The "Dark Turn" in Civil War History with Sarah Handley-Cousins, Jonathan S. Jones, and Diane Miller Sommerville (part I)
Today I would like to welcome Drs. Sarah Handley-Cousins, Jonathan S. Jones, and Diane Miller Sommerville to the Rogue Historian. Sarah is the associate director of the Center for Disability Studies and assistant professor of history at the University at Buffalo. AND she is the author of Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North, Diane is professor of history at Binghamton University, SUNY and the author of Rape and Race in the Nineteenth-Century South, and Aberration of Mind: Suicide and Suffering in the Civil War Era South, Jonathan is the inaugural Civil War Era Postdoctoral Scholar at the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State and is currently finishing up his first book, tentatively titled: Opium Slavery: Veterans and Addiction in the American Civil War Era." Beginning in fall 2021, he’ll be an assistant professor of history at the Virginia Military Institute. My guests today are all veterans of show and all write about topics that in part form what some have called the “Dark Turn” in Civil War history. I’ve asked them back to discuss this so-called Dark Turn and how we might use it to rethink ideas about soldiering in the Civil War. This is a two-part episode…so stay tuned for part II later this week. In part I we discuss:
What this so-called “Dark Turn” actually is and what it means for Civil War historiography
Why it has been from Civil War scholarship for so long
The idea of a “common soldier” and those who have written about them including scholars and participants
What we would call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and how society stigmatized it in the 19th century
Why we only now are beginning to connect post-war drug addiction to 19th-century veterans
Suicide as a reality in the 19th century and why counting numbers may not be the best route to understanding this issue in a 19th-century context
Gender issues - especially the notion of “manliness” in the Victorian era
Have a listen…
You should for sure list to my past shows featuring Sarah, Jonathan, and Diane and also follow them on Twitter: Sarah’s Twitter, Jonathan’s Twitter, and Diane’s Twitter. AND…don’t forget to subscribe to The Rogue Historian Podcast and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or your favorite app so you never ever ever ever miss a show. That would be dumb.
And…here’s the links to some of the books we discuss on this episode - you really need to read these :)
Sick from Freedom by Jim Downs
Nature’s Civil War by Kathryn Shivley
Ruin Nation by Megan Kate Nelson
Shook Over Hell by Eric Dean
With compliments,
Keith