Faculty and Staff - Department of History, Politics, and Social Change

Dr. James MacLeod

Department Chair/History

Room 346, Olmsted Hall
812-488-2599
jm224@evansville.edu

Dr James MacLeod was educated at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, receiving an MA in 1988 and a PhD in 1993. He taught history and British Studies at Harlaxton from 1994-1999, and since 1999 he has been a member of the History Department at UE, where he teaches courses in European History and the two World Wars. Dr MacLeod is the author of Evansville in World War Two [2015], and The Cartoons of Evansville's Karl Kae Knecht [ 2017]. In 2016 he wrote and co-produced a 2-part documentary on Evansville in World War II for WNIN PBS titled Evansville at War. In 2000, he published a book on 19th-century British religion, The Second Disruption, and has also written over 30 other scholarly publications. He has delivered hundreds of public lectures, has won many awards for his teaching and scholarship, and was UE's Outstanding Teacher in 2009. MacLeod is an active local historian, and serves on the Boards of the Vanderburgh County Historical Society, the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society, and the Evansville Museum of Art, History and Science.

Dr. Daniel Byrne

(he/him/his)

Professor/History

Room 344, Olmsted Hall
812-488-2798
db89@evansville.edu

Dr. Daniel Byrne received his Bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Notre Dame and his Doctorate from Georgetown University. His dissertation and subsequent research focused on the United States foreign policy surrounding the Algerian War of Independence and the decolonization of French Africa. Before joining the faculty at the University of Evansville in 2005, he taught at Georgetown, the United States Naval Academy, Francis Marion University, the University of Notre Dame, and Bradley University. Since arriving at the University of Evansville, Dr. Byrne has taught courses on the history of United States foreign policy, the American Civil War and Reconstruction, America between the Wars, Cold War America, the Decolonization of Africa, the rise of Modern China and Japan, and first year seminars on American Social Welfare policy.

Dr. David Green

Senior Lecturer in British Studies and History

dg110@evansville.edu

Dr Green teaches courses in British Studies and medieval history at Harlaxton College. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he has published widely on subjects such as kingship, chivalry, early colonialism, and concepts of national identity during the period of the Hundred Years War. He is a great advocate of both overseas study and studying the past as a way to better understand our own world. Before coming to Harlaxton in 2007, Dr Green lived and worked in England, Scotland, and Ireland, teaching at the universities of Sheffield, St Andrews, and Trinity College, Dublin.

Dr. Robert Dion

Associate Professor of Political Science / Igleheart Chair

Room 53, Schroeder School of Business Building
812-488-1150
rd35@evansville.edu

Robert Dion firmly believes that citizens need to understand and be involved in the political system. He has taught American politics courses at the University of Evansville since 2001. Before he came to the University of Evansville, he taught at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and at Wabash College. Outside the classroom, Professor Dion serves as the chairperson of the local civil rights commission and on the boards of several organizations. He is regularly quoted in news stories about political developments in Indiana or in the United States, and he has appeared frequently on radio and television news programs, including several French-language broadcast outlets.

Dr. Valerie Stein

Professor of Religious Studies / Program Director, Social Justice / Program Director, Race & Ethnicity Studies

Olmsted Hall, Room 341
812-488-1103
vs9@evansville.edu

Professor of Religious Studies, is the Program Director of the Social Justice program and Race & Ethnicity Studies. Dr. Stein has been at the University of Evansville since 2002. She teaches a wide range of courses situated at the intersection of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion and social change. Dr. Stein earned her ThD in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament from Harvard University. Her research centers on the use, influence, and impact of religion on issues of gender, sexuality, colonialism, and race.| Stein's book, Anti-cultic Theology in Christian Biblical Interpretation: A Study of Isaiah 66:1-4 and Its Reception grounded the discussion of Christian anti-Jewish interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the analysis of a particular passage. She shows that the widely held Christian interpretation of Isaiah 66:1-4 as an indictment against the Jerusalem temple and cult - and thereby God's rejection of Judaism - is motivated by a theology of substitution that sees the Church as the new Israel. Stein has also presented and published on how interpretations of biblical women reflect social attitudes and beliefs with respect to gender (see, for example, her articles “Know*Be*Do: Using the Bible to Teach Ethics to Children” and “Gender Components in Dramatic Retellings of Judith”). Her current research (see “Privileging God the Father: The Neoliberal Theology of the Evangelical Orphan Care Movement” in The Politics of Reproduction: Adoption, Abortion, and surrogacy in the Age of Neoliberalism) uses postcolonial and feminist methods of biblical criticism to show how evangelical Christian theology interprets the Bible to align the adoptive parents with God and thus effectively to allow for the dismissal of ethical concerns associated with adoption and foster care. In the case of international adoption, this “Gospel-centered” adoption takes advantage of Western privilege to victimize women in developing nations as a form of Christian neocolonialism. She problematizes the role of transracial adoption in the Evangelical orphan care movement as a visual evangelism.