Lincoln

Graham Peck

Directory — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 14:58:52 +0000

Graham Peck Directory Mon, 12/07/2020 - 08:58

Area of Expertise

I am the Wepner Distinguished Professor of Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. I am a Californian by birth, and a first-generation American, raised by parents who immigrated from England in the early 1960s. I received my B.A. in History from California State University, Hayward (now CSU East Bay) before journeying to the land of Lincoln, where I earned my M.A. and Ph.D. in American History from Northwestern University. I spent a year at Rhodes College in Memphis and seventeen years at Saint Xavier University in Chicago before coming to UIS in 2019.

I teach a variety of courses at UIS. The courses I teach regularly include HIS 206 American Immigration History, HIS 304 Illinois History, HIS 441 Civil War and Reconstruction, and HIS 450 Major Figures in History: Abraham Lincoln. Courses that I teach on rotation with other faculty include HIS 204 US History to 1877, HIS 301 Historianâ¿¿s Craft, and HIS 501 Graduate History Colloquium (a graduate reading seminar for MA students).

My scholarship has focused on antebellum Illinois, and particularly on the careers of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. I have published three essays on Lincoln and Douglas in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, an essay on the early Illinois Republican Party in the Journal of Illinois History, and an essay on the antebellum party system in Practicing Democracy (University of Virginia Press, 2015). My book, Making an Antislavery Nation: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Battle over Freedom (University of Illinois Press, 2017), received the 2018 Russell P. Strange Memorial Book of the Year Award from the Illinois State Historical Society and was a finalist for the 2018 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize.

I have also written, directed, and produced two films with art professor Nathan Peck. Stephen A. Douglas and the Fate of American Democracy is a feature-length biographic film of Douglas. The film features performances by nationally distinguished Douglas and Lincoln reenactors, interviews with five historians of the Civil War, and hundreds of nineteenth-century images, including photographs of rare, archival documents from the Douglas Papers at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center.

Lincoln & Douglas: Touring Illinois in Turbulent Times is a travel film that Nathan and I created during the Covid summer of 2020. We visited four of Illinoisâ¿¿ Lincoln-Douglas debate sites to capture performances by Lincoln and Douglas reenactors. But the turbulent social and political climate that summer soon changed the focus of the film. Black Lives Matter protestors were inspiring demonstrators around the globe to pull down statues of controversial historical figures. In Springfield, Illinois, they petitioned for the removal of a Douglas statue on the grounds of the State Capitol. Spurred by these issues, the film pivoted to interrogating the contemporary legacies of Lincoln and Douglas in light of the challenges to American democracy then taking shape. Both films are freely available for streaming on my website.

I have also co-directed an art residency and exhibit interpreting Lincolnâ¿¿s legacies. In 2021, my UIS colleague Brytton Bjorngaard and I won a University of Illinois grant for Making Our History: Artists Render Lincolnâ¿¿s Legacies. The project brought together 20 Illinois artists via Zoom to make original art on Lincolnâ¿¿s contemporary legacies. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, the Springfield Art Association, and the UIS Visual Arts Gallery featured the art in a fall 2022 exhibit in Springfield. The permanent digital exhibit includes twenty photographs of the works of art, twenty professionally produced short videos documenting the artistsâ¿¿ process and concepts, twenty essays providing historical context for the art, and innovative elementary, middle school, and high school teacher modules.

Do not hesitate to contact me about your interest in History or UIS!

Office Location

UHB 3062

History

Phone Number

217-206-8683

gpeck6@uis.edu

Wepner Distinguished Prof. Lincoln Study-Studies

Devin Hunter

Directory — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 14:58:52 +0000

Devin Hunter Directory Mon, 12/07/2020 - 08:58

Area of Expertise

Associate Professor of History

Chair, History Department

Ph.D. Public History and United States History

Loyola University Chicago

Email: dhunte2@uis.edu

Phone: (217) 206-7432

Office: UHB 3056

Teaching Concentration: Public History, Urban History, Twentieth Century United States History

CV upon request

Devin Hunter is a public historian and scholar who focuses on issues of community identity, social equity, redevelopment and cultural heritage tourism. He arrived in academia after several years working in the archives and museum fields in Washington, DC, and Chicago. His first book, A Cosmos in the City: Postwar Politics, Culture, and Diversity in Chicagoâ¿¿s Uptown, is under contract with the University of Illinois Press. Dr. Hunterâ¿¿s next project traces the history of the commemoration and interpretation of race riots and massacres in Springfield (1908), Chicago (1919), and Tulsa (1921). His past and current board and committee memberships include: the Illinois State Historical Society, the Illinois Historical Sites Advisory Committee, and the Vachel Lindsay Association, among many others.

Recent Publications:

â¿¿Urban/Rural Frictions in the Midwest: The Chicago-Downstate Battle for Legislative Reapportionment in Illinois, 1953-1965,â¿¿ in The Conservative Heartland: The Rise of Conservatism in the Midwest, 1946-2016, edited by Jon Lauck and Catherine McNickol Stock. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2020.

â¿¿Interpreting Lincoln Today and Tomorrow: A Round Table Discussion on the State of Lincoln Public History,â¿¿ convener and editor, Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Winter 2019).

Review of The Small-Town Midwest: Resilience and Hope in the Twenty-First Century, by Julianne Crouch. Illinois Geographer, Vol. 60, Issue 1 (Fall 2018).

â¿¿Uptown: The Roots of Diversity in the Twentieth-Century â¿¿City within a City,â¿¿ in Illinois Heritage, May/June 2015.

Review of 1950sâ¿¿Rocketmanâ¿¿ TV Series and Their Fans: Cadets, Rangers, and Junior Space Men, edited by Cynthia Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper. Journal of Popular Culture, Volume 47, Issue 1 (February 2014), 198-201.

Awards and Grants:

Illinois Innovation Network Social Innovation Seed Grant" ($30,000), "Journeys to Justice: Reckoning with Illinois' History and Legacy of Anti-Black Terror," co-director with Lesa Johnson (UIS SOA), Peter Cole (Western Illinois University), and Tandra Taylor (Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, 2024-2025.

UIS Faculty Engagement Award, 2024.

University of Illinois Presidential Initiative to Celebrate the Impact of the Arts and Humanities ($180,000), â¿¿I-Heritage as Public Engagement and Economic and Social Development,â¿¿ co-principal investigator with Helaine Silverman, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2019-2025.

University of Illinois Presidential Initiative to Celebrate the Impact of the Arts and Humanities ($150,000), â¿¿The Humanities Innovating New Knowledge (THINK),â¿¿ co-investigator with Jennifer Brier, University of Illinois at Chicago (co-principal investigator); Barbara Ransby, University of Illinois Chicago (co-principal investigator); and Kathryn Oberdeck (co-investigator), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2019-2025.

2020 Mid-America Emmy Award for Short Format Program, â¿¿Face to Face.â¿¿ Chris Costello, Director and Editor; Devin V. Hunter, Producer; Josh Hester, Executive Producer; featuring Dr. Wesley Robinson-McNeese.

Office Location

UHB 3050

History

Phone Number

217-206-7432

History

dhunte2@uis.edu

Associate Prof.

His Department Chairperson

Area of Specialization

Public History, Twentieth-Century United States History. Commemoration and Memory. Museums, Historic Sites, and Historic Preservation. Illinois History. Chicago History.