Recent works by alumni and faculty

Viewing history through film

For historian John Bodnar '75 Ph.D., films are far richer than just their entertainment value. They also are filled with lessons in sociology, politics and mass culture.

"Part of our cultural and political life today has a lot to do with exploring individual choices," Bodnar says. "Hollywood instigated that at a much earlier time than American political movements or parties."

In his book Blue-Collar Hollywood: Liberalism, Democracy and Working People in American Film (Johns Hopkins University Press), Bodnar looks at how films since the 1930s have depicted ordinary men and women.

A history professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, Bodnar has spent years of research and scholarship concentrating on the post-World War II period in the United States. He observed that while the expansion of mass culture had an obvious effect on American life over the second half of the 20th century, its impact has not been addressed by political historians in a significant way.

"The place of women in society and gender issues was dealt with in films long before it became popular to do so," he says, noting how Mae West demonstrates her independence in the 1933 film I'm No Angel by telling a friend to "take all you can get and give as little as possible."

Bodnar says that in the post-World War II era, the nature of emotional life was brought to the forefront in films. In 1950s films such as On the Waterfront and Somebody Up There Likes Me filmmakers addressed the hope "that violent men could be made moral and that conventional ideals could ultimately be sustained."

After viewing dozens of films critically in researching the book, Bodnar says, his teaching of history has been influenced significantly. He uses more films in his courses, and he has developed classes around specific aspects of the book, such as a class focusing on the Depression era, using films from the time.

Using films in the classroom is an important aspect of teaching students today, he says. "Because students see so much film and TV in their lives before college, I think it's important to see these things more critically. I don't use a film without requiring more reading or writing in papers that forces them to merge the film and reading material into a discussion. They have to frame the film in the context of its political and historical implications."

Voices
Janice Law '67 M.A., '92 Ph.D.
(Forge)
The fourth novel from Janice Law is a compelling mystery that asks what is more important: who you are now or who you were in your past? Can you forgive the people who have lied to you, especially when the lies have changed the course of your life?

Voices begins when newspaper reporter Leslie Austin wonders why she cannot remember things about her childhood. In the search for her past, she asks why there are no photographs of her as a child. Then she reads a story about the 25th anniversary of the disappearance of a 4-year-old girl named Ruth Eden.

Haunted by the memories of a meadow, a car and family tensions, Austin contacts the Edens. But when she locates the man who may or may not be her father, she learns that truth is convoluted and that it is not easy to re-enter a family.

The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler
Irene Quenzler Brown and Richard D. Brown
(Harvard University Press)

An attorney general who is running for governor prosecutes the case in a highly publicized trial about rape and incest with a defendant represented by court-appointed lawyers with their own political ambitions. It sounds like a case being tried on Court TV. Instead, it is the focus of a 19th century drama in Lenox, Mass., detailed by two UConn professors in The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler: A Story of Rape, Incest and Justice in Early America.

Irene Quenzler Brown, associate professor of family studies, and Richard D. Brown, professor of history, write about the troubled life and death of an impoverished, illiterate and failed farmer who was hanged on Feb. 20, 1806, after being found guilty of raping his 13-year-old daughter. Ephraim Wheeler maintained his innocence, and both his wife and daughter petitioned for his pardon.

The authors examine issues dealing with class and racial hierarchies, family and patriarchy, gender relationships, sin and attitudes toward capital punishment in early America by retelling the case using detailed trial reports, contemporary publications and the family's personal history.