News and Events

The University of Cincinnati Department of History and Center 

for the City are pleased to announce the 2024-2025 Zane L. 

Miller Symposium featuring pioneering social psychiatrist Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove. Fullilove will speak on the traumatic impacts of displacement caused by urban renewal, a concept she has called “Root Shock.”  The talk is free and open to the public and will take place on Wednesday, November 6, at Cincinnati Museum Center’s Reakirt Auditorium. A reception will begin at 5:30, followed by Dr. Fullilove’s talk, "Root Shock: The Trauma of Displacement in the American Cities and Cincinnati's West End,” at 6:30 pm.  

Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the publication of her foundational book, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It.  Her ground-breaking work in urban history used oral history interviews and site visits to explore the trauma to Black communities caused by urban renewal in three American cities -- Pittsburgh, Newark, and Roanoke. Fullilove will share her findings in this anniversary address while also providing an update on the evolution of our understandings of urban renewal-related trauma since the book's publication twenty years ago. Further, Fullilove will place the history of Cincinnati's Lower West End and Kenyon-Barr Urban Renewal Project within its larger national context.  

Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove is an MD social psychiatrist who focuses on the ways social and environmental factors affect the mental health of communities. She is recently retired from her position as Professor of Urban Policy and Health at The New School for Social Research. Her work focuses on "sense of place" and the ways public policy negatively impacts minority communities.  In addition to Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, And What We Can Do About It (2004), Fullilove’s published work also includes Urban Alchemy: Restoring Joy in America's Sorted-Out Cities (2013), From Enforcers to Guardians: A Public Health Primer on Ending Police Violence with Hannah L. F. Cooper (2020), and Main Street: How a City's Heart Connects Us All (2020).  

Launched in 2016, the Zane Miller Symposium: Conversations in the City is an annual event that honors Professor Miller’s contributions to the field of urban history, as well as his more than three decades of contributions to the civic life of Cincinnati as activist, mentor, and publicly engaged scholar. Professor Miller firmly believed that “civic activity makes democracy tick,” and “scholarship, history, and public history all help improve society.” Symposium events are designed to engage a broad audience, and connect critical academic thought to contemporary urban issues, especially as they pertain to the greater Cincinnati region.  

Zane L. Miller joined the faculty of the University of Cincinnati in 1968 and taught in the Department of History for thirty-five years. During his career at UC, Miller published numerous books including Boss Cox's Cincinnati, a classic in the field of urban studies. In 1983 he was awarded the George Reiveschel, Jr. Award for Excellence in Scholarly and Creative works, and in 1996 he was awarded the Oscar Schmidt Public Service Award. Throughout his life Miller was an observer of and an active participant in American political, social, and civic life. He was a co-director of the UC Center for Neighborhood and Community Studies, and served on the Historic Conservation Board for the City of Cincinnati and was one of the founders and later president of the Urban History Association. Upon retirement in 1999, he was appointed Charles Phelps Taft Professor Emeritus of American History.

Founded in 2020, the Center for the City at the University of Cincinnati is a community of scholars who interpret and narrate the urban past and present. Using historical inquiry, observation, community engagement, storytelling, and spatial analysis, we examine cities around the globe in the pursuit of creating a more equitable and sustainable future. For more information see the Center’s website at www.uchistorylab.com/centerforthecity. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for the City at the University of Cincinnati, the University of Cincinnati School of Planning, the College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Medicine, and the Action Research Center in the College of Education; the University of Cincinnati Departments of Africana Studies, History, and Psychology; and Cincinnati Museum Center, the Robert O’Neal Multicultural Arts Center (ROMAC), and Seven Hills Neighborhood Houses.

This program has been made possible in part by a generous grant from Ohio Humanities, a state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom. 

Alexander Mikaberidze -- University of Cincinnati

ANNUAL VON ROSENSTIEL LECTURE
"A Mamluk' Odyssey: Imperialism. Nationalism, and Identity in the Age of Napoleon"

Alexander Mikaberidze is Professor of European History at Louisiana State University at Shreveport. He is a leading scholar of the Napoleonic era, authoring several books on the subject including the magisterial The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History, which was published in 2020 by Oxford University Press. He currently serves as an editor of the Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars.

Join us!

This lecture is offered with generous support from the Werner E. Von Rosenstiel Fund, the Department of History, the Taft Research Center, the Program in European Studies, and the Department of German Studies.

October 3
Clifton Court Hall (CCH) 5280
3:30-5:00pm

Professors Jeff Zalar and Willard Sunderland conducted a review of Ridley Scott’s newly released historical epic “Napoleon” (2023).

Read Dr. Zalar and Sunderland's review for "Napoleon" (2023)