Mattie Christine Webb
@MattieCWebb
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Postdoc @Yale @JacksonYale | History PhD @UCSantaBarbara | Affiliate @Rhodes_Uni | International Hist, Anti-Apartheid, Labor | Runner | #Fulbright | she/her
New Haven, CT
Joined January 2019
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My new piece in
@BlkPerspectives
highlights some of the ways US workers & unions advocated for Black freedom & human rights beyond the workplace & across borders, challenging apartheid in South Africa. Thank you
@PhenomenalTiana
for organizing such an exciting & timely forum!
"The US labor movement challenged apartheid through a variety of means," writes
@MattieCWebb
. Read "US Worker Movements and Direct Links Against Apartheid" today at
@BlkPerspectives
: .
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Can’t believe it but I am indeed at an archive, for the first time since 2019
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Does anyone else dread asking for letters of recommendation? Or is that just me.
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Thrilled to share the news that I've signed a book contract with Columbia University Press!
@ColumbiaUP
It feels fitting that I'm currently in South Africa working on research for the book. Thanks to everyone who has generously supported my work
@ISSYale
@UCSBHistory
@NeilUnit
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I know archival research is great and all, but nothing tops having a successful and inspiring oral history interview
#twitterstorians
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Some exciting professional news: with the defense behind me, I am thrilled to share that I have accepted a postdoc with
@ISSYale
and
@JacksonYale
! I am beyond thankful, and I can’t wait to start a new chapter in New Haven this fall!!
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Thanks to a generous
@SHAFRhistorians
Williams Emerging Scholar research grant, I'll be traveling back to South Africa this year! I will be visiting the ANC collections at both Fort Hare and UWC, both of which will help me complete my book project, "Diplomacy at Work"
@ISSYale
Congratulations to Mattie Webb
@MattieCWebb
, who won one of SHAFR's Williams Emerging Scholar research grants for 2024!
@ISSYale
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Happy to share that I successfully defended my Ph.D. dissertation! I’m beyond thankful for my committee:
@salimyaqub63
, Stephan Miescher, Mhoze Chikowero, Paul Spickard & Lucien van der Walt. Thanks also to my family, friends, and the ongoing support from
@UCSBHistory
&
@NeilUnit
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Graduated with my Ph.D. in History! Beyond thankful for
@salimyaqub63
and his mentorship
@CCWSatUCSB
@UCSBHistory
Congratulations to
@MattieCWebb
, who yesterday received the diploma for her PhD in history at UCSB! Mattie's dissertation on labor, business, and the antiapartheid movement will transform our understanding of modern South African history.
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Teaching a course titled "Transnational Anti-Apartheid: The United States & South Africa" next semester. The photo on the right depicts a divestment protest at Yale in 1986. Seems ever so slightly relevant today...
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My new article in the
@washingtonpost
@madebyhistory
, where I discuss the hypocrisy of corporations marrying a socially-responsible image w/ an anti-worker stance. Starbucks/REI’s strategy today mirrors that of many of the US companies that operated in apartheid South Africa.
"As the history of South Africa shows us, when contradictions surface between internal polices and external appeals to consumers, possibilities emerge for workers to advocate for power against the wishes of management."
@MattieCWebb
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Teaching my first course as instructor of record tomorrow. Slightly nervous. Any advice is welcome!
#twitterstorians
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When you spend days in the archive and finally find THE document you’ve been looking for >>>>
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Thanks to the generous William Appleman Williams Emerging Scholar Grant, I was able to complete a month of research in South Africa. It was fun getting recognized at the recent
@SHAFRConference
luncheon. Thanks,
@SHAFRhistorians
and
@DrJSarkar
for your support!
@ISSYale
Congratulations again to Mattie Webb
@MattieCWebb
! SHAFR awarded her a Williams Research Grant in January and was able to recognize her at our recent conference. Pictured below, Mattie on right, receiving award from Jay Sarkar
@DrJSarkar
.
@Yale
@ISS_Research
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Putting together a syllabus for a Yale course and came across this leaflet advertising a New Haven anti-apartheid rally (1984). The protest drew connections between Yale's investment in apartheid South Africa and its treatment of university workers (Local 34) at home.
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Some personal news…on April 21, 2023 I married the love of my life and my partner of 10 years at a stunning vineyard in California. Everything was absolutely perfect 💜
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The UCSB Center for Cold War Studies
@CCWSatUCSB
recently published a list of primary and secondary sources related to "Race and the Cold War." This is a great resource, perhaps especially so if you're studying for exams/making reading lists. Check it out
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Officially ABD!!! Endless thanks to my supportive committee for getting me through this.
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I'm about to formally file my dissertation. What are some of the arguments for or against deciding to embargo it? And if one chooses to embargo, for how long?
#phdchat
#twitterstorians
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On my way to San Francisco for the African Studies Association meeting. I’ll be presenting on two panels on Thursday and Friday—one on the US anti-apartheid movement and another on gender and resistance in South Africa’s liberation movement.
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I did an interview on the history of divestment protests on college campuses with Marketplace, a *very* short (ie a sentence) portion of which was featured on NPR's Marketplace Morning Report
@NPR
@Marketplace
this morning! .
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I am excited and honored to be a part of this upcoming
@AAIHS
and
@BlkPerspectives
roundtable on the Global Anti-Apartheid Movement. The forum features scholars from South Africa, the UK, and the US, and will run from April 23 to May 7.
@BlkPerspectives
, the award-winning blog of
@AAIHS
, is hosting an online forum commemorating the end of apartheid in South Africa (April 1994). Read more about the forum's contributors:
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Thrilled to share my most recent peer-reviewed article, available online in Enterprise & Society! I place the Wiehahn Commission and the Sullivan Principles in conversation, exploring the limits of reforms, as well as the ways the South African trade union movement leveraged them
Could not be hotter off the press!
@MattieCWebb
explores '“An Exercise in the Art of the Possible”: Waging a Battle Against Apartheid in the South African Workplace.'
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Yesterday I capped off my trip by finishing the Comrades Marathon, a race that means so much to South Africa. It’s a hilly 87K (~54 mi) race that ~20,000 people run from Durban➡️Pietermaritzburg (“up” run) So tough but easily one of the best experiences of my life!
@ComradesRace
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Marathon Monday is nearly here! So excited to take part in this iconic race! I’ll be wearing bib 14071 🎉
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After nearly a year-long delay and an insane amount of patience, it looks like I'll be able to begin the Fulbright grant in South Africa this June!
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Flying back to South Africa in a few days! I have a fairly packed schedule, with research in Jozi, Cape Town, Makhanda, Alice, and Durban. The fun part: I will be ending the trip by running the historic Comrades Ultra-Marathon from Durban to Pietermaritzburg!
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Happy to report I have booked a round-trip flight and secured a place to stay in South Africa. Now just waiting on the visa! After this past year, I truly cannot believe this is actually happening.
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A global movement: campus protests in South Africa, this one at Wits University in Johannesburg
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About to board a 16-hour flight ✈️ I’ll be heading to
@SHAFRConference
in Toronto after a month-long research stint in South Africa (funded by
@SHAFRhistorians
🙏). Looking forward to reconnecting with so many friends! Not looking forward to the inevitable jet lag…
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Some of the
@UCSBHistory
African Studies Association attendees celebrating Stephan Miescher’s award-winning book “A Dam for Africa: Akosombo Stories from Ghana.” This book intervenes in many fields—African Studies, Cold War history, environmental history, labor. Highly recommend!
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View from my room at the Northeast Workshop on Southern Africa (NEWSA). I’ll be sharing some work-in-progress on a South African political trade union (MACWUSA). Looking forward to meeting many scholars of Southern Africa!
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Days 1-2, featuring research at the Wits Historical Papers
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Presenting your research during a very VERY rough draft kinda stage is scary but super helpful! I often feel a pressure to only present on fully-formed and polished chapters, and therefore forget that I need to workshop chapters and ideas in their early stages.
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Excited to share my first peer-reviewed article, "People Before Profit? Ford, General Motors & the Spirit of the Sullivan Principles in Apartheid South Africa (1976-84)," published by the Ethnic Studies Review
@ucpress
.
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First real New England snow experience did not disappoint
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About to head to London for the International Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War. I'll present a paper that shows how Black South African workers and unionists figured prominently in US business and foreign policy concerns with respect to S. Africa (in the early 1970s).
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Jackie survived her first ever cross-country trip! Here she is chilling in the Denver airport. Thanks to everyone who shared their advice for moving with a cat. We ultimately flew with her as a carry-on, and it went better than expected.
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Oral historians: how has the pandemic changed oral history? In your experience, what are some of the pros and cons of doing mostly virtual interviews?
#twitterstorians
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I was also there during the Omicron peak. I’m skeptical of claims that the US will mirror SA’s precipitous decline in cases simply because South Africans actually take COVID seriously—everyone masks and sanitizes. I felt exponentially safer in SA than the US
"I traveled to South Africa during Omicron. This is what it was like." By Ross Borden of
@MatadorNetwork
. Ht
@hwasser
.
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Have spent the week researching in the COSATU papers at
@UCTLibrary_SC
. This organized collection survived the Jaggar Library fire. Although they are moving soon, the current reading room in Mowbray is lovely, and the archivists even invited me to share some of their tea/scones.
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Although my recent article has been available online for a few months, Enterprise & Society just released it in print. It’s a part of a special issue titled “Corporate Responses to Racial Unrest.” Thank you to the editors and the anonymous reviewers for making it better!
Webb, Mattie C. “‘An Exercise in the Art of the Possible’: Waging a Battle Against Apartheid in the South African Workplace.”
.
@MattieCWebb
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This is perfect timing
The Department of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville invites applications for a tenure-track historian of southern Appalachia, in any chronological era, at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor, to begin August 1, 2025.
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Beautiful aloes on the side of the road. Back in the Eastern Cape!
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Long voting queues for today’s election in South Africa.
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Finished the Cape Town Marathon today. Definitely not the time I was hoping for, but nonetheless happy I could tour one of my favorite cities on foot! Fun fact: this race is a World Marathon Majors Candidate, and would be the first World Major on the African continent.
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Landed in South Africa! And in the smallest of worlds I randomly ran into one of my dissertation committee members, Lucien van der Walt, in a hotel lobby near OR Tambo
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Presented a draft of my book proposal at the
@ISSYale
Colloquium this past week. I'm beyond thankful for such an incredibly supportive community, and have much to think on these next few months!
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UCSB History and the
@CCWSatUCSB
were well-represented at the International Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War, held in London. Thankful for the feedback on my work, and for the many engaging presentations!
@UCSBHistory
@salimyaqub63
@AddisonMJensen
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Excited for year 2 with
@ISSYale
@JacksonYale
. It’s been great meeting the new fellows!
Thanks for showing me around
@ISSYale
today
@MattieCWebb
! So excited to spend the next year as a Brady-Johnson Fellow at Yale.
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Accepted! Heading back to the Boston Marathon, take two ✌️
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Today’s adventure: Going through the unprocessed South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) collection at the Mayibuye Archives.
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The US Department of State is hiring a historian
Calling
#twitterstorians
: Apply to join the
@HistoryAtState
Historical Studies Division! Provide historical analysis of U.S. bilateral relations to internal/external audiences; research and write narratives; conduct oral histories.
DEADLINE: Jan. 29, 2024
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If you’re at SHAFR, stop by Salon 3 at 11:30am this Thursday for an engaging panel on the political economy of U.S. empire in the Cold War. I’ll be joining my co-panelists Jonathan Ng,
@sonicbust
, and
@Alex_J_Marino
. Gretchen Heefner will comment.
@SHAFRhistorians
#SHAFR2023
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It’s insane how productive you can be with an important, looming deadline. Thrilled to say I’ve mailed the dissertation off to my committee ✅
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Sharing a draft book chapter with the Johns Hopkins University Africa Seminar this afternoon. It's been wild confronting dissertation chapters and realizing just how much extra information is not really necessary. I think I ultimately cut this one in half.
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After spending about 6.5 months in South Africa for dissertation research, I’m finally heading back to the US. Feeling immense gratitude for all of the wonderful people who helped make this country feel like home.
#Fulbright
#PhdLife
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Thrilled to share that I’ve been granted the Fulbright and Boren fellowships to fund my language courses and dissertation research, most of which will take place in South Africa!
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Thankful for the supportive Cold War Working Group community. We had our 1st grad student workshop of the year this past weekend. UCSB grad students working on topics concerning the Cold War or international hist are welcome to share works in progress
@UCSBHistory
@CCWSatUCSB
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My least favorite part about longer research trips is not being able to bring along all of my books.
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The writing process in a nutshell: I now have a desktop folder titled “Dissertation Chapters” and a sub-folder within that folder titled “ACTUAL Chapters”
#AcademicChatter
#Twitterstorians
#AmWriting
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This week in section we have been covering the Carter presidency. Had to show my students this artifact from my 2nd grade years. I sent President Carter a letter and drawing after seeing him speak in 2001. He responded to me!
#TAlife
#PresidentCarter
@CarterLibrary
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Love an archive with ample windows! Found loads of useful material at the Walter Reuther Library in Detroit. There’s quite a lot of anti-apartheid material housed here, dispersed throughout various collections.
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I have loved every minute of my time at
@ISSYale
. I highly recommend applying. We have a supportive community of scholars, and, as you can see, a lovely office building! I'm happy to try to answer any questions you have about the fellowships.
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I’m so excited about the newly-elected female leadership at
@SHAFRhistorians
. And of course looking forward to welcoming
@klgriff3
to the grad committee
@SHAFRhistorians
has come a long way from the days when it was a rarity to see a woman on a panel! Congrats + gratitude to the amazing all-woman line-up just elected: Mary Ann Heiss, Vanessa Walker, Molly Wood,
@SarahAriella
(Sarah Miller-Davenport), Kelsey Zavelo, +
@juliairwin
!
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Another successful archive visit, this time at the University of Fort Hare’s Liberation Archives (NAHECS). I had some spare time to walk around campus and visit the Freedom Square, where Nelson Mandela took courses.
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If you’re at
@SHAFRConference
and free at 3:40pm today, be sure to stop by my panel, “Internationalism at Work”! We will all be discussing global labor histories, with a comment by
@TejNagaraja
@SHAFRhistorians
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If you’re at the Business History Conference
@TheBHCNews
in Providence, I’ll be the discussant for this exciting panel on Ghana’s business history. It will be held at 8am tomorrow (Friday) morning.
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When you’re in the archive and land upon a document that is essentially your dissertation
#twitterstorians
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Today's goal: send the dissertation off to the committee.
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No one, not even academic Twitter, warned me about how expensive PhD graduation regalia is.
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I had the chance to write about the Mayibuye Archives for
@coldwarhistoryj
. This rich anti-apartheid movement archive, located just outside of Cape Town, contains essential liberation collections and an impressive array of donated oral histories.
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Finally ensconced in Makhanda, South Africa after some long flights and layovers. Looking forward to working with
@NeilUnit
at Rhodes University
@FulbrightPrgrm
!!
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I’ll be back in South Africa from May 13-June 11, with plans to visit Johannesburg, Cape Town, Makhanda, Alice, and Durban. Reach out if you’re around—I would love to grab a coffee!
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Sadly this is much bigger than Harvard. Case in point, my NYT newsletter this morning.
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Still reflecting on one of the most epic running weekends of all time. Thrilled to have finished my 1st Boston Marathon
@bostonmarathon
. It was incredibly gratifying to be a part of the 50th anniversary of the women’s field. Thanks to everyone who supported me along the way!
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I’ve not seen such universally immaculate vibes in a while. Not alienating labor, teachers, or anyone really was the correct choice.
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Twitter has been essential to my professional development, and I have met some really great people and lifelong colleagues through this site. I would hate to see it go, and I will be here until the end times!
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A perfect welcome to Cape Town! Great catching up with SHAFRite and fellow NC State alum
@klgriff3
#Twitterstorians
Found a fellow SHAFRite on my out of Cape Town! What a great way to end a fantastic trip through SA. Hope we can do it again sometime.
@SHAFRhistorians
@MattieCWebb
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Concluding the
@BlkPerspectives
forum is this 🔥 piece by
@AmandaJoyceHall
, which ties together all of the essays and reflects on the legacies of the global anti-apartheid movement today. Amanda concludes that, at present, "we see a new, broad anti-apartheid politics reawakened."
@amandajoycehall
concludes our forum on "The End of South African Apartheid Anniversary" and comments on three themes across the essays including solidarity, liberalization, and legacies. Read more:
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When someone I interviewed in South Africa (as a part of my oral history work) appears in a US archive. US-South African trade union connections were very salient! Thozamile, a South African trade unionist and community activist, spoke at a US labor seminar in 1985.
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Attempting a full read-through of the dissertation. Please pray 🙏
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Postdoc opportunity with an oral history focus that will be of great interest to historians of South Africa, public health, public policy, etc.
Come work with
@jekjek19
@Augusta_Caesar
&
@brfranklin4
on a new oral history venture with
@CPHatSMU
, "A Global Oral History of PEPFAR! Apply for a postdoctoral fellowship here: !
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Check out today's H-Diplo Roundtable, where I contribute a review of Jessica Chapman's wonderful and engaging new book, "Remaking the World: Decolonization and the Cold War": …. Thanks,
@HDiplo
, for the opportunity. I definitely recommend reading the book!
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Ran a 3:05 at the Cape Town Marathon this morning! Thrilled to have run my second fastest marathon time while raising $365 for the Anna Foundation. Definitely an experience to remember
#CapeTownMarathon2021
#RunForSomething
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A summary of what was lost in the 2021 fire that engulfed UCT’s Jaggar Library. The before & after pictures are heartbreaking. I remember being in the stunning reading room in 2018. It was the first archive I visited in SA and it’s still tough to accept that it’s basically gone
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This special issue of
@Safundi
(from 2022) is an impressive resource for anyone interested in the history of anti-apartheid activism on college campuses. The articles include examples of protest in the US, South Africa, Ghana, and Nigeria.
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Off to South Africa yet again for about three months of research, language learning, and writing. Long few days of travel ahead!
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I’ll be presenting one of my chapters at the second ever UCSB Cold War Working Group event! See the link for more info.
Join us on Saturday, April 24th, from 2-4 pm PST for our second CWWG event! We will be discussing
@MattieCWebb
's "Beyond Desegregation: Waging a Battle Against Apartheid in the South African Workplace." Link to event information:
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