Tag Archives: Friday Eldredge & Clark

UALR Evenings with History: A Brief History of Human Rights on March 6

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The UALR Evenings with History program returns tomorrow night (March 6) with Charles W. Romney’s “A Brief History of Human Rights.”

What are Human Rights? Some claim humans have always had rights that cannot be traded, infringed, or given away. Others argue international organizations and American officials invented the concept of human rights in the 1970s to further various political agendas. In this Evening with History we will discuss the two historical interpretations behind each vision of human rights, assess the relative strength of both ideas of international rights, and explore the political and intellectual stakes in the debate over the origins of Human Rights.

Charles Romney graduated from Pomona College and received his Ph.D. in history from UCLA. He worked in public history for seven years on documentary films and digital history projects, and in the five years before joining UALR taught Asian and African history at Whittier College in California. At UALR he is the Graduate Coordinator of the History Department’s MA program in Public History.  Dr. Romney teaches classes on public history, digital history, African history, and on the United States and the world.  His current research includes a study of law, labor, and the state in modern America and a comparative history of colonial Hawaii.

The Evenings with History take place in the Ottenheimer Auditorium in the Historic Arkansas Museum at 200 E. Third Street. Refreshments are served at 7:00 p.m., and the talk begins at 7:30 p.m.

Corporate sponsors for the 2011-2012 season are Delta Trust, Union Pacific Railroad, the Little Rock School District—Teaching American History Program; the law firms of Friday, Eldredge, & Clark and Wright, Lindsey & Jennings. Also thanks for support and gifts in kind from the Ottenheimer Library; Historic Arkansas Museum, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage; UALR Public Radio–KLRE-KUAR; and Grapevine Spirits

UALR Evenings with History: How an Arkansan taught Chinese Nationalism

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The UALR Evenings with History program resumes for 2012 tomorrow night (February 7) with Jeffrey Kyong-McClain’s “The Heavenly History of the Han, or How a Liberal Baptist from Green Forest, Arkansas Taught Racial and Ethnic Nationalism to the Chinese.”

In the early years of the twentieth century, Chinese (or “Han”) nationalists were searching for ways to convert a tradition-bound and multi-cultural empire into a modern nation-state. Although, in the minds of these nationalists, foreign missionaries were a big part of China’s problem, many such missionaries in fact aided the Chinese against the non-Chinese in questions over who had the historical right to rule the borderlands, thereby helping Chinese nationalists assert their purported rights over vast amounts of territory.

This talk looks at the case of one missionary particularly active in this regard, Arkansan D.C. Graham, who blended liberal theology with a Social Darwinian belief in the superiority of the Chinese over the other people groups in the region (southwest China). Graham propagated this belief as the pioneer of modern archaeology and ethnography in Sichuan province in the 1920s and 1930s, and his ideas remain influential in the region to this day.

A member of the UALR History faculty, Dr. Kyong-McClain was born and raised in Minneapolis. He received a BA in History from the University of Minnesota and an MA in Theology from Bethel Seminary, St. Paul, before beginning graduate work in Chinese History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He lived for three years in the city of Chengdu, in southwestern China, the last year on a Fulbright-Hays dissertation grant. His research centers on the place of archaeology in modern Chinese nation-building; teaching interests include modern China and modern Korea, and anything pertaining to Sino-Western interaction.

The Evenings with History take place in the Ottenheimer Auditorium in the Historic Arkansas Museum at 200 E. Third Street. Refreshments are served at 7:00 p.m., and the talk begins at 7:30 p.m.

Corporate sponsors for the 2011-2012 season are Delta Trust, Union Pacific Railroad, the Little Rock School District—Teaching American History Program; the law firms of Friday, Eldredge, & Clark and Wright, Lindsey & Jennings. Also thanks for support and gifts in kind from the Ottenheimer Library; Historic Arkansas Museum, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage; UALR Public Radio–KLRE-KUAR; and Grapevine Spirits

UALR History Institute Continues Evenings with History

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The 21st year of the UALR History Institutes’ Evenings with History continues on November 1.

Tonight’s presenter is Dr. Story Matkin-Rawn, a special guest from the University of Central Arkansas.  Her talk is entitled “From Land Ownership to Legal Defense: The World War I Watershed in Black Arkansan Organizing.”  The session takes place at the Ottenheimer Auditorium of Historic Arkansas Museum. Refreshments are served at 7 with the program beginning at 7:30 pm. The cost is $50 for admission to all six programs.

Dr. Matkin-Rawn examines the time period around The Great War and how that affected blacks in the South, especially Arkansas.  A rise in farm commodity prices during World War I should have helped many black farm families break the cycle of sharecropping.  But due to fraud and exploitation, it did not.  This caused hundreds of black farmers to organize Progressive Farmers and Householders Union.  The Elaine Massacre destroyed their movement and claimed scores of black Arkansan lives. Though the organization was ended, the movement and quest for economic stability was far from over.

Matkin-Rawn

Matkin-Rawn

This talk traces how a rising generation of activists regrouped from broken wartime promises and white terrorism to create new strategies, new networks, a new vision, and indeed, a new generation who would confront white supremacy through a constellation of statewide political, civic, and legal justice campaigns.

Dr. Matkin-Rawn is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at UCA.  She received her Ph D from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Her specialty fields are Southern and African American History, 20th Century US History and the history of Education.

The corporate sponsors for the 2011-2012 season are Delta Trust, Union Pacific Railroad, the Little Rock School District—Teaching American History Program; the law firms of  Friday, Eldredge & Clark and Wright, Lindsey & Jennings. Support and gifts in kind have been provided by the UALR Ottenheimer Library; Historic Arkansas Museum, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage; UALR Public Radio–KLRE-KUAR; and Grapevine Spirits.

Arts & Humanities Month: UALR History Department’s Evenings with History

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This year marks the 21st year for the History Institutes’ Evenings with History.  This nationally recognized series has featured a variety of subject.  This year, the first three evenings comprise a mini-series focused on African-Americans in Arkansas.  The other evenings will take listeners around the world in geography and chronology. The sessions take place at the Ottenheimer Auditorium of Historic Arkansas Museum. Refreshments are served at 7 with the program beginning at 7:30 pm. The cost is $50 for admission to all six programs.

Tonight’s program features Carl Moneyhon speaking on “Freedom: Black Arkansans and the End of Slavery”

On November 1, Story Matkin-Rawn of the UCA History Department will present a program entitled “From Land Ownership to Legal Defense: The World War I Watershed in Black Arkansan Organizing”

John Kirk presents December’s program on the 6th: “A Movement is more than a Moment: Arkansas and the African American Civil Rights struggle since 1940”

The Evenings in History return on February 7 with Jeff Kyong-McClain’s “The Heavenly History of the Han, or How a Liberal Baptist from Green Forest, Arkansas Taught Racial and Ethnic Nationalism to the Chinese”

On March 6, Charles Romney will address “A Brief History of Human Rights”

The 2011-2012 sessions will conclude on April 3 with Edward Anson’s “Counter-Insurgency: The Lessons of Alexander the Great”

The corporate sponsors for the 2011-2012 season are Delta Trust, Union Pacific Railroad, the Little Rock School District—Teaching American History Program; the law firms of  Friday, Eldredge & Clark and Wright, Lindsey & Jennings. Support and gifts in kind have been provided by the UALR Ottenheimer Library; Historic Arkansas Museum, a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage; UALR Public Radio–KLRE-KUAR; and Grapevine Spirits.