Congratulations to faculty Joanna Tague, Shao-yun Yang, and Adam Davis! The History Department is celebrating their scholarly achievement in publishing the findings of their historical research and helping to shape discussions that reach far beyond Denison. The wide ranging topics of their research demonstrate how our history faculty are prepared to “teach the world” in their Denison classrooms and to mentor our students in the skills of historical research.
Tague’s book, Displaced Mozambicans in Postcolonial Tanzania: Refugee Power, Mobility, Education, and Rural Development (Routledge) examines the experiences of Mozambican’s displaced by the war for independence from Portugal (1964-1974). Her research “ultimately shows how the state of being a refugee could be generative and productive, rather than simply debilitating and destructive.”
Yang’s book, The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China (Univ. of Washington Press), takes a new look at how ideas of “Chineseness” and “barbarism” shaped concepts of Chinese identity in the period of transition between the Tong and Song dynasties (800–1127 CE). Dr. Yang finds that “the key issues at stake concerned the acceptability of intellectual pluralism in a Chinese society and the importance of Confucian moral values to the integrity and continuity of the Chinese state.”
Davis’s book, The Medieval Economy of Salvation: Charity, Commerce, and the Rise of the Hospital, “shows how the burgeoning commercial economy of western Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, alongside an emerging culture of Christian charity, led to the establishment of hundreds of hospitals and leper houses.” His study focuses on the region of Champagne, France, and explores how people across medieval society looked to hospitals not only as providers of care, but as opportunities to participate in charitable giving and service, reflecting new social and religious views about the role of charitable actions.
Congratulations to all three of our colleagues on these major professional achievements!
