Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Speaker Spotlight: Monica Gisolfi

Dr. Monica Gisolfi is another featured speaker at our upcoming Scholars & Policymakers Symposium hosted Oct. 27-28. Gisolfi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina Wilmington

She received her Ph.D. in United States history from Columbia University in 2007 and now teaches history courses on the Gilded Age, the United States, the South, and public & environmental history. She specializes in southern American history and her research interests include the histories of environment, agriculture, and landscape as well as public memory and commemoration.

Gisolfi’s piece “From Crop Lien to Contract Farming: The Roots of Agribusiness in the American South, 1929-1939” was published in Agricultural History and later included in a compilation of writings entitled The Best American History Essays 2008. As Gisolfi writes in her piece, the crop lien system was thought to be the catalyst behind southern poverty and issues in the South. This publication examines the changing agribusiness industry from the crop lien credit system used by sharecroppers and farmers in the mid 19th and early 20th centuries to the multi-million dollar contract farming business today that includes the poultry industry.

Her next piece, “Leaving the Farm to Save the Farm: Poultry Farmers, Contract Farming, and the Necessity of Public Work, 1950-1970” was published in Moving Workers, Moving Capital. Gisolfi is currently working on an untitled book examining the growth of southern agribusiness and its effects on humanity and the environment.

Don’t miss Dr. Monica Gisolfi’s appearance on the Politics of Social Relations panel (Oct. 28, 1:45-3:15PM) at the Scholars & Policymakers Symposium happening Oct. 27-28, 2014 at the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries. And stay tuned to the blog for more speaker spotlights in the weeks leading up to the event!

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