Faculty News
Books for Peace
Society of History Scholars, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and other student organizations are sponsoring a children's book drive for Palestinian students through the United Nation Refugee and Works Agency. In view of the recent violence in Gaza, this is an opportunity to help build peace by encouraging education. These books will go to UNRWA schools, facilitate English language education, and perhaps strengthen the possibilities for peace. Please contact Daniel Byrne if you have books to donate db89@evansville.edu
Edward Bujak Named Vice Principal at Harlaxton
Principal of Harlaxton College Gordon Kingsley has announced that Edward Bujak, chairman of the British Studies Programme and associate professor of British Studies and History at Harlaxton, will succeed Jan Beckett as vice principal for Academic Services. She will retire from that post on July 31. Bujak will continue to teach in British Studies.
A PhD graduate of the University of East Anglia, where he held the Norman Scarfe Doctoral Research Scholarship, Bujak is a published scholar, his latest book being England's Rural Realm: Landholding and the Agricultural Revolution, published in 2007 by I. B. Tauris/Palgrave Macmillan. In 2005 he was named Outstanding Professor for the entire University of Evansville. He and his wife Joanne live in Grantham.
Beckett will continue, after retirement from the Vice Principalship, to serve as part-time librarian at Harlaxton.
After nearly four years at the University of Evansville, Daniel Byrne taught a wide array of courses spanning the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the United States. To strengthen his teaching and research, he travelled to Jordan, New York, and Washington, DC to attend seminars on teaching about Islam and the history of the Middle East and teaching United States history in global perspective. He has maintained his research into United States policies towards the decolonization of Africa and he presented papers on Anglo-American relations in North Africa, Franco-American relations regarding Guinea and Algeria, and the varied historical factors that shaped American attitudes towards decolonization and national liberation movements. Recently, his paper entitled “The Influence of Race on United States Policy towards the Decolonization of North Africa” was accepted for publication by the Journal of American Studies in Turkey. Dr. Byrne also helped organize the One World Human Rights Film Series and student participation in the 2008 Phi Alpha Theta regional undergraduate conference held at Indiana State University. He continues to involve himself in the Society for History Scholars and encouraging students to present their research and writing at national conferences.
Burton Kirkwood enjoyed teaching his courses during the 2008 fall semester as the timing of events was nearly perfect for two of his classes. He taught his course—The Great Crash and the Great Depression—as the economy continued its downward spiral during the fall and the media repeatedly made references to the Great Depression and the nature of response witnessed during that time. During the course of the semester, he and his students made comparisons between events that played out in the 1930s with what was currently taking place on the nation scene. Timing also played a terrific role as he was working on the third edition of his book The History of Mexico while at the same time teaching his course on Mexico during the fall semester. Outside of class Dr. Kirkwood is completely enjoying being a dad and spending as much time as possible with his son Benjamin. In his free time he continues to ride his bike around the Evansville/Newburgh area. And, of course, when possible he gets back to the Shenandoah Valley as much as time allows.
Daniel Gahan sends his best wishes to all our alumni. Life is treating him fairly well, all told. He still enjoys going into class and meeting yet more great young people who want to make the world a better place. He is teaching courses on eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe and on colonial America and rural America (in the nineteenth century). He has moved his course on Ireland up to the 400 level, and that course now focuses on the nineteenth century. He is convinced that he is now an easy grader, but that may just be his older mind playing tricks on him. He says it is interesting to see the shift in political views he detects among the students. His comment is that the Reagan shadow has apparently lightened a little. Dr. Gahan is still focusing his research energies on Ireland in the eighteenth century but has developed a tangential interest in Irish immigrants in rural America in the 19th century. For the next year or two though, eighteenth-century Ireland will still occupy him. His view is that the department is galloping ahead, full steam. He is thankful for all the support we get from our alumni and hopes life is treating them well too.
For the past year Annette Parks has been working on revamping courses, especially History 111 which she hopes to make more thematic than linear by combining a more compact textbook with two or three short monographs in addition to the usual compliment of primary sources. History 314 is also getting an overhaul with less focus on the “renaissance” period and more on the wars of religion and the emergence of absolutism. On the research side of the house, she is continuing to work on hostages with a shift in focus to the experiences of elite female hostages in the Middle Ages. The dearth of sources makes the work painstakingly slow, but tracking down obscure references and uncovering bits and pieces of information can be tremendously fulfilling as well. Off campus Annette is spending her “spare time” working on refinishing a desk that will eventually be home to the many, many ungraded papers presently occupying various nooks and crannies in the house.
James MacLeod’s teaching focus continues to be the modern British Isles and the two World Wars. It remains an interesting, if sobering, experience to be teaching about war while the country engages in two overseas wars which involve either the friends or family members of almost every student in class. And from time to time students leave class to join the military and so go from talking about war to engaging in war. James continues to research war memorials, with his focus shifting gradually from Britain to the United States, and in 2008 he delivered a public lecture that compared Scottish war memorials to those over here, and specifically in Evansville. He continues to serve as the Faculty Athletics Representative, and so gets to learn more about graduation rates, retention rates, and the permissibility of academic aid during summer school than he ever wanted to know! In his spare time he draws weekly cartoons for courierpress.com and supplies the Evansville Courier with editorial cartoons.
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