History

Nancy F. Cott, Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard University, is a leading American historian. She is the author of The Bonds of Womanhood, The Grounding of Modern Feminism, and Public Vows, a history of marriage as an institution in the United States. She is the president-elect of the Organization of American Historians. Professor Cott was the lead author in drafting the historians’ amicus brief on the history of marriage in the recent landmark Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges, submitted by the American Historical Association.

Namiko Kunimoto, Assistant Professor of Japanese Art History, Ohio State University

Jubilation! Papal Jubilees Past and Present With a joyful Papal Bull, Pope Francis declared this year a Jubilee Year of Mercy, a year of indulgence, where pilgrimage can lead to the forgiveness of sins and freedom from “every residue left by the consequences of sin.” Is this just a papal “Get Out of Purgatory Free” card? Federico Canaccini will take us back to Pope Boniface VIII’s first Papal Jubilee in 1300 and explore the context, history and meanings of such extraordinary papal promises.

International and Global Studies Colloquium “Images of the US in Putin’s Russia: High policy and popular geopolitics” by Victoria Zuravleva, professor of history, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow.

Lunch is free for current Middlebury College students/faculty/staff; suggested $5 donation for others; RSVP by 11/7 to rcga@middlebury.edu. Sponsored by the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs, Departments of Russian and History, Russian and East European Studies Program.

Join us for a multi-dimensional exploration of basketball, President Barack Obama, and American culture, politics, and society. Alex Wolff, author of The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama, will open the session with a presentation highlighting key themes from his new book.

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay” —Oliver Goldsmith, “The Deserted Village” (1770) Inequality is on the rise in the contemporary global economy, both within prosperous economies and between developed and developing countries. Can democracy sustain itself while acquiescing in a growing gap between the world’s haves and have-nots? Does the American dream depend on a foundation of shared prosperity that is increasingly a historical artifact?

Mary Lou Finley is a scholar/activist who recently retired from Antioch University in Seattle, Washington, where she taught sociology. After graduating from Stanford University, she was part of Martin Luther King’s team on the Chicago Freedom Movement. She is one of the co-authors of “Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements” (2001). She is also a trained teacher in Kingian Non-Violence.

Learn about many possibilities after earning a History major – from History alumni themselves! Middlebury alums will be on campus discussing their career paths and offering on advice on the options for students majoring in History They can help you answer the question, “What can I do with my liberal arts major or degree?” The History Field Guide will feature an alumni panel, followed by an informal reception. You’ll have the chance to connect with alumni, faculty, and other students.

Jeehee Hong, Associate Professor of East Asian Art History at McGill University and current Fellow at the Clark Art Institute, examines representations of grief in Chinese middle-period (9th-14th centuries) funerary contexts. Hong shows that fictional or localized mourners were “inserted” into monuments to transmit corporeal and raw emotions. Sponsored by the Department of History, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Middlebury College Museum of Art, and the Program in East Asian Studies.  Free

Professor Robert Stolz, University of Virginia