Karin Shapiro
Associate Professor of the Practice in the Department of African and African American Studies
I study American social and southern history, as well as South African history. My interest in the political economy of race and coerced labor in both societies led to me to examine a dramatic Gilded Age labor rebellion in the Tennessee coalfields against the use of convict workers, the subject of my first book, A New South Rebellion: The Battle against Convict Labor in the Tennessee Coalfields, 1871-1896 (UNC Press, 1998). I also co-edited, along with scholars from the University of the Witwatersrand’s History Workshop and the Radical History Review, History from South Africa: Alternative Visions and Practices (Temple University Press, 1991). This volume, though now dated, brought both more nuanced radical interpretations of South African history and provided an exposure of History Workshop historians to a wide range of American historians who sought deeper historical understandings of that country’s democratic revolution.
Committed to reaching audiences beyond a scholarly community, I have produced a film on the epidemiologist Sherman James and the origins of his John Henryism Hypothesis (2018) and co-produced two others – one on South Africans in North Carolina (2005) and one on the international Fulbright program (2011) – and have curated exhibits on Nelson Mandela (2008) and Jewish history and life in Durham, North Carolina (2013). By and large, these efforts have drawn on my abiding interests in the American South and South Africa.
I am now engaged in three distinct projects. The first consists of a biography of Archbishop Walter Khotso Makhulu, archbishop of Central Africa between 1980 and 2000. A graduate of the same seminary and a direct contemporary of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu who served as Archbishop of Cape Town, Makhulu played a key role in the anti-apartheid movement. For years, he secretly funneled money from the Norwegian government and Norwegian state church to a wide variety of anti-apartheid activists inside of South Africa. In addition, he oversaw the demographic transformation of the African bishopric and facilitated the incorporation of African rituals into the Anglican Church in Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi. Archbishop Makhulu was also a critical voice in key debates in the Anglican Church, namely the ordination of women and gay rights.
Second, I am exploring South Africa’s apartheid-era emigration policy and its relationship to notions of citizenship and state formation, as well as the ways in which passports and other kinds of travel documents formed part of the oppressive apparatus of the successive National Party governments.
Third, I am researching the transnational careers of seven influential South African medics who came to North Carolina in the 1950s and ‘60s to work at Duke and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Primarily epidemiologists and family and community medicine doctors, this cohort adopted a "social medicine" approach. These pioneering doctors generally left South Africa when the National Party introduced apartheid in the late 1940s/1950s. Several ended up in North Carolina, where they had long and illustrious careers. I am interested in the ways in which these medics continued to explore the impact of social environment on health through epidemiological studies of North Carolina communities, as well as their efforts to establish health care facilities that harkened to those they had created in South Africa.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
- Associate Professor of the Practice in the Department of African and African American Studies, African & African American Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2013
- Associate Professor of the Practice in the Department of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2020
Contact Information
- 243D Friedl Building, Box 90252, Durham, NC 27708
- Box 90252, Durham, NC 27708
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kshapiro@duke.edu
(919) 684-2961
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CV 2022
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Webpage link to African and African American Studies
- Background
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Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., Yale University 1991
- M.Phil., Yale University 1986
- M.A., Yale University 1983
- B.A. (hons), University of Witwatersrand (South Africa) 1981
- A.B., University of Witwatersrand (South Africa) 1980
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Previous Appointments & Affiliations
- Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2003 - 2013
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Leadership & Clinical Positions at Duke
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Co-Director, Karsh International Scholarship
Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), African & African American Studies
President’s Advisory Committee on Institutional History, Duke University
Co-Director, Concilium on Southern Africa (COSA)
Steering Committee, Africa Initiative
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Co-Director, Karsh International Scholarship
- Recognition
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In the News
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SEP 25, 2018 -
DEC 11, 2013 Durham Herald-Sun
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Awards & Honors
- Arts&Sciences Council Committee on Faculty Research (ASC-CFR) Grant:2015-16. Duke University. 2015
- Southern Jewish Historical Society Grant for an exhibition on Durham's Jewish History. Southern Jewish Historical Society. 2012
- Council for International Exchange of Scholars Grant for "Fulbright Revisited". Council for International Exchange of Scholars. 2010
- Duke Endowment Grant for "Fulbright Revisited". Duke Endowment. 2010
- Institute for International Education Grant for "Fulbright Revisited". IIE. 2010
- W.E.B. Du Bois Institute Fellow,. Harvard University (declined). 2008
- Social Science Research Institute Faculty Fellow. Duke University. 2007
- John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Fellow. Duke University. 2005
- Post-Doctoral Fellowship for Research in the United States. Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa. 1994
- Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Fund Grant. Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, South Africa. 1989
- John F. Enders Grant. Yale University. 1988
- Albert J. Beveridge Grant. American Historical Association. 1987
- Fulbright Fellowship 1985-1989. Institute for International Education. August 1985
- Alexander Bouchet Prize in African-American Graduate Studies. Yale University. 1983
- Expertise
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Subject Headings
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Global Scholarship
- Research
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Selected Grants
- Fulbright Revisited- A Documentary awarded by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation 2009 - 2011
- Social Medicine in South Africa and Abroad: The North Carolina Connection awarded by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation 2008 - 2009
- No Exit? The Politics of South African Emigration Restrictions in Early Apartheid South Africa awarded by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation 2006 - 2008
- Double Vision: A Journey into the South African Diaspora in North Carolina awarded by NC Humanities Council 2005
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Fellowships, Supported Research, & Other Grants
- Reckoning with Race, Racism, and the History of the American South Initiative: South African Social Medicine and the Great Society in North Carolina awarded by Duke Office of the Provost 2021
- Christianity and Biography in Southern Africa (with Lauren Jarvis, UNC-Chapel Hill) awarded by Africa Initiative 2020 - 2021
- South African Social Medicine and the Great Society in North Carolina awarded by Arts & Sciences Council Committee on Faculty Research (ASC-CFR) 2020 - 2021
- Competitive Dean’s Leave awarded by Duke School of Arts & Sciences 2018 - 2019
- Research Assistant for video, “John Henry Lives On: Sherman James and the John Henryism Hypothesis.” awarded by Franklin Humanities Institute, Health Humanities Lab 2017
- Support for biography of Walter Khotso Makhulu awarded by Arts & Sciences Council Committee on Faculty Research (ASC-CFR) 2015
- Grant for the exhibit on Jewish history in Durham awarded by Southern Jewish Historical Society 2012
- Funding for “Fulbright Revisited” from the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars, the Institute for International Education awarded by Duke Endowment and the Josiah Charles Trent Grants, Duke University 2009 - 2010
- Medical History Grant awarded by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation 2008 - 2016
- W.E.B. Du Bois Institute Fellow (Declined) awarded by Harvard University 2007 - 2008
- Publications & Artistic Works
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Selected Publications
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Books
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Shapiro, Karin. A New South Rebellion: The Battle against Convict Labor in the Tennessee Coalfields, 1871-1896. University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
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Brown, Josh, Belinda Bozzoli, Peter Delius, Patrick Manning, Karin A. Shapiro, and Jon Wiener. History from South Africa: Alternative Visions and Practices. Temple University Press, 1991.
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Academic Articles
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Shapiro, K. A. “A conversation with Jacob Dlamini.” Safundi 22, no. 3 (January 1, 2021): 189–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/17533171.2021.2007595.Full Text
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Shapiro, Karin. “Growing Up with the Country: Family, Race, and Nation after the Civil War.” Journal of Southern History 85, no. 1 (2019): 196–97.Link to Item
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Haworth, I. S., S. P. Eriksen, S. H. Chmait, L. S. Matsuda, P. A. McMillan, E. A. King, J. Letourneau-Wagner, and K. Shapiro. “A problem based learning, case study approach to pharmaceutics : Faculty and student perspectives.” American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 62, no. 4 (January 1, 1998): 398–405.
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Bonner, Philip, and Karin Shapiro. “"Company Town, Company Estate: Pilgrim's Rest, 1910-1932.” Journal of Southern African Studies 19, no. 2 (June 1993): 171–200.
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Shapiro, Karin A. “Doctors or Medical Aids - The Debate over the training of Black Medical Personnel for the Rural Black Population in South Africa in the 1920s and 1930s.” Journal of Southern African Studies 13, no. 2 (January 1987): 234–55.
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Shapiro, K. “No Exit? Emigration Policy and the Consolidation of Apartheid.” Journal of Southern African Studies, n.d.
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Book Sections
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Shapiro, K. A. “Entries for: William Riley, Richard L. Davis, Myles Horton, the Tennessee Coal Miners’ Insurrection of 1891-92, the Highlander Folk School/Research Center, and Convict Leasing in the Postbellum South.” In Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working Class History, edited by Eric Arnesen. Routledge, 2007.
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Shapiro, K. “William Riley: Southern Black Miners and Industrial Unionism in the Late 19th Century.” In The Human Tradition in American Labor History, edited by Eric Arnesen. Scholarly Resources, 2004.
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Other Articles
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Shapiro, K. A. “Durham’s Jewish Community in Transition.” Triangle Downtowner Magazine, 2013.
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Shapiro, Karin, and Dan Letwin. “David Montgomery, 1927 – 2011.” Radical History Review. Duke University Press, May 1, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-1591680.Full Text
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Shapiro, K. A., and John Allen. “Interview with Archbishop Walter Khotso Makhulu,” 2010.
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Shapiro, K. A., William Chafe, and Ken Carder. “Interview with Bishop Peter Storey,” 2008.
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Book Reviews
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Shapiro, K. “Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South by Talitha L. Leflouria.” The Journal of Economic History. Cambridge University Press (CUP): HSS Journals - No Cambridge Open, June 2016.
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Shapiro, K. “Doing Time in the Depression: Everyday Life in Texas and California Prisons by Ethan Blue.” Labor: Studies in the Working Class History of the Americas, January 2016.
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Shapiro, K. “Steel Drivin’ Man - John Henry - The Untold Story of an American Legend by Scott Reynolds Nelson.” Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, 2007.
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Shapiro, K. “Black Prisoners and Their World, Alabama, 1865-1900 by Mary Ellen Curtin.” Journal of American History, 2002.
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Macmillan, H., and F. Shapiro. “Zion in Africa: The Jews of Zambia.” Journal of Southern African Studies, 2001.
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Shapiro, K. “Making race and nation: A comparison of South Africa, the United States and Brazil.” Journal of American Ethnic History, 2000.Link to Item
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Shapiro, K. “Black Liberation: A Comparative History of Black Ideologies in the United States and South Africa by George Fredrickson.” South African Sunday Times, November 1996.
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Shapiro, K. “An African American in South Africa: The Travel Notes of Ralph Bunche by RR Edgar.” South African Historical Journal, 1993.
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Shapiro, K. “What’s a Coal Miner to Do? The Mechanization of Coal Mining and Workers' Health by Keith Dix; Workers' Democracy: The Western Miners' Struggle, 1891-1925 by Alan Derickson.” International Labor and Working Class History, 1991.
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Shapiro, K. “South Africa’s City of Diamonds: Mine Workers, and Monopoly Capitalism in Kimberley, 1867-1895 by William Worger.” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 1989.
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Shapiro, K. “Capital and Labour on the Kimbereley Diamond Fields, 1871-1890 by Robert V Turrell.” International Journal of African Historical Affairs, 1988.
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Shapiro, K. “South Africa, A Different Kind of War: From Soweto to Pretoria by Julie Fredrickse.” African Studies Review, 1988.
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Shapiro, K. “Shattered Dreams? An Oral History of the South African AIDS Epidemic.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. Oxford University Press (OUP), n.d. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/jrn032.Full Text
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Journal Issues
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Bozzoli, B., P. Delius, W. Nasson, J. Peires, C. Bundy, K. Shapiro, and L. Witz. “Radical History Review.” Edited by K. Shapiro, B. Bozzoli, P. Delius, J. Brown, P. Manning, and J. Wiener. Radical History Review. Duke University Press, 1990.
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Conference Papers
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Shapiro, K. “Statelessness: A Historical Case Study from Apartheid South Africa,” n.d.
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Shapiro, K. “Only the State May be a Master: The Termination of Tennessee's Convict Lease,” n.d.
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Shapiro, K. “The East Tennessee Coal Miners' Rebellion, 1891-92,” n.d.
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Shapiro, K. “The Company was the District: Pilgrim's Rest, 1915-20,” n.d.
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Shapiro, K. “The Life and Times of Walter Paul Khotso Makhulu,” n.d.
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Exhibitions, Screenings, & Performances
- Double Vision: A Journey into the South African Diaspora in North Carolina | 27th Durham International Film Festival at Durban, South Africa 2006
- Double Vision: A Journey into the South African Diaspora in North Carolina | Southern Fried Flicks Film Festival at Augusta, Georgia 2006
- Double Vision: A Journey into the South African Diaspora in North Carolina | at Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University 2005
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Artistic Works & Non-Print Media
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Exhibits
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Films
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- Teaching & Mentoring
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Recent Courses
- AAAS 349S: Contemporary South Africa 2023
- HISTORY 259S: Contemporary South Africa 2023
- POLSCI 368S: Contemporary South Africa 2023
- PUBPOL 321S: Contemporary South Africa 2023
- RIGHTS 351S: Contemporary South Africa 2023
- SOCIOL 259S: Contemporary South Africa 2023
- AAAS 316S: Apartheid South Africa and Struggles for Democracy 2022
- AAAS 349S: Contemporary South Africa 2022
- AAAS 406S: South African Life Histories 2022
- CULANTH 406S: South African Life Histories 2022
- HISTORY 259S: Contemporary South Africa 2022
- HISTORY 386S: Apartheid South Africa and Struggles for Democracy 2022
- HISTORY 450S: South African Life Histories 2022
- ICS 211S-2: Apartheid South Africa and Struggles for Democracy 2022
- POLSCI 337S: Apartheid South Africa and Struggles for Democracy 2022
- POLSCI 368S: Contemporary South Africa 2022
- POLSCI 406S: South African Life Histories 2022
- PUBPOL 321S: Contemporary South Africa 2022
- PUBPOL 327S: Apartheid South Africa and Struggles for Democracy 2022
- PUBPOL 406S: South African Life Histories 2022
- RIGHTS 316S: Apartheid South Africa and Struggles for Democracy 2022
- RIGHTS 351S: Contemporary South Africa 2022
- RIGHTS 406S: South African Life Histories 2022
- SOCIOL 259S: Contemporary South Africa 2022
- AAAS 316S: Apartheid South Africa and Struggles for Democracy 2021
- AAAS 349S: Contemporary South Africa 2021
- AAAS 354S: Race and Society: South Africa and the US, 1890-present 2021
- AAAS 391: Independent Study 2021
- AAAS 406S: South African Life Histories 2021
- AAAS 496: Distinction Program Sequence 2021
- CULANTH 406S: South African Life Histories 2021
- HISTORY 259S: Contemporary South Africa 2021
- HISTORY 296S: Race and Society: South Africa and the US, 1890-present 2021
- HISTORY 386S: Apartheid South Africa and Struggles for Democracy 2021
- HISTORY 450S: South African Life Histories 2021
- ICS 358S: Race and Society: South Africa and the US, 1890-present 2021
- POLSCI 274S: Race and Society: South Africa and the US, 1890-present 2021
- POLSCI 337S: Apartheid South Africa and Struggles for Democracy 2021
- POLSCI 406S: South African Life Histories 2021
- PUBPOL 321S: Contemporary South Africa 2021
- PUBPOL 327S: Apartheid South Africa and Struggles for Democracy 2021
- PUBPOL 362S: Race and Society: South Africa and the US, 1890-present 2021
- PUBPOL 406S: South African Life Histories 2021
- RIGHTS 316S: Apartheid South Africa and Struggles for Democracy 2021
- RIGHTS 406S: South African Life Histories 2021
- SOCIOL 259S: Contemporary South Africa 2021
- SOCIOL 322S: Race and Society: South Africa and the US, 1890-present 2021
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Advising & Mentoring
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Awards won by undergraduate students:
Fall 2014, Student won Lowell-Aptman Prize, honors thesis category (Mary Tung)Summer 2014, Student won $10,000 Davis Project for Peace grant. Built a reading room with internet access and computer resources in the Mpaka Refugee Camp, Swaziland (Aristide Sangano) http://www.davisprojectsforpeace.org/
Spring 2014, Student won Oliver W. Koonz Human Rights Essay Prize (Jacob Tobia)
Fall 2013, Student won Lowell-Aptman Prize, junior/senior category (Mary Tung)
Spring 2013, Course evaluations among the top 5% of all undergraduate instructors at Duke.
Spring 2013, Student won Oliver W. Koonz Human Rights Essay Prize (Taylor Henley). Essay published Michigan Journal of History Fall 2013, Vol. X:1
Fall 2012, Student won the Durden Prize, junior/senior category (Catherine Miller). Co-taught with William Chafe in the field of US southern history.Spring 2012, Course evaluations among the top 5% of all undergraduate instructors at Duke.
Fall 2011, Student won the Durden Prize, honors thesis category (Ryan Brown). Student was a finalist for the Durden Prize, junior/senior category (Callie Seaman). Brown’s thesis is now published as a book. Ryan Brown, A Native of Nowhere: The Life of Nat Nakasa (Jacana, 2013)
Spring 2011, Student won the award for the best undergraduate thesis. Thesis in South African social history. (Ryan Brown). Student won the Oliver W. Koonz Human Rights Essay Prize (Brianna Nofil). Two students won Fulbrights (Ryan Brown, South Africa and Katherine Rose Filler, Indonesia).
Fall 2010, Student won the Durden Prize, junior/senior category (Ryan Brown). Student was a finalist for the Durden Prize, junior/senior category (Katherine Rose Filler). Student was a finalist for the Durden Prize, freshman/sophomore category (Brianna Nofil). The first two were in South African history and the third in American immigration history. Of the nine Durden undergraduate student prizes across all disciplines, three students had written papers in my classes.
Spring 2007, Student won the award for the best undergraduate history thesis. Thesis in the social history of the American South (Lydia Wright).
Spring 2005, Students won awards for the best undergraduate history thesis (Khalid Kurji) and the best Master of Arts in Liberal Studies thesis, the former in South African history and the latter in the Politics of the American South (Randy Yale).
Spring 2004, Students won awards for the best undergraduate history thesis (Andrew Van Kirk) and the best Master of Arts in Liberal Studies thesis, both in South African History (Doris Jacobs).
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- Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
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Presentations & Appearances
- "Fair Wages: A History of Getting Paid" . Interview by Edward Ayers. Back Story Radio. March 28, 2014 2014
- Roundtable, "Durham's Jewish Community in Transition". June 16, 2013 2013
- Panelist with Ebrahim Moosa (Religion Department, Duke University), "Jews and Muslim in Apartheid...and After". February 1, 2013 2013
- International Peace Work. Panel with David Shulman, (Hebrew University), David Gilmartin (NCSU), Nadia Yaqub (UNC-Chaple Hill), "Comparing Aparthied and Israel's Occupation of the West Bank.". October 1, 2012 2012
- American and South African Comparative History. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 2011 2011
- Then and Now - Eight South African Photographers. Perkins Library, Duke University. April 1, 2008 2008
- Nelson Mandela: A Light So Powerful. American Tobacco Campus, Durham, North Carolina. January 2008 2008
- Social Medicine in South Africa and Abroad: the North Carolina Connection. Columbia University. May 2006 2006
- Changing Voices: Alternative Historical Perspectives in South Africa. Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University. February 2005 2005
- Boundaries of Dissent: The Battle Against Convict Labor in the Tennessee Coalfields. Feminist Women in History. April 2000 2000
- The Prism of a New South Rebellion: Political Economy, Indutrialization, and Criminal Justice in the Late Nineteenth-Century Tennessee. University of Miami. February 1996 1996
- History from South Africa: A Critical Review. Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies. Princeton University. December 1990 1990
- The Tennessee Coal Miners' Revolts, 1891-92: Convict Labor, Political Culture adn Southern Rural Industrialization. Harvard University. February 1989 1989
- The Convict Must Go! Tennesse Miners and the State 1891-92. Comparative Social History Seminar. Oxford University. May 1987 1987
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Outreach & Engaged Scholarship
- Board Member. Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina. 2013 - 2016 2013 - 2016
- Exhibition Curator. Beth El Synagogue, the first 125 years. 2012 - 2013 2012 - 2013
- History Advisory Committee. Museum of Durham History (History Hub). 2012 - 2016 2012 - 2016
- Exhibition Curator. Nelson Mandela: A Light So Powerful. American Tobacco Campus, Durham. January 2008 - May 2008 2008
- Exhibiton Curator. Spirit of Freedom: Drawings & Narratives from Nelson Mandela's Imprisonment on Robben Island. Durham Public Library. 2007 2007
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Service to the Profession
- Participant. Faculty Curriculum on Anti-Racism. Duke Office of Faculty Advancement. January 11, 2021 - January 14, 2021 2021
- Participant. Faculty Success Program. National Cener for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD). 2019 2019
- Editor. Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies. January 2016 2016
- Reviewed promotions/honors. National Research Foundation -- the major government research foundation in South Africa. 2012 - 2015 2012 - 2015
- Manuscript Reviewer : University of Illinois Press. University of Illinois Press and Univesrity of California Press. 2010 - 2013 2010 - 2013
- James A. Rawley Prize Committee Member and Chair. Organization of American Historians. May 2008 - May 2011 2008 - 2011
- Associate Member, Editorial Collective. Radical History Review. 2000 - 2016 2000 - 2016
- Reviewed articles. Journal of American History, Safundi, RHR, Journal of Southern African Studies; Kronos, Southern Cultures, Journal of Natal and Zulu History, Cultural Anthropology, and Journal of Appalachian Studies. 2000 - 2015 2000 - 2015
- Member of the Editorial Collective. Radical History Review. 1988 - 2000 1988 - 2000
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Service to Duke
- Executive Committee, Center for Jewish Studies. 2014 - 2015 2014 - 2015
- Graduate Liberal Studies Advisory Board. 2014 - 2016 2014 - 2016
- Representative for African and African American Studies. Arts & Sciences Council. 2014 - 2016 2014 - 2016
- Co-chair with Charles Piot (Anthropology) and John Barlett (Medicine and Global Health). Africa Initiative. 2012 - 2016 2012 - 2016
- Head. Fulbright Program. Office of Undergraduate Scholars and Publics. June 2008 - June 2013 2008 - 2013
- Co-chair. Concilium on Southern Africa (COSA). 2006 - 2016 2006 - 2016
Some information on this profile has been compiled automatically from Duke databases and external sources. (Our About page explains how this works.) If you see a problem with the information, please write to Scholars@Duke and let us know. We will reply promptly.