How the Collective Came to Be

The Histories of Violence Collective emerged in 2011, as a working, writing, and reading group that arose from the common problems encountered by its founding members as they undertook archival research and wrote their dissertations. Studying topics that initially seemed very different - our projects spanned warfare and peacetime, were located in the United States and abroad, and dealt with different periods and groups of people - we realized that violence worked as a central category of analysis in each manuscript. Through violence, we were able to see the common threads that connected our stories, and that provided a new framework for our teaching, writing, and research.

The founding members of the Collective - Kathleen Belew, Jessie Kindig, Simeon Man, and Monica Muñoz Martinez - expanded this framework through conference presentations, informal exchanges with other colleagues, the mentorship of senior historians, and a major symposium at Northwestern University in 2013. Our collaboratively written mission statement represents the work of both founding and new Collective members, and as we expand, so do the possibilities for future work.

Our long-term goals:

• Establish opportunities for scholars of violence to meet online and in-person 
• Facilitate scholarly and pedagogical collaboration 
• Create a central repository for resources related to researching, writing, and teaching about histories of violence 
• Encourage public and digital humanities projects that address the ethical imperatives of bearing witness to violence 

Our previous work includes:

Please join us for these upcoming events: 

“U.S. Empire and its Objects of Desire: Mutilated Bodies as Art and Artifact,” American Studies Association annual meeting, Los Angeles, CA, Nov. 2014. Chaired by Kathleen Belew. Panelists: Monica Muñoz Martinez, Jessie Kindig, Mairin Odle.

“Histories of Violence Roundtable: State Violence, Ethical Pedagogy, and Responsible Telling,” Organization of American Historians annual meeting, Atlanta, GA, April 2014. Chaired by Ann Fabian. Panelists: Dan Berger, Kathleen Belew, Monica Muñoz Martinez, Jessie Kindig.

“Fear and Loathing in the Archives: Field Notes on Histories of Violence,” American Studies Association annual meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Nov. 2012. Comments by David Kazanjian and Stephanie Smallwood. Panelists: Ned Blackhawk, Kathleen Belew, Monica Muñoz Martinez, Jessie Kindig.

“Unforgettable Violence: Reverberations of War," American Historical Association, Pacific Coast Branch meeting, Seattle, WA, August 2011. Chaired by Susan Jeffords. Panelists: Kathleen Belew, Simeon Man, Jessie Kindig

Fall 2015
October 8th - 11th, 2015, American Studies Association, Toronto

• Fri, October 9, 8:00 to 9:45 am, "Histories of Violence I: Gender and Sexuality" (Sheraton Centre, Chestnut West) 
• Fri, October 9, 10:00 to 11:45am, "Histories of Violence II: Suffering for the State: Touring and Commemorating Sites of Militarized Violence," (Sheraton Centre, Chestnut West)
• Fri, October 9, 12:00 to 1:45pm, "Histories of Violence III: State of the Field," (Sheraton Centre, Chestnut West)