UNC PhDs Offer Support for Rob Waters’ Groundbreaking Book

Dr. Rob Waters, a historian of Modern Britain at Queen Mary’s University in London, has just published his second monograph with Oxford University Press: Colonized by Humanity: Caribbean London and the Politics of Integration at the End of Empire.

In 2021, UNC History Professor Dr. Susan Pennybacker taught a graduate course on modern global history in which students had the honor and responsibility of reading several chapters of his new monograph as well as his first pathbreaking book Thinking Black: Britain 1964-1985 (U Cal., 2018). They were able to meet Dr. Waters and have an extended conversation about these drafts. In Dr. Waters’ new book, he generously took the time to thank the group of UNC graduate students who provided feedback and ideas about what at the time was a work in progress.

In his acknowledgements, Dr. Waters says the following:

“Susan D. Pennybacker…also did me the honor of sharing a couple of the draft chapters with students in the graduate Department of History seminar 810 “Colonial Encounters” in Spring 2021 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For their generous engagement, my thanks go to LaRisa Anderson, Nicole Harry, Madeleine McGrady, Tess Megginson, Samir Sefiane, Quinn Shepherd, Julia Short, Pasuth Thothaveesansuk, and Arttu Uuranmaeki. It goes without saying that none of these generous souls should be held responsible for any errors or bad judgements in the final manuscript…” (xii)

Here in the History Department, we’re lucky to have faculty with strong national and international networks. Not only does that benefit their scholarship and strengthen UNC’s ties to a global community of scholars, but it also provides opportunities for our graduate students to participate in some of the time-honored traditions of academic critique and commentary. In addition to our own UNC History PhDs, the list above includes one outstanding undergraduate history major (Julia) and one international graduate student spending a term abroad in Chapel Hill (Arrtu). In addition, LaRisa and Samir were visiting the class from UNC’s Journalism School and Middle Eastern Studies. Just a few more examples of the ways in which the History Department helps foster connections across UNC and around the world.

No scholar can make it through their work alone and we send a very hearty congratulations and many thanks to Rob such rare but much-deserved recognition!