Explore past and upcoming History Center events by year. Event details include date, time, location and featured speakers or topics when available.
Spring 2026
January 21: Spigner House, 5:30-7:30
Faculty Spotlight: Discussion with Tom Brown and Carol Harrison, and their book Zouave Theaters: Transnational Military Fashion and Performance, moderated by Charlie Brown (MA, USC, 1999). Reception and book sale/signing.
January 30: Gambrell 245B, 10:00-11:15 am
Work in Progress with Grant Wong, Ph.D. candidate, to discuss “Punk Is Coming”: Punk Magazine and the Beginnings of Punk Culture on New York’s Lower East Side, 1974–1979,” a draft of one of his dissertation chapters.
February 5: Thomas Cooper Library, Room 204, 5:30 pm
Myles Zhang (University of Michigan), “Envisioning Senaca Village.” Using a 3-D interactive model, this project depicts what this significant nineteenth-century village might have looked like in the spring of 1855, about two years before it was destroyed by the City of New York to build Central Park.
February 17: Kendall Room, South Caroliniana Library. 5:00-6:30 pm
Rosa Parks' America: A Conversation with Professors Bobby Donaldson and Patricia Sullivan. Commemorating the 70th Anniversary Year of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Feb 24: Nickelodeon Theater, 1607 Main St, Columbia, SC 29201, 6 pm
Screening of “Boycott” at the Nickelodeon, marking the 70th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott. Director Clark Johnson will introduce the film and participate in a Q&A discussion afterwards.
March 17-18: A series of events around inspired by a special exhibit at the Morgan Library celebrating the work of Belle Costa Greene, a librarian who managed and developed J.P. Morgan’s library. Greene was the daughter of Richard Greener, first African American professor at the University of South Carolina, who organized the holdings of what is now the South Caroliniana library after the Civil War.
March 17, Kendall Room, South Caroliniana Library.
A panel discussion including Philip Palmer, Curator and Department
Head of the Morgan Library and Museum, Daria Rose Foner, Old Master’s painting specialist at Sotheby’s, Peter Weis, Archivist, Northfield Mount Hermon School, and USC’s Christian Anderson – will discuss their research methods and remarkable findings about the Green/Greeners, a father and daughter, who, though long separated, pursued careers in librarianship and collecting despite astounding odds and whose stories are deeply tied to our place. Melissa Stuckey will facilitate.
March 18, Gambrell 428: Roundtable focused on Public History/Applied History career pathways for our current and former Public History students. Our guests will share their personal experiences in building notable public history careers, often following unconventional paths in disciplined including, and adjacent to History (Art History, English, Education, Information Science) Frank discussion about challenges and opportunities in the present moment will be encouraged. R
Sponsors: History Center, Public History, School of Education, Institute for Southern Studies, School of Information Science
March 30-April 1: Sid Bedingfield, Associate Professor, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, will be on campus for several days during which time he will deliver a public talk, participate in a roundtable, and meet with several classes.
March 31, Kendall Room, South Caroliniana Library: Public talk on “Journalism and Jim Crow North: The Legitimation of Racial Discrimination during the Great Migration, 1900-1950.”
April 1, Location TBD: roundtable discussion of Dr. Bedingfield’s research, including his previously published book, Newspaper Wars, Civil Rights and White Resistance in South Carolina, 1935-1965
Co-sponsored with Sthe chool of Journalism and Mass Communications
April: (date TBD), Andrew Cerise, Ph.D. candidate, Work in Progress, "Shame Without Guilt: National Prestige, International Violence, and the Postwar South," draft of dissertation chapter.
April: (date TBD) John Gennari (U of Vermont) will discuss his new book, The Jazz Barn: Music Inn, the Berkshires, and the Place of Jazz and in American Life, cosponsored with the Humanities Collaborative.
The Humanities Collaborative will sponsor a book discussion group for faculty and graduate students in advance of John Gennari’s visit.
2025
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Monday, August 25, 2025
3:30–5:00 p.m. | Gambrell 245BGraduate student workshop: Archival Research: Experiences, Strategies, Best Practices, led by Dr. Alexandra Herrera and Dr. S. Wright Kennedy, Assistant Professors at USC.
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Wednesday, September 17, 2025
4:00 p.m. | Gambrell 245BPh.D. student Gabrielle McCoy will discuss a chapter of her dissertation, Friendship & Gossip in Women’s Equestrian Circles, which explores how women used recreational horseback riding to create female-centered spaces for friendship, skill-building and independence from male supervision.
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Tuesday, September 23, 2025
4:30–6:00 p.m. | Gambrell 429Book talk with Cecilia Marquez of Duke University on Making the Latino South. Cosponsored with the Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latinx Studies Program and the Institute for Southern Studies.
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Monday–Tuesday, October 6–7, 2025
On the 60th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act: History, Legacy, Current Struggles, a series of events with longtime civil rights lawyers Armand Derfner and Barbara Phillips. Cosponsored with the Center for Civil Rights History and Research.
- Monday, October 6
5:00–7:00 p.m. | Hollings Room
Panel discussion on the history of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, its implementation through the 1982 renewal and later rollbacks. - Tuesday, October 7
Gambrell 428
Lunchtime roundtable discussion focused on the courts and the state of voting rights today.
- Monday, October 6
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Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Dr. Manisha Sinha of the University of Connecticut will deliver the Richard Greener Lecture and participate in a roundtable discussion of her book The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860–1920. Cosponsored with the College of Education.
- 9:00–10:30 a.m. | Gambrell 245B
Discussion of her scholarship, including her recent book. - 5:00–7:00 p.m. | Kendall Room, South Caroliniana Library
Lecture followed by a reception and book signing.
- 9:00–10:30 a.m. | Gambrell 245B
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Tuesday, October 28, 2025
5:30–7:00 p.m. | Kendall Room, South Caroliniana LibraryAndrew Johnson of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History will discuss his book Enslaved Native Americans and the Making of South Carolina. Reception and book signing to follow.
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Tuesday, November 4, 2025
5:30–7:00 p.m. | Robert Mills Carriage House, Historic ColumbiaFaculty spotlight lecture and discussion with Dr. Lauren Sklaroff and Dr. Tom Lekan: New Methods/Unexpected Connections: Anti-Semitism and Judeophobia across the U.S., Germany and East Africa.
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Wednesday, November 12, 2025
4:00 p.m. | Gambrell 245BWork in Progress with Ph.D. student Sam Badger, discussing his draft article for the Journal of Southern History, Hillbilly Modernity: Political Economy and Culture in 1946 Alabama.
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Monday, November 17, 2025
3:30 p.m. | Kendall Room, South Caroliniana LibraryJennifer Whitmer Taylor of Duquesne University will discuss her book Rebirth: Creating the Museum of the Reconstruction Era and the Future of the House Museum. Reception and book signing to follow.
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Friday, January 31, 2025
1:10–2:00 p.m. | School of Music Recital Hall, Room 206Naomi Andre of UNC-Chapel Hill presents Blackness in Opera as part of the Luise E. Peake Music and Culture Colloquium. Cosponsored with the School of Music.
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Wednesday, February 5, 2025
5:00–6:30 p.m. | Hollings Library Program RoomTeaching the History of the Civil Rights Movement: Reflections on Two Decades of NEH Institutes at Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, featuring Waldo Martin and Patricia Sullivan, moderated by Bobby Donaldson. Cosponsored with the Center for Civil Rights History and Research.
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Monday, February 17, 2025
3:45–5:15 p.m. | Gambrell 245BWork in progress with Sarah Waheed of USC on Collaborators and Conspirators in the 16th Century Court of a Muslim Warrior Queen: Gender, Violence, and Power in Early Modern South Asia, a chapter from her manuscript In Search of Chand Bibi: Warrior Queen of India.
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Thursday, February 27, 2025
5:30–7:00 p.m. | Kendall Room, Caroliniana LibrarySeth Rockman of Brown University will discuss his book Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery. A reception and book signing will follow. Cosponsored with the Institute for Southern Studies.
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Friday, February 28, 2025
12:00–1:15 p.m. | Gambrell 245BRoundtable discussion with Seth Rockman about Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery.
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Monday, March 24, 2025
4:00–5:30 p.m. | Gambrell 217Dr. Larissa Smith, Provost and Professor of History at Longwood University, will speak on Building a Community Anchor in a National Civil Rights Landmark: The Story of the Moton Museum.
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Tuesday, April 8, 2025
12:00–1:15 p.m. | Gambrell 429Lunch and roundtable discussion with Robert A. Cross, author of The Minutemen and Their World, on Who’s Your Audience? Advanced Nonfiction Writing for the Historian. Cosponsored with the Humanities Collaborative.
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Wednesday, April 9, 2025
5:30–8:00 p.m. | Robert Mills House & GardensFaculty Spotlight and Reception with Dr. E. Gabrielle Kuenzli, Associate Professor of History at USC, presenting In the Winner's Circle: Latinos, Thoroughbred Horse Racing, and the Broader Relevance of the Kentucky Derby.
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Monday, April 14, 2025
5:30–7:00 p.m. | Kendall Room, Caroliniana LibraryPeter F. Lau will discuss his book Democracy Rising: South Carolina and the Fight for Black Equality since 1865. Cosponsored with the Center for Civil Rights History and Research and the Institute for Southern Studies.
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Friday, April 25, 2025
Time and place TBDRyan Darr will discuss his book The Best Effect: Theology and the Origins of Consequentialism. Cosponsored with the Department of Philosophy.
2024
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Thursday, September 5, 2024
12:00–1:00 p.m. | Gambrell 245BWork in Progress with Andrew Kettler of USC: Remembrance of the Bicameral Mind: Sensory Worlds at the Interface, exploring how history can help us think critically about the rise of artificial intelligence.
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Friday, September 13, 2024
4:00 p.m. | Gambrell 217Dr. Natalya Tshuikina, an Erasmus fellow and professor at Tallinn University, presents Russians in Estonia: International Tensions and Linguistic Policy.
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Monday, September 23, 2024
5:00 p.m. | Kendall Room, CarolinianaCaroline Grego of Queens University Charlotte discusses Hurricane Jim Crow: How the Great Sea Island Storm of 1893 Shaped the Lowcountry. Book talk and signing.
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Tuesday, September 24, 2024
12:00–1:30 p.m. | Gambrell 245BRoundtable discussion on Southern environmental history and the environmental history of slavery with Caroline Grego, Wright Kennedy and D. Andrew Johnson, moderated by Tom Lekan. Lunch provided.
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Monday, October 28, 2024
1:00–2:15 p.m. | Gambrell 245BDana Logan of UNC Greensboro visits campus for a panel discussion on methodologies in the study of religion from history and religious studies.
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Tuesday, October 29, 2024
5:45–7:00 p.m. | Kendall Room, South Caroliniana LibraryDana Logan presents Baptist Discipline: Policing the Antebellum Southeast.
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Thursday, November 14, 2024
12:00–1:15 p.m. | Gambrell 217Work in Progress with Na Sil Hao of USC: Threefold Benefits: Mobilizing Dairy Farmers and Building Bovine Alliances in Cold War South Korea.
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Friday, November 15, 2024
3:00–4:15 p.m. | Gambrell 245BProf. John D. Miller of Longwood College discusses his recently published book Honorable and Brilliant Labors: Orations of William Gilmore Sims.
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Wednesday, November 20, 2024
5:00–6:30 p.m. | Kendall Room, South Caroliniana LibraryProf. Nicole Eustace of NYU presents A Forgotten Founding Document from 1722: The Great Treaty of Albany and Indigenous Theories of Justice, based on her Pulitzer Prize-winning book Covered with Night: The Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in America.