The Department of History and Geography is pleased to welcome three new faculty to our department this year!
Dr. Camden Burd
Dr. Burd comes to Clemson from Eastern Illinois University. He is a historian specializing in nineteenth and twentieth-century US history, with a particular focus on the intertwined histories of American capitalism and environmental change. His forthcoming book, The Roots of Flower City: Horticulture, Empire, and the Remaking of Rochester, New York, is set to be published by Cornell University Press in Fall 2024. The book examines how a network of plant nurserymen in Western New York connected their businesses to the broader American imperial project of the nineteenth century, using their social prestige and capital to reshape Rochester according to their vision.
Dr. Burd is also engaged in various digital methodologies, including TEI and Digital Mapping, to explore source material in innovative ways and disseminate information to wider audiences. Before joining Clemson University, he served as an Assistant Professor of History at Eastern Illinois University and was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the New York Botanical Garden. His research has been supported by numerous organizations and institutions, including the Newberry Library, the American Antiquarian Society, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Dr. Burd will teach classes on digital, U.S., and environmental history.
Dr. Austin Steelman
Professor Steelman is a historian of twentieth-century America with specializations in the legal and political history of American conservatism and evangelicalism. His current book project, Paper Gods: The Bible, the Constitution, and the Evangelical Revolt Against Modernity, 1923-1986, examines the connections between the theological doctrine of biblical inerrancy and the legal theory of constitutional originalism. Relying on archives from across the United States, he looks at the intellectual importance of these two text-based ideologies to the formation, spread, and influence of the evangelical right beginning in the 20th century and continuing to today. Prior to graduating from Stanford, Professor Steelman attended Harvard Law School and worked for two years as an intellectual property litigator.
Dr. Steelman will teach courses on American legal history and US history. He contributes to the department’s growing Legal History Emphasis Area.
Dr. Li-Chih Hsu
Dr. Hsu’s research focuses on Biogeography and Biogeomorphology, utilizing Geospatial analysis to investigate coastal landscape dynamics in the context of climate change. He specializes in barrier dune topographies and mangrove dynamics, offering insights into coastal resilience and protection.
Dr. Hsu received his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky. At Clemson he will teach courses on Physical Geography, World Regional Geography, and GIS.
As the summer approaches, many of the Digital History Ph.D. students are off to do exciting research thanks to Clemson University’s Humanities Hub! Below is a roundup of some of the exciting research students will be pursuing thanks to the Hub.
Addison Horton
Addison Horton’s project is entitled “‘Antebellum Affairs’ in the United States South.” During the summer she will travel to visit the State Archives in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia to collect data, which she will then organize into dataset which she can analyze using digital methods. This is part of a larger project that will contribute to her dissertation.
Megha Khanna
Megha Khanna’s received funding to travel to India over the summer to conduct research for her project, “Shadows of the Raj” which investigates how British colonialism transformed the societal roles of courtesans in 1857 India. These women, once respected for their artistic and cultural contributions, faced marginalization as British rule took hold.
Hallie Knipp
Hallie Knipp will travel to Berea, Kentucky to conduct research for her project entitled “Mountain Labors: Contraceptives and Eugenics in 1930s Appalachia.” The Humanities hub grant will fund research at Berea College where she will delve into the history of the Mountain Maternal Health League and then will fund the work to process this research into a workable digital database.
Avelar’s digital history project was first completed in the Ph.D. program’s Digital History Seminar – a research seminar that allows graduate students the opportunity to develop significant digital history projects based on primary source research.
The Digital Humanities conference, hosted by the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, is one of the largest DH conferences in the field. Held once a year in the summer, this year’s host in George Mason University in Washington, D.C. It will be the the first time the conference has been held in the United States since 2013.
Clemson University is now accepting applications for the Ph.D. in Digital History for students with M.A. or M.S. degrees in a variety of fields. The application deadline is February 1 for the Fall 2022 semester. For more information, visit: https://clemson.edu/caah/academics
