Faculty Snapshot: Karl Jacoby
Tell us about your work.
My current research sheds new light on the US-Mexico War, which took place from 1846 to 1848. Although this conflict redrew the map of North America, it remains oddly understudied, perhaps because it represented an embarrassingly brazen land grab on the part of the US. Yet the war is foundational to many of the issues that we continue to grapple with today, including the border, with its fracturing of ecosystems and Indigenous homelands, and the fraught status of peoples of Mexican descent in the U.S.
Tell us about a book that you have read recently and would recommend.
There are so many wonderful history books being produced by my friends and colleagues. Singling out just one is challenging, but the book that has stayed with me the longest this year is All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, by Tiya Miles. It is at once a deeply humanistic work that illuminates the profound emotional ties between parents and children, and a rigorous work of scholarship that documents the horrors of American enslavement. In short, All That She Carried is that rare work of scholarship that engages both the reader's head and their heart.
What is a self-care practice that works for you?
As much as I love teaching and scholarship, I believe it is important to cultivate other facets of yourself as well. For me, this means stepping out of my office, getting outside, and doing something active. I hesitate to call it "self care," since it sometimes seems a rather reckless undertaking at my age, but lately I have been teaching myself how to skateboard (in my 50s!) My son, who is an avid skateboarder, encouraged me to learn, and although I am not very good (yet) it is something special that we can do together.