Colin E. Woodward's Official Site

By Colin Woodward One of the most humiliating intellectual moments of my life was not during a thesis defense, at a conference, or while teaching a class. No, it began in the Baton Rouge airport. Bored, I was looking through the gift shop when I came across a Civil War trivia…

Recently, I’ve received some comments from a defender of the Virginia Flaggers, the people protesting the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ decision to not fly a Confederate battle flag at the Lee Chapel, which is on the VMFA grounds and for which the VMFA has leasing rights. At Kevin Levin’s…

Found this quotation the other day from Julia Child, Smith College graduate and chef extraordinaire. “The view of history that we get through the kitchen window is a more gentle view not of war and politics but of family and community and sharing.”

Amazingly, they are still finding Lincoln stuff. And there was a lot more of interest in the Ohio bank vault where his check for $800 was recently found. Who knows what might be out there for history geeks to discover? http://news.yahoo.com/check-lincoln-wrote-day-being-shot-found-154959730.html

By Colin Woodward When I was in Richmond over the holidays, I spent some time in the Museum District, where I lived while I was an archivist at the Virginia Historical Society. While driving down the Boulevard one afternoon, I saw protestors outside the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. A handful…

By Colin Woodward One of the most fun, rewarding, exhausting, expensive, and potentially frustrating aspects of being a historian is the research trip. I think at the Chronicle of Higher Education website there should be a section on research trip experiences. Two weeks ago, I went to Harvard to conduct…

By Colin Woodward I started reading Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States while I was on my honeymoon. Because, you know, Matt Damon recommended it! If you’ve watched Good Will Hunting, you’ll probably remember the scene when Damon’s character says Zinn’s book–a leftist classic–is one of the “right…

Sorry I haven’t blogged here in a while. Getting married and going on honeymoon, constantly looking for work, and getting a book published will eat into your blogging time. Nevertheless, here I am with some job site recommendations for those who have experience as an archivist and/or historian. Note: these…