By Whitney Hale

Who do you think you are? That is precisely the question an NBC TV show of the same name answers for interested celebrities. Gerald Smith, associate professor of history at the University of Kentucky and general co-editor of the Kentucky African American Encyclopedia Project, will join the TV show on this quest to answer just that question for former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome "The Bus" Bettis. The episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" featuring Bettis will air at 8 p.m. Friday, March 9, on NBC (local residents can see the show on local affiliate WLEX 18 and Insight Cable channel 8).

On Friday's episode,

By Kathy Johnson

University of Kentucky educators and others will be honored with teaching and public service awards today in UK's second annual Founders Day Award Ceremony at 4 p.m. in Worsham Theater in the UK Student Center.  Members of the campus and local communities are invited.  A reception will follow in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Cultural Center.

The university was created by legislative act on Feb. 22, 1865. While Founders Day has been celebrated in various ways over those years, the Founders Day Award Ceremony was established last year to recognize outstanding teaching, research and public service among faculty.

The Provost's Awards for teaching and service, the Sullivan Medallions for community service, the Sturgill Award for contributions to graduate education, and the Kirwan Prize for outstanding research will be presented

By Whitney Hale

University of Kentucky's Nicole Schladt, an international studies and gender and women's studies sophomore, and Sarah Smith, a history junior, have been awarded two of six English-Speaking Union (ESU) Scholarships presented by the English-Speaking Union Kentucky Branch. The scholarships will cover Schladt and Smith's expenses for summer study at the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge respectively.

The Kentucky Branch of the English-Speaking Union awards a limited number of scholarships to qualified Kentucky college students for courses offered at institutions in the United Kingdom. Scholarship awards include tuition,

By Gail Hairston, Amy Jones, Kody Kiser

Six University of Kentucky professors were honored last night by the UK Alumni Association for the excellence they demonstrate in the classroom.

Click here for a transcription of the video above.

This year’s recipients of the 2012 Great Teacher Awards are:

By Kathy Johnson

The University of Kentucky Appalachian Center, Appalachian Studies and the Graduate Appalachian Research Community are making a call for papers for the 2012 UK Appalachian Research Symposium and Arts Showcase. The topic of the work must be related to Appalachia, original, and produced in the last three years. 

The deadline for submitting an abstract of work online is midnight Dec. 15. The submission can be made by going to the GARC tab on www.

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

A visiting Fulbright Scholar will give an insider's perspective on the past, present and future of Iraq at the University of Kentucky tomorrow.

Mohammed Saeed, a Fulbright Scholar in the Department of Statistics pursuing a master's in public health in UK's College of Public Health, will discuss the "Recent History of Iraq, U.S. Involvement and War and Current Issues" at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 29, in the William T. Library. There will be a reception in the Keeneland Room after Saeed's talk.

Saeed was born and raised in Baghdad and arrived at UK in 2010 after receiving a Fulbright scholarship. 

The visiting scholar plans to discuss the Iraq-Iran War; the Gulf War; life under Saddam Hussein's

By Whitney Hale

The University of Kentucky Special Collections Library invites the public to an exhibition and symposium celebrating the opening of the papers of Appalachian author Harriette Simpson Arnow. The event will take place at 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, in the Great Hall, of the Margaret I. King Building. The exhibition of work will run through February 2012.

Harriette Arnow’s papers at UK Libraries provide a broad look at a writer’s life and work.  Included are materials that document her writing process, from first-draft manuscripts on dime store tablets, through various iterations and drafts, to printer page proofs. Also included are correspondence with family, editors, publishers and literary agents. Researchers will find mail from

By Guy Spriggs

On October 24, 2011, UK history professor Jeremy Popkin was named as the 2011 recipient of the American History Association (AHA) J. Russell Major Prize for the best book in early modern French history. His award-winning winning book – “You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery” – was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010.

The award will be officially announced in the November issue of “Perspectives on History,” and Popkin will receive the prize on January 6, 2012 at the AHA Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Popkin’s book explains the background to the epoch-making revolutionary decrees of 1793 (in the French colony of Saint-Domingue—today’s Haiti) and

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences will host a trailblazing American diplomat next week to continue the college's Year of China initiative.

Former U.S. Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch will speak on “Leadership and Education in a Globalizing World: China’s Challenge” at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, in Room 118 of the White Hall Classroom Building on UK's campus.

Bloch’s talk, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the "Passport to China: Global Issues & Local Understanding" course taught by UK sociology Professor Keiko Tanaka.

Ambassador Bloch, the first Asian-American ambassador in American history, has had a broad career in U.S. government service. She is currently president of the U.S.-China Education Trust, a nonprofit

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky will host 40 of the world's experts in early modern France at an interdisciplinary conference this week.

The 30th Annual Conference of the Society for Interdisciplinary French Seventeenth-Century Studies (SE17) will begin Thursday, Nov. 3, with scholarly papers and discussion. The meeting will be held in the Blue Grass Room of the Hilton Hotel in downtown Lexington and is free and open to the public.

Jeffrey Peters, the director of UK's Division of French and Italian Studies, organized the three-day scholarly get-together.

"The nature of literary studies has

University of Kentucky history professor Jeremy Popkin has been named one of six finalists for the 2011 Cundill Prize in History for his recent publication of "You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery."

Popkin will compete for the world‘s largest nonfiction history book award, which offers the winning author a $75,000 grand prize.

Popkin's "You Are All Free," released by Cambridge University Press in September 2010, provides a gripping historical account of the Haitian Revolution and the abolition of slavery in the now disaster-torn country. 

Popkin, a renowned French Revolution scholar, tells a dramatic story, employing a wide range of sources, affording him the opportunity to capture Haiti's complex history

By Whitney Hale

The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities will present the 2011 Bale Boone Symposium in the Humanities Oct. 10-12 on the topic of religion. The free public symposium, "Religion in the 21st Century," will give the public an opportunity to explore the connections between religion and such topics as history, science and politics.            

Three presentations on religion are scheduled for the 2011 Bale Boone Symposium. The event will open with the session "Are Faith and History Compatible?" featuring speakers Bart Ehrman, the James A. Gray Professor at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and 

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

Chad Montrie, professor in the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, will be visiting the University of Kentucky to discuss the history of environmentalism and its connection to the modern-day struggle against mountaintop removal (MTR) on Oct. 20.

His talk, titled, "Confronting Environmental Mythology, Making a New Environmental Movement," will take place at 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 20 in the Niles Gallery of the Lucille Caudill Little Fine Arts Library.

Montrie will examine common notions about the origins and development of environmentalism in the United States, highlighting militant opposition to strip mining in Appalachia during the 1950s and 1960s as a precursor to contemporary efforts to end (MTR).

Montrie suggests that acknowledging underground miners’ critical involvement in that preceding

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

Because the Russian Empire had 18 million men-in-arms, 5 million prisoners-of war and 2 million deaths during World War I, University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences history Professor and department Chair Karen Petrone just couldn't believe that no one remembered World War I in Russia.

"I spoke to colleagues in Russian history who told me that World War I memory was not a category in the Soviet Union, and that there was nothing about it in governmental archives," Petrone said. "Scholars believed that World War I memory did not exist."

While Petrone didn't necessarily set out to prove her fellow researchers wrong in 2002, she was inspired by the work of

by Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences has chosen the following professors as new department chairs: associate professor Deborah Crooks, Department of Anthropology; associate professor Jeff Clymer, Department of English (to begin spring 2012; associate professor of English Marion Rust will be interim chair of the Department of Anthropology for the fall 2011-2012 year); associate professor Karen Petrone, Department of History; professor David Leep, Department of Mathematics; professor 

When Kyle Longley applied to doctoral programs in history, he narrowed the choice down to two schools: the University of Kentucky and one other. But a visit to Lexington and Billy’s Bar-B-Q, where he had lunch with George Herring, the professor who would become his mentor, made UK the place to go.

“Once I met George, there was no choice,” Longley said. “He was just a very accommodating and helpful professor.”

Twenty years later, Longley is the Snell Family Dean’s Distinguished professor of history at Arizona State. He’s written four books, edited and contributed to another and is about to send his fifth to the publishers. He’s won many teaching awards and has contributed to mainstream publications like the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times andNewsweek

 Tonya and Jackie Jones giggle like best friends over the remnants of a casual lunch. You almost feel like you're intruding in attempts to capture their attention. Mother and daughter never seem to tire of each other's company, especially considering they live together in the Jones family home in Lexington and both work part time at the Inn on Broadway downtown.

"We do everything together," Jackie Jones laughed. "And this is no different."

In this instance, Jackie is alluding to her impending May Commencement Ceremony, where she will graduate with a degree in history. Tonya Jones will have a front row seat for her daughter's graduation, as she is receiving a degree in history from UK as well.

"I refused to let her

Former University of Kentucky history professor Daniel Smith will help Grammy Award-winning country music artist Tim McGraw to better understand his heritage and history on the Feb. 11 edition of "Who Do You Think You Are?," an NBC series that explores the ancestry and family past of key celebrities.

 

"As historians on the show, we kind of take Tim him through his journey, sort of like spirit guides," explained Smith. "We help him to unlock the mysteries and puzzles of history."

 

Specifically, Smith discussed McGraw's key ancestors during the Revolutionary War period. "We met at the Virginia Historical Society to look over a few papers," said Smith. "The ancestor we discussed was critical for Tim and for the Revolutionary era."

by Erin Holaday Ziegler





University of Kentucky students will have the opportunity to ask a nationally-renowned human rights activist, educator and former Black Panther Party (BPP) member questions of their own on campus this week.

 

UK history professor Jakobi Williams will conduct an intimate interview with Ericka Huggins in “Up Close and Personal: A Conversation with Professors Ericka Huggins and Jakobi Williams" at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 24, in the Student Center Ballroom. Students are also encouraged to come with questions of their own.

 

Huggins is a former Black Panther Party leader and former political prisoner. She has spent the last 25 years lecturing throughout the United States about human rights restoration

by Whitney Hale



The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities has selected 11 outstanding undergraduates as new scholars for the university's Gaines Fellowship Program for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 academic years.

Gaines Fellowships are given in recognition of students’ outstanding academic performance, demonstrated ability to conduct independent research, interest in public issues, and desire to enhance understanding of the human condition through the humanities. Fellowships are awarded for the tenure of a student's junior and senior years, or for the last two years of a five-year program; students in all disciplines and with any intended profession are given equal consideration.

The 11 students selected as Gaines Scholars are as follows: