INVENTING DESTINY

From the University Press of Kansas. The mythmakers of US expansion have expressed “manifest destiny” in many different ways—and so have its many discontents. A multidisciplinary study that delves into these contrasts and contradictions, Inventing Destiny offers a broad yet penetrating cultural history of nineteenth-century US territorial acquisition—a history that gives voice to the underrepresented actors who significantly complicated US narratives of empire, from Native Americans and Anglo-American women to anti- and non-national expansionists. The contributors—established and emerging scholars from history, American studies, literary studies, art history, and religious studies—make use of source materials and techniques as various as artwork, religion, geospatial analysis, interior colonialism, and storytelling alongside fresh readings of traditional historical texts. For more information see the Inventing Destiny  page

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CURRENTLY

I am honored that the Lamar University College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of History selected me for the 2024-2026 Dr. Ralph and Edna Wooster Endowed Professorship in History. I follow my colleagues Rebecca Boone and Jeff Forret in receiving this distinction. In 2019, the Wooster Family created this endowment to “promote excellence in teaching and research” within the faculty of the Department of History and in so doing, “perpetuate Ralph Wooster’s reputation for distinguished scholarship, collegial and responsible academic citizenship, and outstanding teaching.” For more information click (here).

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ELSEWHERES

Texas on Film: 12 Mighty Orphans and the trap of white nostalgia with a brief profile of Torres brothers who played on the Mighty Mites team Click here.