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History Department Events

The Department of History hosts a number of speakers, receptions, and student presentations throughout the year. Please check this page frequently, as new events will be added periodically.

Upcoming Events   

CAPT Seminar Series

April 7, 2025
11:30 AM-1:00 PM
BRNG 6138 Conference Room
 
"The Fall of Saigon and the End of History"
Dr. Andrew Bellisari

bellisari seminar poster

Dr. Andrew Bellisari is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Purdue University. He specializes in the history of decolonization in North Africa and Southeast Asia and his research addresses questions related to warfare, post-colonial state- and nation-building, and civil society. Previously, he was a founding faculty member at Fulbright University Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City and a Vietnam Program Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

History Honors Forum

April 22, 2025
LWSN 1142
5:00-7:00 PM

More information coming soon.

Recent Events

Purdue Human Rights Program

March 27, 2025
Via Zoom
3:00-4:15 PM
 
"Justice as a Spiritual Quest: Human Rights in the African Imagination"
Dr. Chielo Eze

Presented as part of the Purdue Human Rights Program

Chielo Eze flyer graphic

The Human Rights Lab welcomes Dr. Chielo Eze (PhD from Purdue University; MFA). Dr. Eze will present, “Justice as a Spiritual Quest: Human Rights in the African Imagination” on Thursday , March 27th, at 3pm on Zoom.

Dr. Eze is Director and Professor of Africana Studies at Carleton College, author of Justice and Human Rights in the African Imagination: We, Too, Are Humans.

About the talk: Resting on Walter Benjamin’s conception of the spiritual elements of class struggle, and inspired by Nelson Mandela’s philosophy, Dr. Eze will suggest alternative ways of engaging human rights today. Equally important is Michael Ignatieff’s notion of ordinary virtues of tolerance, forgiveness, resilience, and trust. 

History on Tap

March 25, 2025
Thieme and Wagner Brewery
652 Main St, Lafayette, IN 47901
 
history-on-tap-march-2025
 
The History on Tap event for March will be held at Thieme and Wagner Brewery on Tuesday, March 25th, at 7:00 PM. Kostia Moharychev will be delivering a presentation titled "AI and The Fiddler on the Roof: Kyiv Suburbia Through the Lens of the 1897 Census."

10th Biennial Purdue History Graduate Student Association Conference

March 8, 2025
at Purdue University in West Lafayette 
 
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This conference is open to interested attendees, with content focused on topics of interest to graduate students and history majors, including those in the undergraduate History Honors program. Graduate students from universities outside of Purdue are welcome to attend!

Learn more and register for the 2025 HGSA Conference at this link.

Download the complete Conference Schedule as a PDF.

Guest Speaker: Too Black

February 28, 2025
6:00-7:30 PM
WALC 3090
 
too-black-photo
 
Laundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits
 
Abstract

What does it mean to conquer a people and then call said conquest a society? How does a fabricated society built upon conquest legitimise its actions? It must launder as a means to make its “grimey” activity appear clean. When opposition inevitably arises within the conquered, their rage must be subsumed by the State to further clean the oppression. Laundering Black Rage chronicles the rise of the capitalist State while examining the historical dillution of Black Rage. It demonstrates how the maintenance of capitalism increasingly requires the manufactured consent of the conquered.  

Much has been made in international headlines about scandals of high-profile Black Lives Matter leaders following the George Floyd protests but what if the scandals were just gross expressions of a much more ingrained process of counterinsurgency? How was the contagious Black Rage provoked by the police officer's knee on a poor Black man's neck converted into a benign commodity that could be massively marketed by Disney? How does the Black Rage embroiled in the global south become justification for death making sanctions and regime change? Laundering Black Rage reaches behind the front to trace the criminal origins. 

The spaces we occupy, the cities we breathe all bribe us with a lifestyle that compels us to carry on the laundering of conquest. For many, survival is dependent upon it. By examining how the state-fabricated formations of labour (race, class, gender) remain organised even when the conquered populations are clearly enraged, we hope to arrive at an analysis to help reverse the process. 

 
Biography

Too Black is a poet, scholar, organizer and filmmaker who blends critical analysis with biting sarcasm. He has headlined various stages and events including the historic Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City, Princeton University, and Johannesburg Theater in South Africa. His words have been published in online publications such as Black Agenda Report, Left Voice, Hammer and Hope and Hood Communist. He is currently the host of the Black Myths Podcast, a podcast debunking the BS said about Black people. Lastly, he the co-director of the award-winning documentary film The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up.

Download the event flyer at this link.

Guest Speaker: Dr. Holly A. Crocker

Part of the Medieval/Renaissance Series
February 26, 2025
4:30 PM, WALC 2051
 

wife of bath

Feminist Subjectivity, Women's Mastery, and Chaucer's Wife of Bath

Join us for snacks and a lecture with Dr. Holly A. Crocker, Carolina Distinguished Professor of English at the University of South Carolina. Series supported by: Department of English, Department of History, School of Languages and Cultures, School of Interdisciplinary Studies, and Purdue Libraries.

Download the event flyer at this link.

History on Tap

February 25, 2025
Thieme and Wagner Brewery
652 Main St, Lafayette, IN 47901
 
history on tap february 2025
 
The first History on Tap of the Spring 2025 semester will be held at Thieme and Wagner Brewery on Tuesday, February 25th, at 7:00 PM. Vipanchika Sahasri Bhagyanagar, a second year PhD student, will deliver a presentation titled "Better Prisons" and the Politics of Archives: Richard Henry Higgins and the Medical Experiments in McNeil Island Prison, 1952.
 

Fighting for Freedom Within the U.S. Army

February 13, 2025
5:00-6:30 PM
RAWL 2079
 
lande flyer
This talk features Assistant Professor of History Dr. Jonathan Lande, author of Freedom Soldiers: The Emancipation of Black Soldiers in Civil War Camps, Courts, and Prisons. This talk will explore the experience of Black Civil War soldiers who abandoned their military posts for brief periods of time to support their enslaved families. Thse soldiers stated in mililtary courts and from military prisons that they left to make freedom meaningful after decades in chains. Their dogged efforts reveal that the war of emancipation fought so bravely in combat continued in the army's camps and military justice system. Response provided by Ignatius Gyapong, PhD graduate student in the Department of History.