HAW at the AHA
New York, January 2-5, 2009

Nominees for HAW Steering Committee

This year the voting for the HAW Steering Committee will be done entirely by email. The candidates for the 20 Steering Committee slots are listed below. To vote, send the ballot to proxy@historiansagainstwar.org. The deadline for receiving ballots is Monday, Jan 26.

Name: David R. Applebaum

Institution: Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ

Position: Professor of History

Historical Specialization: Contemporary French Cultural/Legal/Labor History. My research is with and about the syndicat de la magistrature, the labor union of judges founded in June of 1968.

Political Background: I have been marching and organizing since 1963 for Civil Rights, in the Peace Movement, Faculty Organizing (TAA) in Madison and since joining the Glassboro/Rowan faculty. Between 1975 and 1978 I fought and won an academic freedom grievance and have knowledge to share that may be of value to colleagues. 

Reason for Running: Continue collaboration to end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and sustain a movement of engaged radical historians.

Name: Marc Becker

Institution: Truman State University

Position: Associate Professor of History

Historical Specialization: Modern Latin American history

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. For the past year I have served as co-chair of HAW's steering committee. I have worked on HAW's web page and am interested and willing to continue in that capacity.

Name: Matthew F. Bokovoy

Institution: University of Nebraska Press

Position: Acquisitions Editor, Native/Indigenous Studies, History of the American West and Southwest Borderlands, and Creative Nonfiction of the American West.

Historical Specialization: California, Western, and US-Mexico Borderlands History; History of Education; American and European Intellectual History; History of American Radicalism

Political Background: Registered Democrat; unaffiliated American Socialist. Last year, I participated in the HAW annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia through the encouragement of senior colleagues involved in the US antiwar movement. I had not been politically active since the period 1983-1995, when I had been involved in the Southern California anti-nuclear protest coalitions, the anti-racist/Nazi activism circles emerging from the left-wing formations in the underground punk rock movement, and the homeless advocacy groups based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (mainly the Kensington Welfare Rights Union). My employment in the historical profession took me to locales without strong progressive political organizations, and since that time became a "cash contributor" to many progressive organizations without any participation in community organizing or intergroup protest coordination.

Reason for Running: My main reason for joining HAW, like many members, was the Iraq War of 2003. Besides the disturbing webs of untruth emanating from the Bush Administration prior to the war, the martial sentiments pervading the US were very disruptive to my job and classes at Oklahoma State University. Unlike many of the more prestigious institutions that many of our colleagues teach at, I had high percentages of young men and women dropping from my courses to join the branches of the US military, in which I had to process the paperwork to release them from the university. When I noticed the names of some of my former students on the Iraq War death announcements in Oklahoma papers, I was moved to search for an organization that reflected my strong opposition to the war, and to armed aggression in any form. It was particularly sad and disturbing to me to read these, as one of the deceased soldiers had come to me for advice about joining the armed services. After a long conversation about it, they decided it was best for them to join. It was equally sad because they had so much potential to develop as a human being. As a result, my research interests and publishing acquisitions interests have changed profoundly to consider and search for work that explores the origins of violence, pacificism and antiwar protest, and human rights. HAW's program and its context offers an opportunity for me to work and assist an important antiwar and pacifist organization. In the end, my main reason for being involved in HAW is deeply personal. I believe my experience within the academic publishing establishment can be an asset and forum for HAW's program and concerns and reflect well upon the efforts of the organization within nonprofit publishing and other higher tiers of university administrative life.

Name: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Institution/Position: emeritus professor, California State University

Historical Specialization:  Latin America, indigenous western  hemisphere, colonialism

Political Background:  socialist, feminist

Reason for Running:  My main work in on the HAW conferences and teach ins, 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. I organized a successful HAW roundtable of HAW members on US imperialism and what can be learned from the Latin American experience to better understand the US war against Iraq at the Latin American Studies Association annual meeting in Montreal in September 2007. I was on the HAW organizing committee for the first HAW conference held at the University of Texas Austin in February 2006 and the second HAW conference held at Georgia State University, Atlanta, in April 2008. I met with members of the Iraq Veterans against the War in Lawton OK (where Ft. Sill is based) and gave them information about HAW, and I have been networking with other grassroots antiwar organizations in Oklahoma and the Southwest where I'm from originally. I frequently meet with the editors of War Times in the San Francisco Bay Area, all of whom are old friends and co-organizers. I brought together several organizations, including War Times, to organize a Teach In against the Iraq War at University of California Berkeley in September 2008, with Tom Hayden, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Daniel Ellsberg as keynote speakers, along with two representatives from Iraq Veterans against the War.

Name: Carolyn "Rusti" Eisenberg

Institution: Hofstra University

Historical Specialization: 20th Century US Foreign Policy, author of Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany, 1944-49 and completing a new book on Kissinger, Nixon and the National Security State.

Position: Professor of History

Political Background: Antiwar activist, 1965-present. Co-Chair, Legislative Working Group. United for Peace and Justice, Co-Founder Brooklyn 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, teaching and political advocacy. I believe that historians can make a special contribution to the urgently needed public debate over the militaristic thrust of American foreign policy and the impact on our domestic institutions, I have been a member of the Steering Committee since HAW's beginning and have drafted statements, appeared on HAW panels, and helped to organize a speaker's bureau for educational forums.

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.

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. I spent a good part of 2008 working in support of the candidacy and election of Barack Obama as President. I think he will need our support and encouragement to stay on the progressive track in 2009 and beyond.

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 prepared the Teaching Guides for "Teaching the Vietnam War" and for "Teaching the Iraq War" which are now located on the HAW web site. 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: Ian C. Fletcher

Institution: Georgia State University

Position: Associate Professor

Historical Specialization: I am a modern British, Irish, imperial, and world historian. My research focuses on social movements, political contention, and imperial culture during the Edwardian era. My teaching interests are broad. For example, I offer an undergraduate course on the global Left and a graduate seminar on global social movements in historical perspective.

Political Background: I first took part in the antiwar movement as a secondary school student in 1969. I was active in the Southern Africa and Central America solidarity movements in the 1970s and 80s. I participate in the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition and other expressions of grassroots human rights and social justice activism in Atlanta. I am a member of the PH:ACTS people’s history collective and an associate of the Radical History Review editorial collective.

Reason for Running: I helped organize the HAW conference in Atlanta last spring, and on the basis of this work the Steering Committee appointed me to its ranks last summer. I would be glad to be elected to the new SC. I think HAW makes a great contribution to the peace and justice movement by mobilizing history grad students, professors, and educators and infusing historical perspectives into opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, repression on the home front, and U.S. empire building more generally. Such perspectives will remain valuable as the movement assesses changes and continuities in U.S. policies and seeks to push the new administration in peaceful and progressive directions. I hope we can develop ways to use the HAW website and other means to encourage HAW members to share their experiences as teachers and activists, collaborate with each other, and recruit more members locally. On school and college campuses we can offer relevant courses, serve as advisors to student peace and justice clubs, and participate in forums and teach-ins. In the community we can link up with local peace and justice groups and contribute to a range of popular/public education initiatives. In some places it may be possible to form campus or community chapters and broaden the capacity as well as base of HAW. The great challenge for us as well as the movement as a whole will be how to articulate the antiwar cause with the struggle for just outcomes to U.S. economic crisis and hegemonic decline.

Name: Jerise (Jeri) Fogel

Institution: I trained as a classicist. I currently teach Special Ed 6-12 grades, at Winston Preparatory School in NYC. I am a working artist (calligraphy, graphic design, painting). I also adjunct in Classics and General Humanities at Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ.

Political Background: I contribute to several peace and social justice organizations (e.g. Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, Brit Tzedek, NAACP, CCR) and I try to contribute time and energy especially to progressive and immigrants' rights groups. On the HAW Steering Committee, I have been secretary and on the 4-member Executive Committee for the past year, and was a member of the working group for the Atlanta conference. I have also co-organized the HAW presence at the Left Forum in NYC for the last 2 years.

Reason for Running: I think HAW does important work, and I'm thrilled to have a part in it. I have enjoyed working on various projects (conference, newsletters, etc.) for the HAW-SC, and would love to continue to contribute, whether as an SC member or as a member of one of the Working Groups.

Name: Rich Gibson

Institution: San Diego State/Southwest College

Position: Emeritus professor of social studies at San Diego State, a lecturer at Southwest College in US History

Historical Specialization: Education professor

Political Background and Reason for Running: I am an incumbent member of the HAW board. As an education professor, I think I bring two important pieces to HAW. First, I am a bridge to the anti-war movement in k12 schooling. I am a cofounder of the Rouge Forum (www.rougeforum.org), an organization of k12 school workers, professors, parents, community people and students active for ten years now, opposing the empires wars as well as the regimentation of curricula and racist high-stakes testing that parallels the promise of perpetual war. Rouge Forum members publish research, engage in strategic planning, and take direct action, seeking to connect reason to power in schools and out. We have, for example, led mass walkouts of students and school workers against the wars, boycotted high-stakes exams, and set up concurrent freedom schools where teachers can actually teach, and students learn. Secondly, since I spent most of my life as an organizer, I believe I bring a perspective to HAW that urges a teaching project connected to organizing: the development of class consciousness connected to action against capitalism and its twin, imperialist war. I have published extensively from books (most recently, "Neoliberalism and Education Reform) to journalism (in Counterpunch, Z, Substance News, etc). I helped to organize two of the biggest teach-ins in the US in 2008 and hope to join with others in, not only teachins, but direct action.

Name: Van Gosse

Institution: Franklin and Marshall College

Historical Specialization: 20th Century U.S., African American

Position: Assistant Professor

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. Helped found HAW and served on Steering Committee since then. Elected to United for Peace and Justice’s Steering Committee three times to represent HAW. Member of the Editorial Collective of the Radical History Review since 1990, chair 1994-2001.

Reason for Running: I want to continue to make a bridge between HAW and the larger movement via UFPJ. Our perspective is valuable there, and we gain much from the connection.

Name: Mark R. Hatlie

Institution: American Public University/American Military University; University of Maryland University College Europe; Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen

Position: Adjunct

Historical Specialization: Baltic and Russian history, war and society, collective memory, sites-of-memory.de

Political Background: I am an activist and founding member of the Tübingen Progressive Americans (tpa.twoday.net) which works with IVAW and the Military Counseling Network here in Germany (mc-network.de) and strives to give the "other" America a public voice here in Europe.

Reason for Running: As a citizen watching his country from abroad and from within the online classroom, I am both concerned and hopeful about what I see. Like many people around the world, I am very concerned about both domestic and foreign developments connected with the war in Iraq and the wider "Global War on Terror." From within European society, I have seen first-hand the severe erosion of my country's international reputation stemming from our reckless and aggressive foreign policy. As an historian, I am concerned by the "dumbing down" of discourse in our wartime society and the lack of historical perspective in American media and public conversation. I also helped set up the HAWBlog (http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/blog/).

Name: Justin F. Jackson
Institution: Columbia University
Position: Ph.D student, History

Historical Specialization: Labor and Politics in 19th and 20th Century U.S., the 1960s, Comparative Imperialism and Nationalism

Political Background: I have been involved in anti-war efforts in one form or another since 1997 when I participated in the movement to free East Timor. As an undergraduate at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., I was involved in efforts to stop UN/US sanctions on Iraq and helped to lead efforts to mobilize the campus and community against the US invasion of Afghanistan. I was also involved in student-labor solidarity efforts at UMass-Amherst, and as a graduate student in history there from 2005-2007 served on the steering committee of the Graduate Employee Organization, United Auto Workers Local 2322. Before this I served as a steward and organizer for UAW Local 2322 in western Massachusetts. While studying at UMass-Amherst, I also helped to lead UMass Anti-War Coalition efforts to protest university complicity with the war in Iraq through campus military recruitment, military research, and the awarding of an honorary degree to Andrew Card, former chief of staff to President Bush. There I also worked with local veterans in the Veterans Education Project to build relationships and solidarity with student veterans on campus in order to raise awareness about their needs and experiences. My brother, father, and many uncles have served in the military.

Reason for Running: Marc Becker asked me to run for steering committee at the HAW meeting at the 2009 AHA annual meeting in NYC. I have been an inactive member for several years, and believe that historians can play a critical role in educating students about the history of this and other American conflicts and their relationships to problems of American and global economy and society, and hopefully inform student organizing on and off the campuses.

Name: Staughton Lynd

Institution: Workers’ Solidarity Club of Youngstown

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: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising (2004).

Political Background: An unaffiliated Marxist and Quaker; Chairperson of the first march against the Vietnam War in Washington, DC in April 1965.  Left academia after being blacklisted in late '60s due to prominent role in anti-war movement (including trip to North Vietnam with Tom Hayden and Herbert Aptheker in December 1965).

Reason for running: continue work on veterans issues; member of HAW-SC since its inception.

Name: Elizabeth (Beth) McKillen

Institution: University of Maine

Position: Professor

Historical Specialization: U.S. labor and American foreign policy, especially grass-roots labor opponents of U.S. empire; the immigrant left; the international labor movement

Political Background: I have been active in local antiwar, labor, and social justice movements for many years. As a member of the HAW Steering Committee during the past year and one-half, my major activities were helping to plan the April HAW conference, coordinating and participating in a panel on Labor, U.S. Empire and the Iraq War, assisting with fall educational efforts and launching the chapters initiative.

Reason for Running: The current economic crisis threatens to overshadow the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. HAW can play an important role in continuing to focus attention on these wars and on the high costs of U.S. empire. I especially plan to continue my work with the chapters initiative and with building links to the labor movement.

Name: Carl Mirra

Institution: Adelphi University

Position: Associate Professor of Social Studies

Historical Specialization: 20th Century US foreign policy and Peace Education

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: contributed HAW pamphlet, JOIN US, which has now been expanded into a book (SOLDIERS AND CITIZENS: AN ORAL HISTORY OF OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM FROM THE BATTLEFIELD TO THE PENTAGON. Palgrave). I wish to continue developing conferences/pamphlets on veteran antiwar activity or related materials for the education working group.

Name:  Jim O'Brien

Institution:  University of Massachusetts Boston (sort-of)

Position:  I used to teach history and writing as a contract faculty member in the College of Public and Community Service at UMass, but at present my only involvement on the campus is volunteer teaching in the learning-in-retirement program. Myself, I'm not retired - for income I do freelance editing and book indexing.

Historical Specialization:  US radicalism

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 four years (as treasurer for a year, then as co-chair for the past two years).

Reason for Running:  I enjoy working with the other people on the Steering Committee. I've played an especially active role in preparations for our two conferences (Austin in February 2006 and Atlanta this past spring). I've been glad to feel useful in a cause that seems important to me.

Name: Margaret Power

Institution: Illinois Institute of Technology

Historical Specialization: Latin America, Chile, Puerto Rico, gender, and women.

Political Background: active in anti-war movements (Viet Nam, Central America, and Middle East) since 1970s. Also very active in the women's movement. I am currently in Peace Pledge Chicago and work very closely with the Puerto Rican community and with HAW.

Reason for Running: I served as co—chair of HAW for three years and I have really enjoyed working with other historians against the war. I think HAW is a great group.

Name: Maia Ramnath

Institution: New York University

Position: Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow in Global Histories, Draper Interdisciplinary MA Program in Humanities and Social Thought

Historical Specialization: Modern South Asia and World; research and teaching focus on anti-colonial radical movements, particularly South Asian participation in transnational networks; imperialism and structures of global capitalism, colonialism and resistance

Political Background: Over the course of my academic life I've been continuously involved in anti-war and labor solidarity organizing on campus, as well as organizing in the off-campus community. Affiliations during graduate school at NYU and UC-Santa Cruz have included the Free Radio Santa Cruz collective, International Solidarity Movement, the Bluestockings Women's Bookstore collective, UCSC Student-Worker Coalition, Students United For Peace, UAW 2865, Grad Student Solidarity Network, several "research clusters" on anarchism, anti-capitalisms, and Women of Color in Collaboration and Conflict; and mobilizations against war and/or neoliberal economic institutions under a variety of acronyms. Since relocating to NY this fall I have been involved in the Asia Pacific Forum radio collective, Anarchist People of Color, Desis RIsing Up and Moving, and the NYC Anarchist Book Fair working group.

Reason for Running: First, because I was invited to to do so by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz. But I accepted the invitation because I believe very strongly in the importance of narrowing the gap between active political work and academic work, and in putting teaching and research in the service of social justice and a more substantively democratic society. I would hope that regardless of a new administration, and whether US troops are redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan or brought home, HAW will maintain its long-term relevance through speaking not just to any particular conflict but to the underlying systemic causes of war and the pervasive implications of an imperialist society-- such as our schools' role in the military-industrial-research complex; the neoliberal corporatization of the academy; defense of free speech and academic freedom, including the silencing of scholars and scholarship related to West Asia; and fair and equal access to education, vis a vis the economic draft and on-campus military recruitment.

Name: Sarah Shields

Institution: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Position: Associate Professor

Historical Specialization: Recent United States social movements--emphasis on social class, racial ethnicity, gender

Race/Ethnicity: Middle East

Political Background: I began my public speaking "career" at a public forum against Operation Desert Storm in 1990. Since then, I have done dozens (hundreds?) of talks to public audiences about the Iraq wars and the conflict in Israel/Palestine. I have published a number of op-eds on both issues, and blogged from Syria while living there in the fall semester 2007.

Reason for Running: Historians have unusual perspectives on contemporary conflicts (it is long past time for a historian to be included in the cabinet), and I'm delighted that HAW is providing a collective voice for activist historians. I organized teach-ins at UNC-CH at the encouragement of HAW. I would be pleased to become part of the Steering Committee.

Name: Andor Skotnes

Institution: The Sage Colleges, Troy, New York

Position: Professor of History of the Americas

Historical Specialization: Recent United States social movements—emphasis on social class, racial ethnicity, gender

Political Background: I became part of the Civil Rights Movement in 1965 and was involved in a range of 60s and 70s social movements. I was also involved for a number of years in organizing a local socialist collective in Southern California, and I worked as a rank-and-file activist in factory organizing. In recent years I have focused on intellectual and ideological work (including Radical History Review), teaching, labor support (SAWSJ), and faculty unionism.  I was a founder and a first co-chair of HAW.

Reason for Running: I want to continue to work with the HAW SC because I feel that mobilizing historians (broadly defined) and left intellectuals against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, against imperialist war, and against the US empire continues to be of crucial importance, especially in the current context of severe global economic crisis.  In fact, I believe a key task for HAW is to educate our constituency on the close relationship between the economic crisis and the wars for empire.

Name: David J. Snyder, Ph.D.

Institution: University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC

Position: Instructor

Historical Specialization: U.S. Foreign Relations, Cold War

Political Background: Democrat (with pronounced social-democratic leanings)

Reason for Running: I have been a member of HAW for several years and have organized or participated in two anti-war teach-ins, in 2006 and 2007. As one of the relatively few veterans (U.S. Army, 1989-1992) in the current generation of historians, and a scholar of U.S. foreign relations, I believe I have a valuable perspective to add to HAW’s ongoing work. In particular, I am interested to discuss transitioning HAW from a single-issue advocacy group (as one phase of the War on Iraq draws to its inevitable conclusion) into a more permanent channel of historical expertise to the public square.

Name:  Jennifer Van Bergen

Institution:  Santa Fe Community College, Gainesville, FL; Various publications (Formerly with New School University (formerly New School for Social Research) in NYC)

Position:  Adjunct Faculty (English Dept.); Free-lance political/legal commentator

Historical Specialization:  Early American Republic

Political Background:  Not sure how to respond to this.  I am a progressive, against war, for the United States Constitution and international rule of law.

Reason for Running:  I would contribute a lot.  I have a Juris Doctor (Law) degree and have published legal historical work (in particular, see Aaron Burr and the Electoral Tie of 1801: Strict Constitutional Construction at http://jvbline.org/Burr.pdf).  I've also been very active in nonprofit civil advocacy and in organizing events. For more about me, simply google my name.  My two books are available on Amazon.

Name:  Ginger Williams (nominated by Marc Becker)

Institution:  Winthrop University

Position:  Associate Professor

Historical Specialization:  Latin America

Political Background:  Ginger is a long time activist on Central American and broader peace issues, particularly on efforts to close the School of the Americas.

Reason for Running:  Ginger is the incoming president of the Peace History Society, and helped HAW organize our conference last year in Atlanta. She has the dedication and organzing skills that we need to build HAW into an effective organization.