George
S. Vascik
Associate
Professor of History
580
Mosler Hall
1601
University Blvd.
Hamilton,
OH 45011
George S. Vascik
Associate Professor of History
580
Mosler Hall
1601
University Blvd.
Hamilton,
OH 45011
Research
A 1988 graduate of the University of Michigan, my research interests have included 19th century German politics and political economy, the Industrial Revolution, and the sugar industry. You can read more about my past research here.
Most recently, I have become interested in the ways that GIS technology can reopen previously closed historical questions. As a result, I have incorporated cutting-edge spatial and statistical analysis in my current project, Peasants and Jews: Anti-Semitism and Rural Politics in Northwest Germany. As part of my Peasants and Jews research, I have given a series of scholarly papers at national and international conferences. January 2011, I had the good fortune to return to the Kreisarchiv Rothenburg-Wümme in Bremervörde where I was interviewed on my research by the Bremervörder Zeitung, through the good offices of Archivleiterin Gudrun Kudick. You can find the interview here.
In March 2013, I began a Research Blog. I wanted to create a way to informally share my research findings before they appear in print. I am also eager to share my work-in-progress with colleagues and get their feedback. Please feel free to check it out and comment!
Teaching
My primary role at Miami University is as a classroom teacher. In addition to regularly offering sections of Western Civilization and the introductory historical methods seminar, I teach a variety of upper division classes focusing on Modern Europe. I have led spring break workshops to Vienna, Munich, and Berlin, and in Summer 2009 taught at Miami's Luxembourg campus. I am deeply involved in campus initiatives to effectively integrate advanced technology into the classroom and provide access to non-traditional, first-generation, or underprivileged students. Most recently, I have been become to offer my Western Civilization sequence in a totally web-based format. You can learn more about my teaching here.
Part of my job as I see it is to train people to think like historians: to constantly search for new ideas and to critically analyzing sources about the past, This is an especially important task for students in my Historical Methods seminar. As a result, I post new materials that I come across in a Teaching Blog. This blog mostly consists of comments on my own reading of new sources that I incorporate into my lectures and book reviews taken from H-Reviews.
Public and Professional Service
I have most recently been professionally active in the Social Science History Association, the European Social Science History Association, the European Rural History Organization, The Historical Society, and the Ohio Academy of History. In addition to the normal range of university committees, I have been the academic director of four Teaching American History grants funded by the US Department of Education: America's Journey (Hamilton, Fairfield and Northwest school districts), Beacon of Liberty (Hamilton, Mason, and Middletown school districts), and Ever Growing Freedom (Princeton, Middletown, and Fairfield school districts). In the summer of 2009, I was a principle investigator for a Library of Congress American Memory Project grant (American Memory in Ohio) administered by Illinois State University. You can learn more about my professional activities here.