Clinical Assistant Professor
Education
Ph.D., History, University of Texas at Austin, 2012
M.A., in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 2005
B.A., History and Creative Writing, University of New Mexico, 2000
Professional Biography
My primary research interest concerns how industrial capitalism changed humanity. National identification, disciplinary systems, consumerism, high modernism, and democracy accompany this interest. I study this topic within the timeframe of the “long” 19th and “short” 20th centuries. My book looks at how a small Moravian shoe company, Bat’a, globalized and in the process offered challenges to the nation-state, democracy, and Americanization.
My teaching philosophy broadly revolves around finding ways to get students to break out of a passive approach to history. I therefore aim to make my classes dynamic experiences where students have to find collaborative solutions to difficult questions. What this means is that on any given day my Public History students may be looking through archives, investigating a site of potential significance, or tracking down possible interview subjects. In my other classes they may be reliving the chaos of the Austrian Parliament as Austrian politicians in 1912, or the tragedy of Indian partition through the eyes of South Asian deputies at Simla. The collective goal of my classes is to encourage flexible, critical, and compassionate thinking.
I also strive to be an active member of the communities in which I find myself. As a member of SHSU, I coordinate the Academic Community Engagement program for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, work to place students in internships at history minded institutions when appropriate, regularly speak to the media on a variety of historical topics, and advise the Bearkat History Club. Currently, I am developing a study abroad program that will immerse students in World War One and Austria-Hungary.
Courses Taught:
Graduate Courses:
Public History
Introduction to the Historiography of the Holocaust
Undergraduate Courses:
The History of Globalization
Russian History
Public History
Pandemics in World History
World History I and II (Honors)
European History 1815-1914
The History of the Holocaust
World War II
The World in the 20th Century
Europe in the Age of Absolutism and Revolution
Germany and Central Europe since 1815
The History of Modern France
European Imperialism in Film
United States History I and II (Honors and EWCAT)
The History of Prague
The Bohemian Diaspora
Selected Publications
Manuscript
In the Kingdom of Shoes: Bat’a, Zlín, and Globalization, 1894-1945.
Under contract with University of Toronto Press. Editor Stephen Shapiro.
Articles
“National Indifference and the Transnational Corporation: The Paradigm of the Bat’a Company”. For, Maarten van Ginderachter and Jon Fox ed., Ignoring the Nation’s Call: National Indifference and the History of Nationalism in Modern Europe. Oxon: Routledge, 2019.
“Only the Clean are Strong: The Bat’a Company’s Project to Remake Masculinity in the Dřevnice Valley”. Sextures, Vol. 4. 2015.
“The Bat'a Company, Czechoslovakia, and the 1939 New York World’s Fair”, in Anthology: Company Towns of the Baťa Concern, ed. O. Ševeček and M. Jemelka. Berlin: Franz Steiner, 2013.
Digital History Projects
“The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1867”, East Texas History. http://easttexashistory.org/tours/show/7. 2017.
“Grant’s Colony,” East Texas History. http://easttexashistory.org/items/show/252. 2017.
Curated Exhibits
Segregated: Walker County in Black and White
Samuel Walker Houston Museum and Cultural Center, Huntsville TX. May 1-4, 2018.
Yellow Country: The Epidemic of 1867
The Wynne Home and Arts Center, Huntsville TX. May 2-6, 2017.
Recovering New Harmony
Katy and Don Walker Education Center, Huntsville TX. April 28, 2016.