Emory Tolbert
Jeanne M. Toungara
Margaret B. Crosby-Arnold
Assistant Professor of History
Research
My major areas of expertise are Modern Germany (1806 to Present) and
Modern Europe (1789 to Present) with secondary expertise in U.S.
History. In particular, my research has focused on comparative
constitutional theory and practice and the role of same in the
sociopolitical evolution of modern state systems. From the years 2001 to
2004, I was one of four international scholars to work on the project,
Constituting the German Nation: The Construction of
National Identity through Legal Theory and Practice, 1898-1998. This think
tank, under the direction of Dr. Jan Palmowski, was funded by the United
Kingdom’s prestigious Arts and Humanities Board and housed at King’s
College-London. At the conclusion of our efforts, an international conference,
Citizenship and National Identity in Twentieth Century Germany, was held
at Oxford University, where I delivered my preliminary findings in a paper
titled, ‘Inverted Constitutionalization: The Historical Example
of the Kaiserreich’. My longer book length study, The Making of
a German Constitution:
The Making
of a German Constitution: A Slow Revolution, will be available in February,
2008.
Presently, my new research project explores the theory and practice of the ideology of ‘race’ as an artificially constructed category of ‘modern’ knowledge. Considering this subject in legal and transnational perspective, the research focuses on the Northern European Diaspora in the Atlantic world since ‘the Enlightenment’. This study will probe the development of hetero- and self-referential racial ideologies and their impact on sociopolitical identity formation and relationships of power. A critical element of this research also engages the transatlantic trade of ideas and how seemingly far removed and peripheral events beyond Europe’s proper borders in fact transformed political culture in European metropoles.
Biography
As an Army Brat, I grew-up between Japan, Germany and the United States,
but my family hails from Coosada, Alabama. I went to college after
working seven years as a litigation paralegal and a few years in the
fashion and entertainment industry. My B.A. in History is from Auburn
University at Montgomery, and, in 1994, I was awarded a fellowship
to pursue graduate work at Brown University. I received an A.M. in
1995 and Ph.D. 2001. My committee was composed of several distinguished
scholars of history, including my main advisor, Volker R. Berghahn,
and Abbott Gleason and Carolyn Dean. The title of my doctoral dissertation
is The Civil Code and the Transformation of Germany Society: The Politics
of Gender Inequality. I am newly and happily married, and I have one
daughter, Erin, age fifteen.
Career
After completing graduate school in 2001, I held a three year post-doc
in the German Studies Department at King’s College – London
and additional appointments as a Guest Scientist at the Max-Planck-Institut
für europäische Rechtsgeschichte in Frankfurt, Germany. Having
taught at a number of U.S. colleges before spending one year as a Visiting
Assistant Professor at Howard (2006-2007), I was invited to join the
Howard faculty as Assistant Professor of Modern European History, where
I teach courses in European History including a new seminar on Race,
Gender and Law in Modern European History.
Teaching
Like research, teaching is central to my growth and vitality as a historian.
In the short time of my experience with Howard students, my research
has shifted in new directions. Their free thinking and provocative
ideas have raised new historical questions for me and significantly
inspired my current research interests. At Howard, I have taught courses
on Modern Europe, British History since the Reformation, Honors Civilization
I and II and my current colloquium and seminar, Race, Gender and Law
in Modern European History, an element of which involves the opportunity
for undergraduates to conduct primary research.
Curriculum Vitae
Download
Margaret B. Crosby-Arnold's Curriculum Vitae in PDF Format
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