Daniel Widener
Curriculum Vitae
Danny Widener teaches African American history, cultural studies, and twentieth-century political radicalism. He began his educational career at the Echo Park-Silverlake Peoples’ Childcare Center. He studied at Berkeley and New York University. He has written on the politics of black culture in postwar Los Angeles, black-Latino and Afro-Asian issues, and the Korean War.
Academic Employment
Associate Professor, Department of History, UCSD 2003-present Visiting Professor, Bunche Center for African American Studies/ 2006-2007 Institute of American Cultures, UCLA, Visiting Professor, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey Summer 2006 Acting Assistant Professor, Department of History, UCSD July 2002-Jan 2003Instructor, Los Angeles City College 2000-2002
Education
Ph. D., January 2003, New York University, American History
B. A., May 1995, University of California, Berkeley, Comparative Ethnic Studies, summa cum laude
B. A., May 1995, University of California, Berkeley, History, cum laude
Professional Affiliations
American Historical Association, member
American Studies Association, member
Center for the Study of Political Graphics, Board of Trustees
Organization of American Historians, member
Western History Association, member
Los Angeles History Working Group, Huntington Library
Publications
Books
Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in black Los Angeles, 1942-1992 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009) [in production]
Disseration
“Something Else: Creative Community and Black Liberation in Postwar Los Angeles.” Dissertation completed under the direction of Robin D.G. Kelley (New York University, 2003)
Articles and Review Essays
“A History of Black and Brown: Chicano/a—African American Cultural and Political Relations,” co-authored with Luis Alvarez, Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, volume 33, no. 1 (spring 2008), 143-155
“Dossier: Chicana/o—African American Cultural and Political Relations,” co-edited with Luis Alvarez, Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, volume 33, no. 1 (spring 2008), 143-194
“The Rendezvous of Remembrance and Revolt,” Journal of Asian American Studies, Volume 10, No. 2 (June 2007), 199-205.
“Another City is Possible: Interethnic Organizing in Los Angeles,” Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts volume 1, no.2, (spring 2008), 188-219
“Writing Watts: Budd Schulberg, the Watts Writers Workshop, and the War on Poverty,” Journal of Urban History volume 34, no. 4, (May 2008), 665-687
“Seoul City Sue and the Bugout Blues: Black Dissent and the Forgotten War,” in Fred Ho and Bill V. Mullen (eds.), Afro/Asia: Revolutionary Connections (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), 55-87
“African American Responses to the Cold War,” in Robbie Lieberman (ed.), History in Dispute: Volume 19, The Red Scare after 1945, 8-15, New York: St. James Press, 2004. Pages 9-10 coauthored with David J. Synder.
“’Perhaps the Japanese are to be Thanked:’ African-Americans and Japanese in interwar Los Angeles,” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, volume 11, no.1 (spring 2003)
“Way Out West: The Black Arts Movement in Southern California,” Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media and Composite Cultures, volume 9, no.2 (1999)
“The World is Waiting for the Sunrise: African-Americans and the Latino World,” Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict, and World Order. Special issue on rethinking race, volume 25, no. 3 (1998)
Research Interests
African American Cultural History
Comparative Ethnic Studies
California and the American West
Transnational and Comparative Methodology
Islam and Indigenous African Religions
Work in Progress
Professor Widener is currently at work preparing an anthology on the intersection of African American and Chicano history. He is also completing a book on African American responses to the Korean War.
Courses Taught
- HILD 7A. Race and Ethnicity in the United States.
- HILA 122. Cuba: From Colony to Socialist Republic.
- HIUS 117. History of Los Angeles.
- HIUS 122. History and Hollywood.
- HIUS 134. African American Cultural History.
- HIUS139/ETHN 149. 20th Century African-American History.
- HIUS 181/281. Topics in Twentieth Century United States History (seminar):
- The Afro-Asian Century
- Black Marxism
- HIUS 183/283/ETHN 159. Topics in African American History (seminar):
- The Politics of Jazz
- Who Owns the 1960s
- HITO 87. Freshman Seminar:
- Che Guevara: Myth, Icon, and Message
- California Reds: Left Politics in the Golden State
- Rasta and Resistance