John Bezis-Selfa
Associate Professor of History
Office: Knapton 316A
Office Hours: M 12:30-2:00, W 1:30-3:30, F 9:30-10:15, 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 2009
History 201: History of Colonial North America
Provides introduction to colonial history of North America. Topics include: indigenous societies before contact with Europeans and Africans; European reconnaissance and colonization; rise of indentured servitude and racial slavery; social and cultural exchange among and between native peoples, Africans, and Europeans; connections of North America to the Caribbean Basin and Atlantic world; conflicts between European colonizers for dominance of North America; and social, political and economic development of mainland British North America in 18th century.
History 217: Mundo Brasileiro (on history of Brasil)
Explores construction of Brazil and its diaspora since 1500 through documents, scholarly works, fiction, music and film. Topics include: environmental change, colonization and its impact on indigenous peoples, African slavery and its legacies, migration to and from Brazil, gender norms, politics and economic development, rise of mass culture, urbanization and industrialization, how outsiders have viewed Brazil, and impact of all these on Brazilians' struggle to define what is "Brazilian." Course will try to connect class and campus to Brazilian communities of southern New England.
2009-2010
I expect to teach History 219: Norte Y Sur, Caribbean history, and an advanced course on politics and religion in the early Americas. I should have a more definitive sense of my course offerings for 2009-2010 by mid-February 2009.
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 football season. I adore the Patriots and the 49ers, now hopefully rising from pitiful to competitively mediocre. 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
August Avantaggio ('09) is working on a honors project on historical memory in Chile during the dictatorship.
Evelyn Sanders ('08) took 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.
Courtney Allen ('07) wrote a terrific honors thesis under my direction on New France and French efforts to acculturate indigenous peoples.
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.