HAW at the AHA
January 3-6, 2008 in Washington, DC

Nominees for HAW Steering Committee

This year the voting for the HAW Steering Committee will be done entirely by email. The candidates for the 20 Steering Committee slots are listed below. To vote, send the ballot to proxy@historiansagainstwar.org. The deadline for receiving ballots is Friday, Jan. 25.

Name: David R. Applebaum
Institution: Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ
Position: Professor
Historical Specialization: Contemporary French Cultural/Legal/Labor History.  My research is with and about the syndicat de la magistrature, the labor union of judges (majority women) founded in June of 1968.  The plan is to complete work on Images of Justice, Visions of Judges next semester. 
Race/Ethnicity: OWEM (Older White European Male)
Political Background: I have been marching and organizing since 1963 in Civil Rights, the Peace Movement, Faculty Organizing (TAA) in Madison and since joining the Glassboro/Rowan faculty. Between 1975 and 1978 I fought and won an academic freedom grievance and have knowledge to share that may be of value to colleagues. 
Reason for Running: Continue collaboration to end the occupation and sustain a movement of engaged radical historians. 

Name: Marc Becker
Institution: Truman State University
Position: Associate Professor of History
Historical Specialization: Modern Latin American history
Race/Ethnicity: Platt Deutsch (Low German)
Political Background: My political consciousness was born (as Rigoberta Menchu would say) in 1980 with the Carter Doctrine which reinstated draft registration in reaction to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, I was 18 at the time, and coming to the realization that I did not want to be used as a pawn for someone else's foreign policy objectives led me to rethink completely my ideology. I subsequently worked extensively with Central American solidarity groups, including a stint with Witness for Peace in Nicaragua. More recently, I have worked with Indigenous rights movements in the Americas and am a founder of NativeWeb, the premier Internet site on Indigenous issues. Politically I identify myself as a socialist in the tradition of José Carlos Mariátegui, although I am not a member of any party. I am motivated by a desire for social justice, and am a pacifist.
Reason for Running: I have been involved with HAW since its founding at the AHA in January 2003. My motivation for joining HAW was to challenge imperialistic policies that run counter to our interests. I have worked on HAW's web page and am interested and willing to continue in that capacity.

Name: Brian Bogart
Institution: University of Oregon
Position: M.A. Candidate Advanced Strategies for Peace & Diversity; B.A. Asian Studies/Japanese (both University of Oregon); International Studies Certificate (Waseda University, Tokyo); Intercultural Studies Certificate (Lewis & Clark College)
Historical Specialization: Postwar history, history of Department of Defense, history of Cold War & War on Terror (and media propaganda campaigns), Civil Rights era
Race/Ethnicity: "Caucasian," African roots
Political Background: Nonpartisan, active for 45 years (generally Dem)
Reason for Running: 2008 promises to be a pivotal year as the pace of climate change impacts human affairs.  In projecting its message, HAW might benefit by using the public trend away from reading toward viewing.  I would be very interested in such an effort.

Name: John Cox
Institution: Florida Gulf Coast University
Position: Assistant professor
Historical Specialization: primary: Modern Europe/Germany (Jewish resistance inside Nazi Germany; the Holocaust); secondary: Latin America
Race/Ethnicity: European, Irish, etc.
Political Background: Active since mid-1980s in antiwar, anti-racist, pro-choice, and other progressive movementsI've been a member of the HAW steering committee for the last two years. I wrote an article and an introduction for one of our online publications (the "torture" pamphlet), and have participated otherwise over the last couple years. I would not be offended if, in the interest of greater diversity, I were not elected to the s.c. this time, but whether or not I'm elected I'd like to help publicize the April conference and other activities over the coming year.

Name: Alan Dawley
Institution: The College of New Jersey
Position: Professor of History
Historical Specialization: 20th c. US, social and political; US in world history
Race/Ethnicity: North European
Political Background: I am a long time activist in progressive causes who got his start in the civil rights movement as the editor of the Mississippi Free Press. I have also been active over the years in the labor movement, grass roots economic development, Central America solidarity, and the anti-war movement from Vietnam to Iraq.
Reasons for Running: Having joined the Steering Committee at its inception, I have helped draft its major statements, coordinated the brochure, "Let History Judge," petitioned the OAH for the creation of the Committee on Academic Freedom, written and solicited articles for the newsletter, and otherwise sought to further the goals of HAW. I would like to see HAW reach out to international colleagues and broaden its impact at home through wider distribution of our publications. 

Name:  Mara Dodge
Institution: Westfield State College
Position:  Associate Professor
Historical Specialization: 19th-20th century US history with a focus on social history: race, class, & gender; history of crime & punishment/legal history; GLBT history, US foreign policy, & labor history
Race/Ethnicity: white/European-American
Political Background: Radical. Became an activist in 1980s in Chicago focusing on opposing US intervention in Central America along with many other issues (ex. anti-racism, Puerto Rican solidarity, disarmament). In the 1990s I focused more on anti-prison/ prisoners' rights work (taught within the Ill. prison system for 5 years and my dissertation was on the history of women's prisons) along with anti-war (1st Gulf War).

Since 2000 have been more involved in local community issues (Holyoke, MA where I live is one of the poorest cities in the state). I was a co-founder of Holyoke Citizens for Open Gov't (which opposed the privatization of the city's waste water treatment system - we lost) and am Vice-President of the board of Nueva Esperanza, an agency that provides affordable housing and youth programs. I have also been the advisor for WSC Students for Peace & Justice and very recently joined the organization Solidarity, which defines itself as Socialist-Feminist (and is a very non-sectarian group).
Reason for Running: I am interested in becoming much more active in anti-war work and would be very excited to do so with colleagues in history & fellow activist historians. I am a teacher at heart and put a lot of time/effort into pedagogy and thinking about how to present anti-war/social justice issues in a manner that's accessible to students. I would love to have the opportunity to work with others on such projects as well as further develop/ share my ideas and teaching materials.

On a practical note: Until this year I was the teacher education coordinator for the WSC history dept. (in charge of preparing High School and Middle School social studies teachers). This position consumed a great deal of time/ energy. However, I am no longer involved in that program and thus have much more time to devote to activism. I find anti-war work especially urgent at this time and would like to contribute more at both the local and national levels.

Name: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Institution/Position: emeritus professor, California State University
Historical Specialization:  Latin America, indigenous western  hemisphere, colonialism
Race/Ethnicity: Scots-Irish, Cherokee
Political Background:  socialist, feminist
Reason for Running:  My main work in on the HAW conferences, which I think are important for bring historians together with antiwar activists, including returning soldiers for a more solidly based antiwar movement for the long haul.  I organized a successful HAW roundtable of HAW members on US imperialism and what can be learned from the Latin American experience to better understand the US war against Iraq at the Latin American Studies Association annual meeting in Montreal in September 2007.  I met with members of the Iraq Veterans against the War in Lawton OK (where Ft. Sill is based) and gave them information about HAW, and I have been networking with other grassroots antiwar organizations in the Southwest.  I frequently meet with the editors of War Times in the Bay Area, all of whom are old friends and co-organizers.

Name: Carolyn "Rusti" Eisenberg
Institution: Hofstra University
Ethnicity: White
Historical Specialization: 20th Century US Foreign Policy, author of Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany, 1944-49 and completing a new book on Kissinger, Nixon and the National Security State.
Position: Professor of History
Political Background: Antiwar activist, 1965-present. Co-Chair, Legislative Working Group. United for Peace and Justice, Co-Founder Brooklyn for Peace.
Reason for running: "I am interested in encouraging historians to engage issues of war and peace, and to give greater emphasis to America's global role in scholarship, teaching and public advocacy." Rusti has been a steering committee member since HAW's beginning and has drafted statements, appeared on HAW panels, and helped to organize last year's nation-wide forums.

Name: John J. Fitzgerald
Institution: Longmeadow High School (Retired)
Position: Former teacher and department chair
Historical Specialization: Vietnam War - Co-author: The Vietnam War: A History in Documents, Oxford University Press, 2002.
Race/Ethnicity: An American of Irish descent
Political Background: Vietnam veteran. (1964 - 1968) Wounded in action. Bronze Star for Valor, Purple Heart, etc. Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Eugene J. McCarthy campaign, Moratorium (1969), Student Strike (UMass Amherst) 1970, McGovern campaign of 1972. Veterans Education Project in Western Massachusetts and Veterans for Peace.
Reason for Running: I have been involved in HAW since the summer of 2006. I have enjoyed working with the Steering Committee and hope to continue to do so. I prepared the Teaching Guides for "Teaching the Vietnam War" and for "Teaching the Iraq War" which are now located on the HAW web site. I am a life member of the OAH and The New England Historical Association. I am currently a member of the Massachusetts Council of the Social Studies and Western Massachusetts Jobs with Justice and the Center for Popular Economics in Amherst.

Name: Jerise (Jeri) Fogel
Institution: I currently teach Special Ed 6-12 grades, at Winston Preparatory School in NYC. I occasionally teach a Classics course at Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ,
Political Background: I am a member of several peace and social justice organizations (e.g. Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, NAACP, ACLU) and I try to contribute time and energy especially to progressive and immigrants' rights groups.
Reason for Running: "I have immensely enjoyed working on various projects (conference tablings, newsletters, etc.) for the HAW-SC over the past year and would love to continue to contribute, whether as an SC member or as a member of one of the Working Groups.

Name: Rich Gibson
Historical Specialization: Education professor
Political Background: I am an incumbent member of the HAW board. As an education professor, I think I bring two important pieces to HAW. First, I am a bridge to the anti-war movement in k12 schooling. I am a cofounder of the Rouge Forum (www.rougeforum.org), an organization of k12 school workers, professors, parents, community people and students active for ten years now, opposing the empires wars as well as the regimentation of curricula and racist high-stakes testing that parallels the promise of perpetual war. Rouge Forum members publish research, engage in strategic planning, and take direct action, seeking to connect reason to power in schools and out. We have, for example, led mass walkouts of students and school workers against the wars, boycotted high-stakes exams, and set up concurrent freedom schools where teachers can actually teach, and students learn. Secondly, since I spent most of my life as an organizer, I believe I bring a perspective to HAW that urges a teaching project connected to organizing: the development of class consciousness connected to action against capitalism and its twin, imperialist war. I have published extensively from books (most recently, "Neoliberalism and Education Reform) to journalism (in Counterpunch, Z, Substance News, etc).

Name: Van Gosse
Institution: Franklin and Marshall College
Race/Ethnicity: White
Historical Specialization: 20th Century U.S., African American
Position: Assistant Professor
Political Background: Antiwar and electoral activism, 1969-76 (the usual); El Salvador solidarity, 1982-1995 (CISPES and related organizations); Peace Action's Organizing Director, 1995-2000. Helped found HAW and served on Steering Committee since then. Elected to United for Peace and Justice’s Steering Committee three times to represent HAW. Member of the Editorial Collective of the Radical History Review since 1990, chair 1994-2001.
Reason for Running: I want to continue to make a bridge between HAW and the larger movement via UFPJ. Our perspective is valuable there, and we gain much from the connection.

Name: Mark R. Hatlie
Institution: American Public University/American Military University; University of Maryland University College Europe; Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen
Position: Adjunct
Historical Specialization: Baltic and Russian history, war and society, collective memory, sites-of-memory.de
Race/Ethnicity: WASA (white Anglo-Saxon atheist)
Political Background: I am an activist and founding member of the Tübingen Progressive Americans (tpa.twoday.net) which works with IVAW and the Military Counseling Network here in Germany (mc-network.de) and strives to give the "other" America a public voice here in Europe.
Reason for Running: As a citizen watching his country from abroad and from within the online classroom, I am both concerned and hopeful about what I see. Like many people around the world, I am very concerned about both domestic and foreign developments connected with the war in Iraq and the wider "Global War on Terror." From within European society, I have seen first-hand the severe erosion of my country's international reputation stemming from our reckless and aggressive foreign policy. As an historian, I am concerned by the "dumbing down" of discourse in our wartime society and the lack of historical perspective in American media and public conversation.

Name: Walter L. Hixson
Position: Professor of History
Institution: University of Akron
Historical Specialization: specialist in US foreign policy
Race/Ethnicity: White male
Reason for Running: Having spent some thirty years analyzing US foreign policy, I have some knowledge as to why this nation acts as it does in world affairs. If we can better understand core drives and motivations, we have a basis to attempt to change the foreign policy from one of violent intervention toward a diplomacy of cooperative internationalism so desperately needed in the 21st century.

Name: Staughton Lynd
Institution: Worker's Solidarity Club of Youngstown
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Historical Specialization: Period of American Revolution, history of nonviolence, oral history and US Labor history
Position: retired (but still practicing) attorney. Author of several books, including Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising (2004).
Political Background: An unaffiliated Marxist and Quaker; Chairperson of the first march against the Vietnam War in Washington, DC in April 1965.  Left academia after being blacklisted in late '60s due to prominent role in anti-war movement (including trip to North Vietnam with Tom Hayden and Herbert Aptheker in December 1965).
Reason for running: continue work on veterans issues; member of HAW-SC since its inception.

Name: Elizabeth (Beth) McKillen
Institution: University of Maine
Position: Professor
Historical Specialization: U.S. labor and American foreign policy, especially grass-roots labor opponents of American empire; the immigrant left; the international labor movement
Race/Ethnicity: Irish-American
Political Background: I have been active in local antiwar, labor, and social justice movements for many years. I helped to create a local chapter of Historians Against the War that has become involved in a wide variety of community peace and political activities.
Reason for Running: I believe historians can play an important role in revitalizing democratic debate over the "real" security interests of both the American people and the global community. In so doing, they can help to create democratic pressures that will end the war in Iraq. I hope that my experiences with local peace and labor movements can be helpful in planning national HAW activities.  Since becoming a Steering Committee Member in August, I have been active primarily in planning for the conference.

Name: Carl Mirra
Institution: Adelphi University
Position: Associate Professor of Social Studies
Historical Specialization: 20th Century US foreign policy and Peace Education
Ethnicity: white male
Political Background: Former marine who refused to fight in the first Gulf War, worked with the War Resister's League and currently a representative of IAUP/UN Commission on Disarmament Education, Conflict Resolution and Peace.
Reason for Running: contributed HAW pamphlet, JOIN US and wish to continue developing conferences/pamphlets on veteran antiwar activity or related materials for the education working group.

Name:  Jim O'Brien
Institution:  University of Massachusetts Boston (sort-of)
Position:  I used to teach history and writing as a contract faculty member in the College of Public and Community Service at UMass, but at present my only involvement on the campus is volunteer teaching in the learning-in-retirement program.  Myself, I'm not retired - for income I do freelance editing and book indexing.
Historical Specialization:  US radicalism
Race/Ethnicity:  white, mostly English
Political Background:  Have been active off and on since being part of the radical student movement in the 1960s.  Was an editor of Radical America magazine till 1984, active in the Central America movement 1983-96, co-editor of Radical Historians Newsletter 1970 till it stopped publishing a few years ago; on HAW Steering Committee the last three years (as treasurer for a year, then as co-chair for the past not-quite year).
Reason for Running:  I enjoy working with the other people on the Steering Committee. I played an especially active role in preparations for the HAW conference in Austin in February 2006 and the teach-ins that fall, and currently am heavily involved in the planning for the April '08 conference in Atlanta.  I've been glad to feel useful in a cause that seems important to me.

Name: Margaret Power
Institution: Illinois Institute of Technology
Historical Specialization: Latin America, Chile, Puerto Rico, gender, and women.
Race/Ethnicity: White. Scottish and Irish.
Political Background: active in anti-war movements (Viet Nam, Central America, and Middle East) since 1970s. Also very active in the women's movement. I am currently in Peace Pledge Chicago and work very closely with the Puerto Rican community and with HAW.
Reason for Running: I have served as co—chair of HAW for the last three years and I have really enjoyed working with other historians against the war. I think HAW is a great group.

Name: Enrique C. Ochoa
Institution: California State University, Los Angeles
Position: Professor of History
Historical Specialization: Latin America; Mexico; Latinas/os in the U.S.; Economic and Labor; Critical pedagogy
Race/Ethnicity: Latino
Political Background: I have been involved in community organizations that have worked at the grassroots for social change. In particular I have worked to facilitate dialogue between community activists and progressive academics, coordinating several workshops and conferences that have sought to bridge the gulf.
Reason for Running: HAW has done excellent work on a number of fronts.  It is important to continue and expand the work that HAW has done within the profession and in the broader society. I have been involved in several committees in HAW including the 2008 conference committee.  I want to continue help develop greater participation by left historians on the west coast and to further integrate issues such as immigration into the discussion of the war.

Name: Andor Skotnes
Institution: The Sage Colleges, Troy, New York
Position: Professor of History of the Americas, Chair of the Faculty
Historical Specialization: Recent United States social movements--emphasis on social class, racial ethnicity, gender
Race/Ethnicity: White US; immigrant from South Africa
Political Background: I became part of the Civil Rights Movement in 1965 and was involved in a range of 60s and 70s social movements. I was also involved for a number of years in the New Communist Movement and worked as a rank-and-file activist in factory organizing. In recent years I have focused on intellectual and ideological work (including Radical History Review), teaching, labor support (SAWSJ), and faculty unionism.  I was a founder and a first co-chair of HAW.
Reason for Running: I want to resume my work with HAW after a 2 year absence from the SC because of the continuing importance of mobilizing historians (broadly defined) and left intellectuals against the war in Iraq, against imperialist war, and against the US empire.  I think an anti-war, anti-imperialist approach is particularly important to press as significant numbers of progressive students and intellectuals get caught up in the very necessary, but currently very limited, movement against global warming--and also in the current and coming national election follies.

Name:  Jennifer Van Bergen
Institution:  Santa Fe Community College, Gainesville, FL; Various publications (Formerly with New School University (formerly New School for Social Research) in NYC)
Position:  Adjunct Faculty (English Dept.); Free-lance political/legal commentator
Historical Specialization:  Early American Republic
Race/Ethnicity:  Should be irrelevant.
Political Background:  Not sure how to respond to this.  I am a progressive, against war, for the United States Constitution and international rule of law.
Reason for Running:  I think I would contribute a lot.  I have a Juris Doctor (Law) degree and have published legal historical work (in particular, see Aaron Burr and the Electoral Tie of 1801: Strict Constitutional Construction at http://jvbline.org/Burr.pdf).  I've also been very active in nonprofit civil advocacy and in organizing events. For more about me, simply google my name.  My two books are available on Amazon.

Name: Andrew G. Wood
Institution: University of Tulsa
Position: Associate Professor
Historical Specialization: Modern Mexico
Race/Ethnicity: Anglo Canadian
Political Background: Student Activist during the 1980s/1990s (against U.S. support for Shah of Iran, Nuclear Arms/Power, Reagan policies in Central America, Bush Wars I & II, etc.), former "Pre-School" Teacher, Crisis Intervention Counselor, Volunteer for YWCA Citizenship Classes. I consider myself a radical historian in the fine tradition of many others--past and present--who have worked to promote social justice and real democracy.
Reason for Running: I feel strongly that people must resist the Imperialist policies and violence perpetrated by Regent Cheney, G.W.  Bush and their supporters.  As a historian I have supported HAW from the start and believe we need to continue to stand united and strong.