Ward, James M., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of History
Research and Teaching Interests
My research interests include religion, nationalism, mass violence, collaboration and resistance, and expropriation. My first monograph, Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia is a political and intellectual biography of the priest who led Slovakia during the Second World War as an ally of Nazi Germany. (It will be published in April 2013 by Cornell University Press; Czech and Slovak editions are also planned.) Tiso has the distinction of being the only executed war criminal to be seriously proposed as a Catholic saint. Priest, Politician, Collaborator follows his journey from a Hungarian Christian Socialist to a Slovak “clerical fascist.” I also explore how polar interpretations of him influenced his life and shaped his historiography and image in postwar memory. At present, I am researching a general history of modern European expropriation. This manuscript is framed as a voyage through time and space from Josephist Vienna to Stalinist Budapest, with episodes of or debates about expropriation serving as ports. The project’s premise is that expropriation has an inner logic that has served as a driver for modernity. I am also interested in how expropriation relates to modern property regimes, democratization, and projects pursuing social justice.
At DePauw, I have especially enjoyed offering European surveys. My specialized courses concentrate on European Nationalism, Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe, and the Second World War.
For an interview of me by Professor Holly Case of Cornell University, see her blog East-Central Europe Past and Present.
Courses Regularly Taught
HIST 112: European Civilization II, 1789-Present
HIST 242: Modern Russia
HIST 290: Revolutionary Russia, 1905–1938
HIST 290: The Rise and Fall (?) of the Nation in Europe
HIST 300: Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution in Europe, 1938–1948
HIST 300: Dancing on the Wall: The Fall of European Communism, 1989–1991
HIST 300: Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution in Europe, 1938–1948
Publications
Peer reviewed:
Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013).
- Slovak and Czech editions contracted by the Bratislava publisher Slovart
“Legitimate Collaboration: The Administration of Santo Tomás Internment Camp and Its Histories, 1942–2003,” Pacific Historical Review 77 (2008): 159–201.
- Louis Knott Koontz Memorial Award for the most deserving article to appear in PHR in 2008
“‘People Who Deserve It’: Jozef Tiso and the Presidential Exemption,” Nationalities Papers 30 (2002): 571–601.
- special mention in the Czechoslovak History Conference Stanley Z. Pech Prize for best article published in 2001–2002 on Czech or Slovak history
- Slovak-American International Cultural Foundation Prize for best graduate student essay (judges provided by the Slovak Studies Association), 2002
“‘Black Monks’: Jozef Tiso and Anti-Semitism,” Kosmas 14, no. 1 (fall 2000): 29–54.
Reviews, Etc.:
“Collaboration and Legitimacy: A Reply to Irene Hecht,” Pacific Historical Review 81 (2012): 618–626.
Review of Slovakia in History, edited by Mikulas Teich , Dusan Kovac , and Martin D. Brown, English Historical Review (forthcoming).
Review of Central European Crossroads—Social Democracy and National Revolution in Bratislava (Pressburg), 1867–1921, by Pieter C. van Duin, Social History 36 (2011): 240–242.
“Alojzije Stepinac” and “Jozef Tiso,” in Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Politics, ed. Roy P. Domenico and Mark Y. Hanley (Westport: Greenwood, 2006), 2: 535–536, 562–563.
Review of Das Dritte Reich und die Slowakei 1939–1945, by Tatjana Tönsmeyer, Journal for Cold War Studies 8 (2006): 132–134.
Three-Legged Dog [Poetry], (Kansas City: BkMk Press [University of Missouri], 1990).
Education
Ph.D., History, Stanford University, 2008
M.A., History, Stanford University, 2003
M.A., Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies, University of Washington, 2001
B.A., Geography, University of Kansas, 1985
Fellowships and Grants
2010, East European Studies Research Scholar Grant for residence at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. (declined in order to teach at DePauw)
2009, Austria and Central Europe Fellowship, Forum on Contemporary Europe, Stanford University
2007–2008, Mellon Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, Stanford University
2005, Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellowship for residence at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Washington, D.C.
2004–2005, Fulbright-Hayes Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship for research in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Austria
2004–2005, International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) Individual Advanced Research Opportunities grant for research in Slovakia
2002–2004, Stanford Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, three grants for research and study in Slovakia
2001–2007, Stanford History Department Fellowship
1999–2001, Jackson Fellowship, University of Washington
1999–2000, Fellowship for Language Area Studies, two grants for study in the Czech Republic