formed Thompson Learning Community. He has been appointed as Faculty Advisor for Houghton Mifflin's "Team-Up" program and has recently participated in two of its regional pedagogical workshops.

Lorraine Gesick marks her tenth year as Faculty Advisor of Phi Alpha Theta's Omicron Chapter, her fifth year on the advisory panel for the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library, and her sixth year as a dedicated gardener.

Charles King has two publications forthcoming in conference volumes. "The Roman Manes: The Dead as Gods," in Behind the Ghastly Smoke: Rethinking Ghost in World Religions, edited by Mu-chou Poo (Brill, 2009). On a more popular culture oriented topic--the depiction of Hell in comic books--a version of his talk, "What If It's Just Good Business?: Hell, Business Models, and the Dilution of Justice in Mike Carey's Lucifer," will appear in Hell and Its Afterlife: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Margaret Toscano and Isabel Moreira, to be published by Ashgate (2010). He is optimistic that his book manuscript, "The Ancient Roman Afterlife: Beliefs and Variations in the Cult of the Dead" will finally be completed. Projects for the school year include putting more Roman history courses in the course cata-log, especially his recently developed popular course on "The Roman Family." He contin-ues to offer graduate courses, including a seminar on Roman religion. He is branching out a bit by doing a directed reading about ancient Egypt.

Oliver B. Pollak has been teaching at UNO for 34 years. Arriving as a young scholar in-terested in British, Burmese and Zimbabwean history he followed the dictates of "One thing leads to another." During 2007 he published two books on the history of higher edu-cation. With Les Valentine, university archivist, he produced a photo book on the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and completed a four year project, To Educate and Serve: The Centennial History of Creighton University School of Law, 1904-2004. His interest in higher education has extended to the Northwestern School of Taxidermy and local busi-ness colleges. He writes occasionally for the Omaha World-Herald, the Omaha Jewish Press, the Nebraska Center for the Book News and the Omaha Pedalers Newsletter. His main teaching assignment of recent years has been Historical Research, encouraging students to use primary sources, writing in the active voice, and avoiding the use of was and also. He enjoys reading, music, cycling, picking up in the garden, and writing creative nonfiction. He is currently writing a book on Porridge/Oatmeal.

Bill Pratt spent the spring of 2007 as a senior Fulbright lecturer at the American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw. He presented a paper, "Background on 'KareliaFever,' as Viewed from Communist Party USA Records," at an international research seminar at Petrozavodsk State University, in Karelia, in May of 2008. It has been published in North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in the 1930s, Irina Takala and Ilya Solomeshch, eds (Pe-trozavodsk: Petrozavodsk State University Press, 2008). He published "Historians and the Lost World of Kansas Radicalism: Review Essay," Kansas History 30 (Winter 2007/2008): 270-91. He is a trustee of the Nebraska State Historical Society.

Jeanne Reames has an article, "The Cult of Hephaistion," forthcoming in Responses to Alexander, edited by Paul Cartledge and Fiona Greenland (Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2009). She is co-editor of Macedonian Legacies: Articles on Macedonian History and Cul-ture in Honor of Eugene N. Borza, to be published by Regina Books in 2008 or 2009. Her article in that collection is "The Philotas Affair ... Again: Crisis & Opportunity." Besides history department committees, she is a member of the Faculty Senate and will chair the Senate's Academic and Curricular Affairs Committee in the Spring of 2009.

Mark Scherer published his second book, titled Rights in the Balance: Free Press, Fair Trial & Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart (Texas Tech University Press, 2008). Scherer appeared at a colloquium on the book and the Nebraska Press Association case on Sept. 4 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C, sponsored by the First Amendment Center and broadcast on C-SPAN. He published a chapter on Nebraska Native American legal history in The History of Nebraska Law (Ohio University Press, 2008). His current research in-cludes two book projects -- a history of the federal district court of Nebraska and a refer-ence volume on twentieth century Native American history. He continues to teach courses on Nebraska history, Supreme Court history, Native American legal history, and the American Revolutionary era. He is currently serving as University Ombudsman.

Jerry Simmons divides his time between U.S. History survey classes, American Constitutional History and twentieth century America. His scholarly activities continue to focus on projects in the history of film censorship. This past year he completed an article on the censoring of the Brando film, The Wild One and the classic classroom picture, The Black-board Jungle. He is planning a graduate seminar in film history for the Fall term of 2009. He has recently directed masters theses for Brent Myers, Ashley Howard, Charles Kline-tobe and Michael Cornick.

Michael L. Tate continues to teach his classes in American Indian history and the American West, and graduate seminars devoted to twentieth century issues related to these top-ics. He received the 2007 Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize and the 2007 Parmly Billings Book Award for Indians and Emigrants: Encounters on the Overland Trails (University of Oklahoma Press), and has published The American Army in Transition, 1865-1898 (Greenwood Press). Forthcoming is his book, William Quesenbury: Artist and Chronicler of the California Trail (University of Oklahoma Press). He has chaired the graduate program for several years. Dr. Tate is writing a four-volume study on the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails for University of Oklahoma Press.

Sharon Wood spent part of the summer doing archival research for her current book project, "Priscilla, the Life and Liberty of an American Slave." In June she took part in a roundtable presentation, "Researching and Writing the Lives of Unfree Women," at the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women in Minneapolis. The roundtable organized by Dr. Wood and Dr. Terri Snyder of California State University, Fullerton, was identified by the blog "Historiann" as one of the best conference sessions (www.historiann.com/category/berkshire-conference). Dr. Wood began serving as chair of the history department in September.

Adjuncts

Fred Amis marked the completion of the second year of Honors Synergy classes that combine World Civilization with World Religions, English Composition, Philosophy, and World Literature. Instructors from these disciplines cooperated to integrate their classes creating an entirely new kind of learning experience for UNO students. For example, schedules in History, Philosophy, and Literature matched up to cover simultaneously the Renaissance, Plato's Republic, and Machiavelli's The Prince. When students perceived connections between these and related topics, they experienced those wonderful "Ah Ha!" moments of heightened intellectual understanding. The Synergy program has been the most fulfilling and enjoyable undertaking in his three careers. Other instructors can now obtain support for creating Synergy type classes through a grant offered by the Omaha Community Foundation by contacting the Synergy Program coordinator, Matthew Marx at 554-3102 or at mmarx@mail.unomaha.edu.

Mary Lyons-Barrett teaches at Metro and UNO offering upper level Topics classes on the U.S. in the 1960's, the Progressive Era, and Modern Irish History. M.E. Sharpe will publish Child Labor World Atlas: A Reference Encyclopedia containing her article on Child Labor in Commercialized Agriculture. She is a volunteer with Omaha Habitat for Humanity.

Emeritus Faculty

JoAnn Carrigan, since retirement from UNO in 1996, continues to volunteer at UNMC at the Preventive and Societal Medicine Dept. and in the College of Public Health. She served as co-instructor in the "Issues in Public Health: Past and Present" graduate seminar, on four Ph.D. dissertation committees (interdisciplinary), received the College of Medicine Volunteer Faculty of the Month Award in January 2004 and is active in the Medical Hu-manities Group. She attended the American Association for History of Medicine meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2006 and the Southern Historical Association in New Orleans.

Harl Dalstrom, since retiring in 2003, spends May to September at Longbow Lake, On-tario, a little over 400 miles north of the Twin Cities. Last year he and Kay took a summer tour of Alaska. For a week each April they like to hang out in Branson and see spring in the Ozarks. In recent years Dick and Corky Overfield have joined them. From October to March they spend many of their Friday and Saturday evenings at Maverick hockey home games.

Harl and Kay are frequent co-authors. The University of Nebraska Press published their big project, co-authored with Lawrence H. Larsen and Barbara J. Cottrell, Upstream Metropolis: An Urban Biography of Omaha and Council Bluffs. This book led to an interest in the history of Council Bluffs. Many Saturday and Sunday afternoons are spent at the Council Bluffs Public Library, going through microfilm reels of the Council Bluffs Nonpa-reil day by day for the period from the end of World War I to the start of the Great Depression. The Council Bluffs Public Library is a fine place to do research.

In 2005 the Dalstroms delivered a paper on 1938 forest fires at the Northern Great Plains History Conference in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The completed a manuscript is entitled "`We were not worried at dinner time': The October 1938 Forest Fires and the Last Frontier in the Rainy River-Lake of the Woods Borderland." At the Northern Great Plains Conference in Sioux Falls in October 2006, they presented a paper, "Good Times in Southwestern Minnesota: The Hollyhock and Playmor Ballrooms and the Local Musical Tradition." In October 2007, Harl delivered a paper, "Murder in the Roundhouse, Trouble in the Streets: Council Bluffs, Iowa, 1913," at the Northern Great Plains meeting in Duluth. (If you ever get a chance to go to Duluth and the North Shore in the fall, go!) This April, Harl presented "Upstream Metropolis: The Missouri River System and the Making of Greater Omaha," at the Dakota History and Literature Conference, an annual spring meeting spon-sored by the Center for Western Studies at Augustana College, Sioux Falls. He presented "Homicide on the Canada-U. S. Boundary: State of Minnesota v. John Klym," at the Northern Great Plains History Conference in Brandon, Manitoba. In closing he states, "there is nothing boring about retirement!"

William Petrowski and Shirley are enjoying retirement in the Pacific Northwest where weather shifts are less extreme.

Jacqueline St John reports that she has attended family and college reunions, donated 4400 books and magazines to the Plattsmouth Public Library, visited Hawaii, Russia, Greece, Alaska, the Panama Canal and South Pacific - "Retirement is wonderful and chal-lenging.