Skip to main content Skip to navigation
Washington State University
History | Archives

Conversation with Peter Boag – “Crossing Boundaries: Trans History, Then and Now”

Crossing Boundaries: Trans History, Then and Now, on October 14th at 7:00 PM.

Join via Zoom for this conversation about the history of transgender people and how westward migration provided opportunities for self-expression and fulfillment. Viewers will have the chance to submit questions to the panel during the Q&A portion of the program.

 Advance registration is required to get the Zoom link. Register here.

Get details about the Crossing Boundaries exhibition and learn more about Dr. Boag here.

Dr. Aaron Whelchel wins 2021 UPCEA Western Region Excellence in Teaching Award

This award from the University Professional and Continuing Education Association honors individuals who have provided outstanding teaching, course development, and mentoring of students, and recognizes those who have made significant contributions to credit or noncredit programs within professional, continuing, or online education. Congratulations Dr. Whelchel!

Dr. Andra Chastain publishes article in Comparativ

Dr. Chastain’s article on French metro-building in Latin America was just published! This article, “Rethinking Basic Infrastructure: French Aid and Metro Development in Postwar Latin America,” is part of a special issue of Comparativ on urbanization and international development in Africa and Latin America since 1945. You can read more about the article by clicking here!

 

Dr. JoAnn LoSavio publishes article in the International Journal of the History of Sport

Dr. LoSavio recently published “Burma in the Southeast Asia Peninsula Games, 1950-1970: Buddhism, Bodhisattvas, Decolonization, and Nation Making through Sport” in the International Journal of the History of Sport. Below is the abstract for the article but you can read the full article by clicking here.

Abstract

Histories of transnational sports in Southeast Asia remain largely unexamined for multiple reasons. To date, the history of transnational sporting events in the Burmese context has not been explored, making this essay a small but valuable contribution to this growing subfield. Transnational competitive sports, like the Southeast Asian Peninsular Games, performed critical roles in Burma’s nation-building and decolonization agendas. The state used these platforms to dismantle racist cultural conceptions, remnants of persistent hierarchies of colonial culture and politics. Moreover, athletic participation in such events communicated Burma’s sovereign status to the world at large. For internal Burmese audiences the state and its presses developed a transformative narrative of modernization around transnational sports and celebrated athletes as the ideal modern citizen. Foreign notions of modernity were refracted through indigenous Buddhist epistemologies. Athletes were cast into the role of bodhisattvas, authorized to disseminate modern knowledge. Through the National Fitness Movement and the Sports Month Programme, the Burmese state capitalized on transnational sports and athletes’ celebrity, and marketed their vision of ideal, embodied, modern citizenship to the Burmese public. Transnational sports became a vehicle, not only to introduce foreign notions of modernity to Burma, but also to make modernity compatible with being Burmese.

Prof. Sue Peabody’s essay published in Voices in the Legal Archives in the French Colonial World: “The King is Listening,”

Prof. Sue Peabody’s essay, “Slaves as Witnesses, Slaves as Evidence: French and British Prosecution of the Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean,” has been published in Voices in the Legal Archives in the French Colonial World: “The King is Listening,” edited by Nancy Christie, Michael Gauvreau (Routledge, 2021), 281-303.

Dr. Sue Peabody consulted on L’étrange histoire de Furcy Madeline – catalog companion now available!

A new book Dr. Sue Peabody consulted on, L’étrange histoire de Furcy Madeline, a catalogue companion to the exhibit which opened last fall in Réunion, is now available. Together with the museum director, she is in the process of creating a bilingual traveling exhibit, as well as a pedagogical website. An independent documentary film is also in the works. Congratulations!

Dr. Boag interviewed on iHeartRadio and Jefferson Public Radio!

Professor Peter Boag, historian of the American West, the Pacific Northwest, modern America, the environment, and sexuality, recently guest starred in and iHeartRadio podcast this summer. “Dressed: The History of Fashion – Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past,” can be found in the iHeart Radio podcast database – click here to listen!

Peter also provided an interview with Jefferson Public Radio (out of Southern Oregon) about the painter William S. Parrott. It was originally live, but the digital version is now available on their website, click here to lsiten!