Proctor programs explore slave resistance, Holocaust survivors, women's issues

November 8, 2012

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida will host a series of public history programs for the 2012-2013 academic year, starting Wednesday.

A diverse selection of award-winning speakers will discuss their historical research: Larry Rivers on slave resistance in antebellum Florida; Alan Rosen on the earliest interviews conducted with Holocaust survivors; and professor Stephanie Coontz on family policy and women’s activism, focusing on the changing roles of women, men, and marriage in America over the past 50 years.

Here are the details:

Larry Rivers
6 p.m. Nov. 14
Pugh Hall
Rivers, president of Fort Valley State University since 2006, will present a program based on his new book, “Rebels and Runaways: Slave Resistance in Nineteenth-Century Florida,” which explores the local and national impact of slave protest and resistance in antebellum Florida. Rivers is an award-winning author of many books and essays on African American history, including the classic text “Slavery in Florida: Territorial Days to Emancipation.” This event will include a book signing.

Under his leadership, Fort Valley State University has risen to become one of the top-ranked black colleges in the United States, and was recently ranked ninth among the top regional public colleges in the South by U.S. News & World Report.

He earned his doctorate at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1977 and taught at Florida A&M University for more than 20 years, where he ultimately earned the rank of Distinguished University Professor. He also held a series of administrative appointments at FAMU and was named dean of the FAMU College of Arts and Sciences in 2002.

Parking for the event at Pugh Hall is free. The event will also be streamed by the Bob Graham Center for Public Service on its homepage: http://www.bobgrahamcenter.ufl.edu/.

An extra-credit sign-up sheet will be available for students to sign at the event.

Rivers will also be Hank Conner’s guest on the WUFT-FM program “Conner Calling” at 1 p.m. Nov. 9. The call-in number is 352-392-8989. View the program’s website at http://www.wuft.org/conner-calling/.

The event is being sponsored by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History, George A. Smathers Libraries, UF Department of Anthropology, the African American Studies Program, and the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations, UF Office of the Provost, Bob Graham Center for Public Service, UF Speech and Debate Team, North Star Leadership Council and UF Black Graduate Student Organization.

Alan Rosen
7 p.m., Feb. 12
Pugh Hall
Rosen will present a program about his research on a series of some of the earliest oral history interviews ever conducted with Holocaust survivors. The importance of these interviews, which were recorded by David Boder in the years immediately following World War II, are detailed in Rosen’s book, “The Evidence of Trauma: David Boder and Writing the History of Holocaust Testimony.” This event will also include a book signing

Rosen earned his doctorate in literature and religion at Boston University, where he studied under renowned Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel. He has taught Holocaust literature at universities in the United States and Israel, and Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies in Jerusalem. Rosen is the author of two monographs, “Sounds of Defiance: The Holocaust, Multilingualism, and the Problem of English” and “Dislocating the End: Climax, Closure, and the Invention of Genre.” From 2004 to 2005, Rosen was the Ruth Meltzer Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania. He has published more than a dozen scholarly articles on the Holocaust in literature, and is the recipient of numerous scholarly awards for his work, including from Bar-Ilan University and the National Center for Genocide Studies.

The event is sponsored by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.

Stephanie Coontz
2:30 p.m., March 13, Ustler Hall Atrium
6 p.m., March 13, Pugh Hall
Professor Stephanie Coontz will visit UF for a series of events focusing on her groundbreaking research into the history of family policy and women’s activism in America. She will participate in a campus roundtable discussion focusing on her acclaimed book, “A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s,” at 2:30 p.m. in the Ustler Hall Atrium. She will give a public presentation, “Madmen, Working ‘Girls,’ and Desperate Housewives: Women, Men, and Marriage in 1963 and 2013,” at 6 p.m. in Pugh Hall. This event will also include a book signing.

Coontz teaches history and family studies at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and directs research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families. Coontz’s books, “A Strange Stirring,” “Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage,” “The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap” “The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families,” and “The Social Origins of Private Life,” have won numerous accolades and commendations, and her writings have been translated into many languages.

She has testified about her research before the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families in Washington, D.C. and appeared on many shows, including “The Colbert Report,” “The Today Show,” “Oprah Winfrey,” and “CBS This Morning.”

This event is being sponsored by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, UF Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research, Department of English with Phillip Wegner, Marston-Milbauer Eminent Scholar Chair, the Bob Graham Center for Public Service, and the Gainesville Area National Organization for Women.

For information on how to sponsor of these events, contact Paul Ortiz at portiz@ufl.edu and visit the web site of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at http://www.history.ufl.edu/oral/.