Several professors in the College of Charleston Department of History have published books and articles in prestigious international journals. More information on these accomplishments is below.
Associate Professor of History Tim Carmichael and Assistant Professor of Arabic Ghazi Abuhakema co-published “The Somali Youth League Constitution: a handwritten Arabic copy (c. 1947?) from the Ethiopian Security Forces Archives in Harär,” in the Journal of Eastern African Studies, which is the international publication of the British Institute in Eastern Africa and edited from Oxford University. The article concerns the political party that dominated Somalia’s early post-colonial history and whose ideology continues to shape international attitudes about Somali politics and the country’s future. Carmichael found the document in a regional archive in eastern Ethiopia and Abuhakema translated most of it. They both provided explanatory and critical commentaries and view this project as the first in an on-going collaboration about the history of Islam in Northeast Africa.
History Professor Richard Bodek and English Professor Simon Lewis edited The Fruits of Exile: Central European Intellectual Immigration to America in the Age of Fascism. The edited volume casts new light on the history of émigré thinkers escaping from the rise of fascism in Central Europe. Bodek also translated Claire Bergmann’s What Will Become of the Children? This German novel, critical of the Nazis when it was published in 1932, was banned soon after the Nazi regime began to exert total control. Bergmann never wrote another book, disappearing from sight in 1935.
Jason Coy, associate professor of history, published A Brief History of Germany in January 2011. The book provides narrative treatment of German history from prehistory to the present for a general audience. Coy also authored an article on banishment in early modern Germany that was translated into French and appeared in the fall 2010 edition of the peer-reviewed journal, La Licorne, published by the Presses Universitaires de Rennes. The article is an expanded version of an invited keynote address Coy gave in October 2009 at the “Banishment in Early Modern Europe Conference” at the Université Paris X, in Nanterre, France. Coy also co-edited a book that appeared in late 2010, entitled The Holy Roman Empire Reconsidered. The volume, which features the latest scholarship on the empire produced by scholars from Germany, Britain, and the United States, stands as the inaugural volume in the new “Spektrum” series sponsored by the German Studies Association, the leading scholarly organization in the field of German history.
Michelle Garceau, assistant professor of history, published “Here begin the miracles of the blessed Bernat’: Bernat Calbó, bishop of Vic, and ACV 36/1” in the Spanish journal, Ausa. In June 2011, Garceau will have another article published, this one in the Journal of Medieval History. “I call the people: Church bells in medieval Catalunya,” approaches bells from the viewpoints of those men and women who heard them and wanted them rung. This article demonstrates that there is much more to understanding medieval bells than knowing ‘for whom the bell tolls’; we have to look at the listeners as much as the ringers in order to understand their cultural significance in medieval Europe. This article is a first step in how such a study could be begun.
Irina Gigova, an assistant professor of history, published “The City and the Nation: Sofia’s Trajectory from Glory to Rubble in WWII” in the Journal of Urban History. The article examines the capital city of Bulgaria, Sofia, from 1934 to 1944. The decade began with an ambitious project of intense urban planning and renewal and ended with the destructive Allied bombings of Sofia in the winter of 1943/44 that led to the city’s evacuation. In addition to analyzing the transformation Sofia underwent during the period, the study uses the city as a gauge for the achievements and shortcomings of the mid-century Bulgarian state and the popular appeal of its official nationalism.
Scott Poole, associate professor of history, published the paperback version of Satan in America: The Devil We Know in December 2010. The book tells the story of America’s complicated relationship with the devil. ‘New light’ evangelists of the eighteenth century, enslaved African Americans, demagogic politicians, and modern American film-makers have used the devil to damn their enemies, explain the nature of evil and injustice, mount social crusades, construct a national identity, and express anxiety about matters as diverse as the threat of war to the dangers of deviant sexuality. Poole will be releasing “Monsters in America: Our Historic Fascination with the Hideous and the Horrific” (Baylor University Press, 2011) in the coming months and will do a reading at the Book Expo America in New York City in May.
