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Nominations for Historians Against the War Steering Committee/2007

Each year at its annual meeting at the AHA, HAW elects its Steering Committee. Members of HAW who will be unable to attend the annual meeting in Atlanta can cast proxy ballots. We have a slate of twenty-six nominees for twenty steering committee slots; their names and biographical information are listed below. Please look the candidates over and cast your ballot for up to 20 candidates by January 4, 2007 by email to proxy@historiansagainstwar.org, or in person at the HAW meeting at the AHA (Friday, Jan. 5, 4:30-6:00 p.m., Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Montreal Room)

Candidate List

Ben Alpers
David Applebaum
Christian Appy
Marc Becker
Magnus Bernhardsson
John Cox
Alan Dawley
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Carolyn (Rusti) Eisenberg
John J. Fitzgerald
Jerise Fogel
Marvin Gettleman
Rich Gibson
Van Gosse
John Mason Hart
Walter Hixson
Peter Kirstein
Staughton Lynd
Michael Meo
Carl Mirra
Jim O'Brien
Enrique Ochoa
Maria Pascualy
Prasannan Parthasarathi
Margaret Power
Shanti Singham
Kathy Sukites

Biographies

Name: Ben Alpers
Institution: University of Oklahoma
Position: Associate Professor
Historial Specialization: 20th-century U.S.
Race/Ethnicity: Ashkenazic
Political Background: Growing up in Berkeley during the 1960s and 1970s was itself a political education. I have been politically active since high school. In graduate school, I founded a committee to explore graduate student unionization, worked in abortion clinic defense, and helped organize the local movement opposing the first Gulf War. More recently, I have served on the board of Common Cause Oklahoma, and was state co-chair of the Green Party of Oklahoma.
Reason for Running: I have been involved in HAW since its founding in January 2003. Along with Margaret Power, I have been Co-Chair of the HAW Steering Committee during 2006.  Though I plan to step down from the Co-Chairpersonship, I look forward to continuing my involvement with the HAW Steering Committee.

Name: David R. Applebaum
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ.
Position: Professor
Historical Specialization: Contemporary France. I am immersed in the history of the syndicat de la magistrature - an independent labor union of judges founded in June of 1968.
Race/Ethnicity: Human with European threads.
Political Background: My forty-two years of engagement began with the Free Speech Movement at Brooklyn College (dress codes/loyalty oaths). While in Madison (1967-73) I was active in antiwar, civil rights and unionization efforts (TAA). Since coming to the Delaware Valley in 1973, I have been active in the AFT, the regional MARHO, and community activism.
Reason for Running: I would like to continue focusing on work related to two aspects of HAW activity; academic freedom and engagement with high school educators at the local and national levels. In addition, I hope to continue building bridges between HAW and Educators to Stop the War and the Working Group in Defense of Academic Freedom.

Name: Christian Appy
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: UMass, Amherst
Position: Assoc Professor
Historical Specialization: U.S. Vietnam War
Race/Ethnicity:
Political Background:
Reason for Running: Appy's work on the historical overlaps between Vietnam and Iraq make him an important historical critic on this topic.

Name: Marc Becker
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: Truman State University
Position: Associate Professor of History
Historical Specialization: Modern Latin American history
Race/Ethnicity: Platt Deutsch (Low German)
Political Background: My political consciousness was born (as Rigoberta Menchu would say) in 1980 with the Carter Doctrine which reinstated draft registration in reaction to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, I was 18 at the time, and coming to the realization that I did not want to be used as a pawn for someone else's foreign policy objectives led me to rethink completely my ideology. I subsequently worked extensively with Central American solidarity groups, including a stint with Witness for Peace in Nicaragua. More recently, I have worked with Indigenous rights movements in the Americas and am a founder of NativeWeb, the premier Internet site on Indigenous issues. Politically I identify myself as a socialist in the tradition of José Carlos Mariátegui, although I am not a member of any party. I am motivated by a desire for social justice, and am a pacifist.
Reason for Running: I have been involved with HAW since its founding at the AHA in January 2003. My motivation for joining HAW was to challenge imperialistic policies that run counter to our interests. I have worked on HAW's web page and am interested and willing to continue in that capacity.

Name: Magnus Bernhardsson
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: Williams College
Position: Assistant professor
[Magnus has been on the Steering Committee since the spring of 2006. His specialty is Middle Eastern history.]

Name: John Cox
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: Florida Gulf Coast University
Position: Assistant professor
Historical Specialization: primary: Modern Europe/Germany (Jewish resistance inside Nazi Germany; the Holocaust); secondary: Latin America
Race/Ethnicity: European/caucasian
Political Background: Active since mid-1980s in antiwar movements. Also participated in various other progressive movements and campaigns over the years: anti-apartheid and anti-racist groups, pro-choice/clinic defense, peace & justice in Middle East/Palestine; also worked in labor unions as rank-and-file activist in variety of workplaces from 1986-1995 in North Carolina, DC, Pittsburgh, and helped lead union-organizing drive in garment plant in N.C. I've been a member of the HAW steering committee since January 2005, and helped put together our pamphlet on torture, among other responsibilities.
Reason for Running: I suppose that my principal reason is the outrage toward this war that I share with most of the world's people - and a desire to help deepen opposition to the war here in the United States through educational campaigns, protests, and so on. I will be privileged to continue serving on the steering committee if elected; I would also not be crestfallen if, in the interests of greater diversity, I failed to be elected.

Name: Alan Dawley
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: The College of New Jersey
Position: Professor of History
Historical Specialization: U.S. in 20th c. world history; the social history of U.S. empire; labor; progressivism
Race/Ethnicity: Euro-American
Political Background: I identify (not uncritically) with the progressive tradition in American politics and embrace a form of progressive internationalism that is anti-imperialist, not just anti-war. From early days in the Mississippi civil rights movement, I have participated in a succession of social movements for ecnomic justice and a just foreign policy.
Reason for Running: I would like to continue in leadership because I believe HAW has demonstrated its effectiveness in galvanizing opposition among historians to America's imperial misadventure in Iraq and in defending democratic practices against encroachment by Washington authorities. I have played a role in drafting HAW's position statements, moving "free speech" resolutions through OAH and AHA, and orgznizing the first HAW conference, and I would like to help further work along these and other lines.

Name: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution/Position: emeritus professor, California State University
Historical Specialization:  Latin America, indigenous western hemisphere, colonialism
Race/Ethnicity: Scots-Irish, Cherokee
Political Background:  socialist, feminist
Reason for Running:  I would like to contribute to the expansion of HAW into many more universities and colleges, even high schools. My main work in on the HAW conferences, which I think are important for bring historians together with antiwar activists, including returning soldiers for a more solidly based antiwar movement for the long haul.

Name: Carolyn "Rusti" Eisenberg
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: Hofstra University
Ethnicity: White
Historical Specialization: 20th Century US Foreign Policy, author of Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany, 1944-49
Position: Professor of History
Political Background: Antiwar activist, 1965-present. Member of Iraq Working Group, United for Peace and Justice, Co-Chair Brooklyn Parents for Peace
Reason for running: "I am interested in encouraging historians to engage issues of war and peace, and to give greater emphasis to America's global role in scholarship and teaching." Rusti has been a steering committee member since HAW's beginning and has drafted statements and appeared on HAW panels among other activities.

Name: John J. Fitzgerald
Institution: Longmeadow High School (Retired)
Position: Former teacher and department chair
Historical Specialization: Vietnam War - Co-author: The Vietnam War: A History in Documents, Oxford University Press, 2002.
Race/Ethnicity: An American of Irish descent
Political Background: Vietnam veteran. (1964 - 1968) Wounded in action. Bronze Star for Valor, Purple Heart, etc. Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Eugene J. McCarthy campaign, Moratorium (1969), Student Strike (UMass Amherst) 1970, McGovern campaign of 1972. Veterans Education Project in Western Massachusetts and Veterans for Peace.
Reason for Running: I have been involved in HAW since the summer of 2006. I have enjoyed working with the Steering Committee and hope to continue to do so. I am working on getting a booth at the New England Social Studies Conference in Boston in March of 2007. I am a life member of the OAH and The New England Historical Association. I am currently a member of the Massachusetts Council of the Social Studies and Western Massachusetts Jobs with Justice and the Center for Popular Economics in Amherst.

Name: Jerise Fogel
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: Winston Prep
Position: Associate Prof., Classics
Historical Specialization: Ancient Roman, Greek
Race/Ethnicity: White/European/Jewish
Political Background: I have worked as a volunteer in the past as co-organizer of protests against detention and for immigrant rights in NYC. Within the profession, I have been a member on the Executive Committees for several years of Lambda Classical Caucus and the Women's Classical Caucus.
Reason for Running: I think HAW is doing important work to raise consciousness and promote activism to end the Iraq occupation.

Name: Marvin Gettleman
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Position: Emeritus Professor, Brooklyn Polytechnic University; member Editorial Board, Science & Society
Historical Specialization: You name it, I wrote books or articles about it: Indochina, Central America, ante-bellum U.S., development of U.S. social science and social work, the "Great Society," the U.S. Communist Party's educational work,the Spanish Civil War, the Middle East, Islam and U.S. foreign policy
Race/Ethnicity: secular Jewish boy originally from the Bronx, New York City
Political Background: no red-diaper baby; once a "New York Post Liberal" (when the Post was a newspaper); drawn into the civil rights and disarmament movements in the 1950s; radicalized by the Cuban Revolution; served in the Vietnam era anti-war movement; diehard member of New American Movement who refused to merge with DSA; active in all four phases of the Socialist Scholars Conference/Left Forum; HAW since 2004
Reason for Running: to continue work on publications in HAW's resource committee, to serve as New York City liasion with UFPJ headquarters & to bring HAW perspectives to high school teachers

Name: Rich Gibson
Institution: San Diego State
Position: Associate Professor of Education
Historical Specialization: History of Communist Movements, US unionism, and Education Against Fascism
Race/Ethnicity: Worker White
Political Background: Red
Reason for Running: I would like to play a role in the collective leadership in HAW because:
1. My work and research connects me to educators in the k12 systems, and universities, throughout the world, people who are centripetally positioned in de-industrialized societies to teach, organize, and take action against imperialist wars which are not in their interest, nor in the interest of their students, nor the communities they serve. I believe I have a good understanding of the social relations in schools, and the class struggles that result.
2. I have worked hard throughout my life in the battle for equality and justice and I think HAW's work is key not only in influencing what is taught in schools, but how it is taught, and that interaction sets up how people seek to understand and transform the world.
3. I think I could contribute to HAW's work, and learn from others as well, so my motives are not altogether altruistic.

Name: Van Gosse
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: Franklin and Marshall College
Position: Assistant Professor
Race/Ethnicity: White
Historical Specialization: 20th Century U.S., African American
Political Background: Antiwar and electoral activism, 1969-76 (the usual); El Salvador solidarity, 1982-1995 (CISPES and related organizations); Peace Action's Organizing Director, 1995-2000. Active in United for Peace and Justice since its founding, elected to Steering Committee and then Administrative Committee representing HAW. Also a non-functioning member of the National Coordinating Committee and the National Executive Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. Member of the Editorial Collective of the Radical History Review since 1990, chair 1994-2001. Helped found HAW in run-up to the war.
Reason for Running: To help strengthen HAW, make it more public, and politically effective, after a very good year.

Name: John Mason Hart
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Position: Professor of History
Institution: University of Houston
Race/ethnicity: Caucasian
Political Background: Left Independent
Reason for Running: Intense opposition to this war and other American attacks on Third World countries.

Name: Walter L. Hixson
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Position: Professor of History
Institution: University of Akron
Historical Specialization: US foreign policy
Race/Ethnicity: White male
Reason for Running: Having spent some thirty years analyzing US foreign policy, I have some knowledge as to why this nation acts as it does in world affairs. If we can better understand core drives and motivations, we have a basis to attempt to change the foreign policy from one of violent intervention toward a diplomacy of cooperative internationalism so desperately needed in the 21st century.

Name: Peter N. Kirstein
Institution: Saint Xavier University, Chicago
Position: Professor of History
Historical Specialization: Vietnam, Atomic Bomb and World War II and U.S. Foreign Relations
Race/Ethnicity: White
Political Background: Antiwar, Freedom fighter for Academic Freedom having been suspended in 2002 for antiwar e-mail; one of Horowitz' 101 Most Dangerous Professors, active in AAUP: served on national committee, currently serve on Illinois AAUP Council and was chapter president.
Reason for Running: Unlike Stanley Fish, I believe it is the responsibility of the professorate to become actively engaged in the social and political order and to strive for progressive change. That is the apogee of patriotism. To remain silent, to only focus on "academic tasks" is to abdicate our responsibility as engaged citizens. There is no more noble calling than to resist war and to emphasize peaceful, non-violent alternatives to conflict..

Name: Staughton Lynd
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: Worker's Solidarity Club of Youngstown
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Historical Specialization: Period of American Revolution, history of nonviolence, oral history and US Labor history
Position: retired (but still practicing) attorney. Author of several books, including Lucasville.
Political Background: An unaffiliated Marxist and Quaker; Chairperson of the first march against the Vietnam War in Washington, DC in April 1965. In December 1965, Lynd, then a professor of history at Yale, made a controversial trip to North Vietnam with Tom Hayden and the late Herbert Aptheker.
Reason for running: continue work on veterans issues; member of HAW-SC since its inception

Name: Michael Meo
Institution: Benson Polytechnic High School, Portland OR 97232
Position: teacher and department chair, department of mathematics
Historical Specialization: History of Science in Russia prior to the Revolution
Race/Ethnicity: decline to state race
Political Background: refused military service during Vietnam episode.  Spent two years in federal penitentiary.  Presently, member of Pacific Green party.
Reason for Running: The country of my birth is again engaged in a wholesale crime against humanity.

Name: Carl Mirra
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: SUNY College at Old Westbury
Position: Assistant Professor of American Studies
Historical Specialization: 20th Century US foreign policy and Peace Education
Ethnicity: white male
Political Background: Former marine who refused to fight in the first Gulf War, worked with the War Resister's League and currently a representative of IAUP/UN Commission on Disarmament Education, Conflict Resolution and Peace.
Reason for Running: work toward ending US occupation of Iraq and on the dangers of empire at home and abroad; continue developing conferences/pamphlets on veteran antiwar activity.

Name:  Jim O'Brien
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution:  University of Massachusetts Boston (sort-of)
Position:  none at the moment, but being grieved (I was a contract faculty member, half-time, and like nearly all the other contract faculty in the College of Public and Community Service, was non-renewed at the start of the fall semester – grrrr!  I still do volunteer teaching in the learning-in-retirement program at UMass)
Historical Specialization:  US radicalism
Race/Ethnicity:  white, mostly English
Political Background:  Have been active off and on since being part of the radical student movement in the 1960s.  Was an editor of Radical America magazine till 1984, active in the Central America movement 1983-96, co-editor of Radical Historians Newsletter 1970 till it stopped publishing a few years ago; on HAW Steering Committee the last two years (as treasurer for the past year)
Reason for Running:  I enjoy working with the other people on the Steering Committee.  I played an especially active role in preprarations for the HAW conference in Austin last February and the teach-ins this fall.  I've been glad to feel useful in a cause that seems important to me.

Name: Enrique C. Ochoa
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: California State University, Los Angeles
Position: Professor of History
Historical Specialization: Latin America; Mexico; Latinas/os in the U.S.; Economic and Labor
Race/Ethnicity: Latino
Political Background: I have been involved in community organizations that have worked at the grassroots for social change. In particular I have worked to facilitate dialogue between community activists and progressive academics, coordinating several workshops and conferences that have sought to bridge the gulf.
Reason for Running: It is important to continue and expand the work that HAW has done given the current political reality. I want to help develop greater participation by left historians on the west coast.

Name: Prasannan Parthasarathi
Institution: Boston College
Position: Associate Professor
Historical Specialization: Modern South Asia
Political Background: I have been active for several years in local peace groups. I was a founder of a community group in Newton, Massachusetts, where I live; since January 2002 I have served on the board of Boston Mobilization, an anti-war organization that has in recent years concentrated on running workshops in local high schools on racism, violence and militarism. I am also a leader of a coalition of peace and community groups that has been working to stop Boston University from building a biological weapons research laboratory in a largely minority and loc-income neighborhood in Boston.
Reason for Running: I am running because I would like to get involved in peace work at a national level.

Name: Maria Pascualy
Institution: Washington State History Museum, 1911 Pacific Avenue, Tacoma,WA 98402 (253-798-5873)
Position: Curator
Historical Specialization: American Indian History
Race/Ethnicity: Hispanic
Political Background: Progressive
Reason for Running: Heard Paul Farmer talk last night and he encouraged us to volunteer with organizations we respected. So I am.

Name: Margaret Power
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: Illinois Institute of Technology
Historical Specialization: Latin America, gender, and women
Race/Ethnicity: white (but part Irish, colonized by the nasty British.)
Political Background: active in anti-war movements (Viet Nam, Central America, and Middle East) since 1970s. Also very active in women's movement and feminist actions. Currently in Peace Pledge Chicago and Prairie Fire. Work very closely with the Puerto Rican community and with HAW.
Reason for Running: I want to work with other historians against the war and I think HAW is a great group.

Name: Shanti Marie Singham
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
Institution: Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Position: Professor of History
Historical Specialization: French Revolution & Enlightenment, Europe & the Caribbean, Europe & Muslims, Imperialism
Race/Ethnicity: Asian American (Sri Lankan & American background)
Political Background: I grew up in Jamaica during the 1960's in a very progressive and politically active family. Since coming to the United States as a teenager, I have been active in numerous progressive political movements and causes (anti-war, decolonization, anti-apartheid, labor, campaign finance reform, working for progressive candidates, etc.).
Reason for Running: I want to work actively to strengthen anti-war sentiment among the group I have the most contact with, namely college students, especially through helping organize national teach-ins against the war.

NAME: Kathryn (Kathy) Sukites
Nominator (if other than the nominee): Ben Alpers
INSTITUTION: American University, Washington DC
POSITION: Part-time PhD Student (ABD)
HISTORICAL SPECIALIZATION: Cultural History; U.S. Journalism History (emphasis on Gilded Age/Progressive Era)
RACE/ETHNICITY: White
POLITICAL BACKGROUND
: I initially became involved in politics through official organizations of the Democrats in the 1980s. I later attended peace workshops, worked with the board of the local Sierra Club group, and served as a delegate for my union in the DC Labor Council. Over time, I came to define myself more as a Progressive, and increased my awareness and understanding of global economic and social issues. This past year, I was a member of HAW's Steering Committee.
REASONS FOR RUNNING: I would like to continue as Secretary for HAW.  For the past year, I have actively participated in and distributed summary notes of the meetings, discussions, decisions, and conference calls of the HAW Steering Committee.  I bring a generally moderate left perspective to the HAW SC.   With the positive force of the recent U.S. elections, I hope that HAW can continue to provide a historical perspective that incorporates the wisdom and concerns of ordinary citizens together with the knowledge of academics as we support the restoration of civil liberties in the U.S. and call for an international solution that includes withdrawal, diplomacy, and rebuilding in Iraq.


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