Edward J. Blum

Edward J. Blum, 29

Basic Facts

Teaching Position: Assistant Professor, San Diego State University 2007-present 
Area of Research: 19th Century United States History of race and religion 
Education: Ph.D., History, University of Kentucky, 2003 
Major Publications: Blum is the author of Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898(2005), W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet (2007), and co-editor of Vale of Tears: New Essays on Religion and Reconstruction. 
Blum was awarded the C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize from the Southern Historical Association for his dissertation: "Gilded Crosses: Race, Religion, and the Reforging of American Nationalism, 1865-1898." For Reforging the White Republic, Blum was awarded 2006 Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship, given by the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War, Shepherd University, and 2005 Gustavus Myers Book Award, given by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights (Honorable Mention), and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (nonfiction and biography), The Bancroft Prize (Columbia University), The Avery O. Craven Award (Organization of American Historians), The Frederick Jackson Turner Award (Organization of American Historians), The Merle Curti Award (Organization of American Historians), Frederick Douglass Book Prize (Gilder Lehrman Center), Charles S. Sydnor Award (Southern Historical Association), Albert J. Beveridge Award (American Historical Association), Best First Book in the History of Religions (American Academy of Religion), among others.
Currently, Blum is co-editing (with Paul Harvey) the Columbia Guide to American Religious History and writing a book on race and depictions of Jesus Christ in American culture, society, and politics, titled Jesus in Red, White, and Black. 
Awards: Blum is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including among others:
National Endowment for the Humanities, "African American Civil Rights Struggles in the Twentieth Century," Summer Institute, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University (1 of 20 nationally), 2006;
2006 Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship, given by the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War, Shepherd University;
Grant, Students Partnering with Faculty Summer Research Program, Kean University, "'They Lynched Christ': Race and Religion in the Early Black Freedom Struggle," 2006;
Gustavus Myers Book Award, given by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights (Honorable Mention), 2005;
C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize, Southern Historical Association, 2004;
Fellow, W. E. B. Du Bois Center for the Advanced Study of Race and Religion, Notre Dame University;
Best Paper Prize for United States History, Southwestern Historical Association, 2004;
Nominee for "The Arnaldo Momigliano Best Article in History Prize," sponsored by The Historical Society;
University of Kentucky Association of Emeriti Faculty Endowed Fellowship, 2003;
Provost's Award for Teaching, University of Kentucky, 2002;
Pew Younger Scholars Fellowship (1 of 30 nationally), 2002;
Commonwealth Research Grant, University of Kentucky, 2002 and 2003;
Presidential Fellowship, University of Kentucky, 2001-2002 and 2002-2003;
George C. Herring Writing Award, presented by the Kentucky Association of Teachers of History (KATH), 2002. 
Additional Info: 
Blum has been a fellow with the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University and with the National Endowment for the Humanities. 
Blum formerly was and Assistant Professor at Kean University 2006-2007.
In the classroom, Blum is interested in helping students engage the past in a variety of ways, whether through music and images or role-playing and historical simulations. His courses include Jacksonian America, the Civil War and Reconstruction, religion in the United States, and African American history.

Personal Anecdote

Email was one of my best friends throughout graduate school. With it, I could laugh with old high school friends, try to broker fantasy football trades, and network with new colleagues. But in the weeks following graduation, after I had defended my dissertation and was pining for a book contract, email almost sunk my ship. Most of us, I would imagine, have drafted quick email notes that make us thankful for the cancel button. You know what I mean, the angry rant at a newspaper article, the frustrated response to a department chair or a book reviewer, the dismissive response to a whinny student. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, we cancel those messages and the next day breathe a sigh of relief. My email blunder was distinct, but probably not all that uncommon: it was a case of mistaken identity. Or rather, of email haste making a mess. Some email programs have "quick-fills," where you start to type in a name or address and the computer finishes it for you (like when you type "Jo" and the computer adds "John" and his email). For me, it was a case of two Michaels.

Michael #1 was an editor of a series that I was interested in for my dissertation. Michael #2 was a senior colleague who had guided me through many of graduate school's ups and downs and who himself had successfully negotiated some great book deals. By now, you can see where this is going. I wrote a long email to Michael #2, asking him for advice about how to negotiate a contract. I was torn between the series edited by Michael #1 and another press that had expressed interest. So I laid it all out for Michael #2. I signed my name (as always "Best, Ed"), and away went the email. That night, I realized, the email for #2 had been sent to #1. Now, I was frantic over what to do: should I contact #1 to explain the situation? Sure, I had been honest with the editors that I was shopping the manuscript, but this looked bad. I just emailed an editor that I wanted to maneuver either his press or the other into a bidding contest. This was bad negotiating, on the one hand, and bad form on the other. If this was Texas Hold 'Em, I had broken one of the cardinal rules: I had shown my cards with vigor. If this were a basketball game, I had just asked my opponent the best way to beat him. I tossed and turned all night with how to respond. I considered another email to Michael #1 with the subject heading: "DO NOT READ PREVIOUS EMAIL." But that wouldn't work. He would probably open it after he read the first message and I would look even worse. I decided, in the end, to explain that I had sent this note to the wrong email address, but that I was still very much interested in publishing my book with him. My guess is that if Michael #2 had received the message, his first piece of advice would have been to keep my plans close to myself. So much for that. Michael #1 understood completely (or at least had the wisdom to cancel any chastising email he had composed in response); and, for his good humor, I decided his was the press for me. So I shot him a quick email. 

Quotes

By Edward J. Blum

If one looks for religion in W. E. B. Du Bois's life and times, it seems ubiquitous. It is there in his childhood at the Sunday school he loved so much. It is there in his first written works as he unveiled black souls in a culture that denied their existence. It is there in the prayers he wrote for his students, in his attacks on church segregation, in his jeremiads against war and unbridled capitalism, and in his literary creations of black Christs and dark princesses. It is there in his friendships with white ministers, in his lectures in churches and synagogues, and in his conception of Communism. Du Bois never hid his assessments and feelings on religion behind codes or riddles or anagrams. They were too vital then. And they are too vital now. Du Bois was, in his self characterizations and in the hearts of thousands, a prophet with sacred insight. He could see past the myths of the present age and reveal worlds beyond what lies on the surface.
Du Bois was an American prophet; he was a moral historian, a visionary sociologist, a literary theologian, and a mythological hero with a black face. In a world marked by white supremacy, capitalistic exploitation, grotesque materialism, and wicked militancy, Du Bois became a rogue saint and a dark monk to preach the good news of racial brotherhood, economic cooperation, and peace on earth." -- Edward J. Blum in "W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet"

About Edward J. Blum