John Bezis-Selfa
Associate Professor of History, Coordinator of Latin American and, Latino/a Studies
Office: Knapton 316A
Office Hours: M 1:30-3, W 1:30-2:30, F 9-10, or by appointment
Phone: 508-286-3639
Email: jbeselfa@wheatoncollege.edu
Degrees
Ph.D., M.A., University of Pennsylvania
B.A., University of California at Berkeley
Main Interests
History of the early Americas and Atlantic world (c. 1500-1815)
Caribbean
Slavery and abolition
Brasil
Latino/a history
Research Interests
I am continuing work on a book project called "Young Frontiers" which will examine the histories of islands in the Lesser Antilles that the French Empire ceded to the British Empire after the Seven Years' War to around 1815. The book will be heavily based on the writings and lives of Sir William Young, 1st Baronet, and his son Sir William Young, 2d Baronet, who served as Governor of Tobago from 1807 until his death in 1815. The project has taken me to Trinidad in 2006 and the UK in Summer 2007. I anticipate that it will require considerably more archival research, particularly in the UK.
This project is a fairly sharp departure from my last one. I published Forging America: Ironworkers, Adventurers, and the Industrious Revolution in 2004. You can learn more about it through Cornell University Press at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. In Forging America, I argue that a culture of industriousness which emerged in colonial British North America and the US depended on slavery, race, and the coercion of working people as much as it did on the acceptance and practice of a religiously-inspired work ethic.
Teaching Interests
Spring 2008
History 218: First Global Societies
This course focuses on the history of the Hispanophone and Lusophone Americas before 1826, with a focus on the "core" areas of colonization: Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. First Global Societies emphasizes interpretation and discussion of historical documents and directed autonomous student research with such documents.
History 298: Caribbean History
A new and experimental course devoted to history of "Greater Caribbean" since 1492. The "Greater Caribbean" centers on islands which touch the Caribbean Sea and extends to places where Caribbean migrants go, such as Boston, New York, Miami, London, Paris, and Africa. Course will present Caribbean history as a unit rather than as the sum of the histories of the parts of the Caribbean and will emphasize, through interpretation and discussion of documents and historical scholarship, the relationship between the Greater Caribbean and the development of the modern world.
2008-2009
These courses have yet to be fully determined, but I expect that they will include History 201 (North American Colonial History) and History 217 (Mundo Brasileiro). I also plan to revive History 220 (Making of Latino America) and teach it in the Fall, during the last few weeks of the presidential election campaign. I anticipate that I should have a more definitive sense of my course offerings for 2008-2009 by mid-February 2008.
Other Interests
Brasilian music, without question.
I like nearly all popular genres except sertaneja. I have played them all on my show "Ritmo Atlântico," which I did on Wheaton College Radio WCCS, 96.5 FM from 2002 through 2005. I revived the show in Spring 2007, partly so that students in Mundo Brasileiro could opt to make guest appearances as part of their course requirements. It's shelved right now because I lack the time to continue it.
I have also done guest appearances on WMBR 88.1 FM, which is MIT's station.
Football rivals Brasilian music and usually trumps it during the football season. I adore the Patriots and the now woeful 49ers--I didn't appreciate them enough when they were great. Let that be a lesson to Pats' fans. These for us are the best of times.
I also enjoy:
Birdwatching (and collecting birding field guides)
Gardening (vegetables and wildflowers native to North America)
Cooking
Student Projects
Evelyn Sanders ('08) is taking an independent study with me on migration from Latin America to the US in the 20th century while she is interning at Centro Presente in Cambridge.
Rachel Pierre ('08), a History major who has concentrated on study of the Caribbean, took an independent study with me in Fall 2007 on Caribbean history up to c. 1850, with a special focus on the Francophone Caribbean.
Emily Edwards ('05) and Deanna Torres ('05), both independent majors in Latin American Studies, completed thesis projects--Emily on education and national identity in early 20th century Mexico, Deanna on politics, culture, and the construction of Puerto Rican identity in New York in the 1960s and 1970s. Emily presented her work at Wheaton's Academic Festival in April 2005.
Sean Britt (Wheaton 2000 and former Davis fellow)worked with me on the history of slavery in 19th century Nevis.
Selected Publications, Creative Work or Performances
Forging America: Ironworkers, Adventurers,and the Industrious Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004)
"A Tale of Two Ironworks: Slavery, Free Labor, Work, and Resistance in the Early Republic," The William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Series, 56 (October 1999): 677-700.
"Slavery and the Disciplining of Free Labor in the Colonial Mid-Atlantic Iron Industry," Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 64 (Special Supplemental Issue, Summer 1997): 270-286.