In Memoriam: Joe Miller, Ground-Breaking Historian

His loss is literally being felt around the world,” wrote Karen V.H. Parshall, who chairs the University of Virginia’s Corcoran Department of History, about Joseph Calder Miller, who died March 12 in Charlottesville. He was 79.

Miller, the Cary Johnson Jr. Professor Emeritus of History, taught the history of Africa, slavery and the slave trades, Atlantic history and world history at the University from 1972 until 2014. He served in several administrative posts, including as dean of Arts & Sciences from 1990 to ’95.

A celebration of his life will be held May 26 at 3 p.m. in Alumni Hall.

Almost a year ago, he was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences along with School of Law Dean Risa Goluboff. Also last year, former students, colleagues and friends at the Harvard University Center for African Studies organized a colloquium in his honor, “Africa in Global History.” The Journal of Global Slavery devoted a special honorary issue to him in 2017.