Historian Seth Garfield tells the rich cultural and commercial story of guaraná, the world’s most caffeine-rich plant
Department of History
Hunting Oppenheimer
Bruce Hunt regularly teaches a course at UT on the “History of the Atomic Bomb” — and he has a few quibbles with Christopher Nolan’s latest film
Social Inquiry, Science, and Light Espionage with Megan Raby
Megan Raby, a historian of science and the environment whose latest book won the History of Science Society’s Philip J. Pauly Prize, discusses her current book project and the fascinating ways in which her area of study draws from multiple disciplines.
The Art of Mapping History
ClioVis is reshaping — literally — how relationships between historical events are visualized.
Gamifying Japanese History and Literature with JapanLab
From video games to virtual reality, JapanLab is bringing history into the 21st century and beyond.
A Lager Beer Revolution: The History of Beer and German American Immigration
German-American immigrants triggered a lager beer revolution during the second half of the 19th century, fundamentally changing US drinking culture.
Bloody History, Historical Recovery
In The Injustice Never Leaves You, published in 2018 by Harvard University Press, historian and MacArthur “genius” fellow Monica Martinez documents the disturbing history of anti-Mexican violence during a period of rapid growth and economic transformation for the Lone Star State.
![[Monday 12:57 PM] Oppenheimer, Daniel J Pencil drawing by Adeoye Hassan, from a reference photo by Michael Efionayi. Courtesy of Toyin Falola.](https://lifeandletters.la.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/TF-pencil-art-scaled-e1674856516773-475x320.jpg)
May my child become like Toyin!
College of Liberal Arts alumnus Vik Bahl talks to his mentor, African and African Diaspora Studies professor Toyin Falola, about Falola’s globe-spanning career as a scholar of African and a building of the discipline of African Studies.
A Video Game produced by UT Austin’s JapanLab and Studio Unagi Immerses Players in the Turbulent World of Nineteenth Century Japan
A fully functional, historical video game, Ghosts over the Water: Changing the Tides of Japan’s Future, features an accessible visual novel framework and 130,000 words of researched text.
Spring Books Unfold
Disentangling: The Geographies of Digital DisconnectionOxford University Press, July 2021Edited by Paul C. Adams, Professor, Department of Geography and the Environment, and André Jansson, Karlstad University After the rapid rise of digital networking in the 2000s and 2010s, we are now seeing a rise of interest in how people can disentangle their lives from the […]
Leaf Through a Good Book
Keep your to-read list up-to-date with our fall book list, featuring a selection of titles from College of Liberal Arts faculty members and alumni.
History and Black Studies Scholar Awarded Prestigious Nonfiction Grant
Ashley D. Farmer, associate professor of history and African and African Diaspora Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded a 2021 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant to complete her historical biography of radical activist Audley Moore.
Primary Source: Notes for a Napoleonic Scandal
In 1815, William Warden was surgeon of HMS Northumberland as it transported Napoleon Bonaparte to his second (and hopefully final) exile. Well aware that folks back home—or even, possibly, history itself—would be interested, Warden took notes in an old surgeon’s log.
Borderlands Historian Awarded ‘Genius Grant’
Monica Muñoz Martinez has been awarded a MacArthur fellowship, often referred to as the “genius grant.” The award recognizes her work to recover untold histories of racial violence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Exhibition on Your Screen: Selected Images from “A New Spain, 1521–1821”
A New Spain, 1521–1821, an online exhibition, traces the cultural, social, and political evolution of the Viceroyalty of New Spain from the fall of Moctezuma’s Mexico-Tenochtitlán in 1521 until the rise of Iturbide’s Mexican Empire in 1821.
A Look at Our Latest Books
2021 Spring and Summer titles from our college community.
Fighting school segregation didn’t take place just in the South
Whether it’s black-and-white photos of Arkansas’ Little Rock Nine or Norman Rockwell’s famous painting of New Orleans schoolgirl Ruby Bridges, images of school desegregation often make it seem as though it was an issue for Black children primarily in the South.
Shake Up Your Winter Reading
Winter 2020-21 books from our college community.
Writing to Beauvoir
In her new book, Sex, Love, and Letters, Judith Coffin reveals the private lives and intimate bond found in Simone de Beauvoir’s letters with her fans.
2020 Vision: Examining Some of the Country’s Big Issues
Experts from UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts weigh in on some of the major issues facing our country and the president-elect over the next four years.
Understanding Your Past
Michael Stoff, a 2020 Pro Bene Meritis award recipient, teaches his students to approach history with respect, empathy and context.
Giving Voice to History
Jacqueline Jones, a 2020 Pro Bene Meritis award recipient, discusses why it’s essential to learn the history behind today’s headlines.
Ticket to Read
Fall 2020 books from our college community.
Want to Learn More About Race in America? Read this.
Authors from UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts describe their books and what they hope readers will learn.
What is Juneteenth?
Although Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, the date the holiday observes, June 19, 1865, came more than two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, when Texas finally received word that slavery had ended.