Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography


2008 Spring Seminar Series

“A Historian Re-discovers the Chesapeake Bay"

Dr. Jonathan F. Phillips
Department of History
Old Dominion University

Monday, January 28, 2008
3:30 PM
Room 3200, Research Innovations Building I

Abstract

In early 2007, the Virginia Maritime History Foundation (VMHF) asked Old Dominion University (ODU) if it would be interested in developing a course on the Chesapeake Bay. As part of the course, students would spend several days underway on VMHF’s pilot schooner, the Virginia — in early March. The Department of History was asked if it was interested in getting involved in the project. The answer was yes, but who could/would do this? “Let’s ask Jonathan. He sails.”

After ten months and many obstacles, ODU and VMHF have found a way to make the course work. History 396, Shifting Sands, Tidal Waters: Exploring the Culture and Environment of the Chesapeake Bay, 1850s to Present, is underway for the Spring 2008 semester. Oddly enough, the lead instructor is not a maritime or environmental historian, but he is willing to go sailing on the Chesapeake for a week in March.

In this seminar, Dr. Phillips will discuss the course’s development and how its creation has allowed him to reexamine a part of the world he thought he knew pretty well, this time from the prospective of a professional historian who studies cultural persistence and identity, among other things. Dr. Phillips will also discuss the state of humanities scholarship on the Chesapeake Bay. Which aspects of Chesapeake Bay history (post-Civil War) are under explored or unexplored? Lastly, the future of the burgeoning relationship between ODU and VMHF will be considered. What’s next? Where do we go from here?

Biography

 Jonathan Phillips received a Ph.D. in American History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a M.L.A. degree from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. He specializes in American military affairs, war and society, and civil-military relations. He also studies the culture and society of the American South, especially southern militarism. He teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in American, military, and southern history. At present, he is completing Superbase, a study of Fort Bragg and militarization in the American South as well as an edited volume that examines the social, cultural, economic, and political impact of the military on the South since 1898. Before joining the faculty at Old Dominion University in 2006 as an Assistant Professor of History, Dr. Phillips served as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of South Carolina, Columbia (2005-2006), a visiting assistant professor at Texas A&M University, College Station (2004-2005), and as a lecturer in military history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2004).

Reception before seminar at 3:00 PM

Old Dominion University Homepage Research Innovations Building I
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA 23529
757-683-5548 		CCPO Homepage

Last updated 1/17/2008.
This page is maintained by Gabriel Franke
Copyright Info: Old Dominion University 2008