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E. Thomas Ewing

E. Thomas Ewing, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, Professor

E. Thomas Ewing, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, Professor
E. Thomas Ewing, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research and Professor of History
 

Department of History and Office of the Dean 
202 Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Building
200 Stanger Street (0426)
Blacksburg, VA 24061
540-231-3212 |  etewing@vt.edu

Tom Ewing is a professor in the Department of History at Virginia Tech and the associate dean for graduate studies and research at the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. He teaches courses in Russian, European, and world history.

His books include The Teachers of Stalinism: Policy, Practice, and Power in Soviet Schools in the 1930s (2002); Education & the Great Depression, edited with David Hicks (2006); Separate Schools: Gender, Policy, and Practice in the Postwar Soviet Union (2010); and the co-edited volume, Viral Networks: Connecting Digital Humanities and Medical History (2018).

His current research project explores the transmission of information about the co-called “Russian Influenza” (1889-1890) using data and digital humanities approaches to medical history. At Virginia Tech, he coordinates the Data in Social Context program, which sustains an interdisciplinary approach of data analytics, computational skills, and critical thinking in the humanities and social sciences. He has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to run workshops on the 1918 Spanish Influenza and on Images and Texts in Medical History. 

  • History of Information, Knowledge, and Data
  • History of Medicine (Influenza Epidemics)
  • Russian/Soviet History
  • World History
  • Digital History
  • Ph.D. in Modern Russian History, University of Michigan 
  • M.A. in Modern Russian History, University of Michigan
  • B.A. in History, with Honors, Williams College
  • Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Virginia Tech
  • Sturm Prize for Research Excellence, Phi Beta Kappa chapter, Virginia Tech, 2011.
  • Alumni Award for Outreach Excellence, Virginia Tech, 2008.
  • Excellence in Research Award, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Virginia Tech, 2011.

Books

  • Co-editor, with Katherine Randall, Viral Networks: Connecting Digital Humanities and Medical History. (Blacksburg: VT Publishing, 2018), 297 pp. (available in open access digital and print versions).
  • Separate Schools: Gender, Policy, and Practice in Postwar Soviet Education. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010), 300 pp.
  • Co-editor, with David Hicks, Education and the Great Depression: Lessons from a Global History. (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006), 324 pp.
  • Editor, Revolution and Pedagogy: Interdisciplinary and Transnational Perspectives on Educational Foundations. (New York:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 229 pp.
  • The Teachers of Stalinism: Policy, Practice, and Power in Soviet Schools of the 1930s. (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2002), 333 pp.

Journal Articles

  • “La Grippe or Russian Influenza: Mortality Statistics during the 1890 Epidemic in Indiana.” Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses. Vol. 13, No. 13, May 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/irv.12632
  • “’The Two Diseases Are So Utterly Dissimilar’: Using Digital Humanities Tools to Advance Scholarship in the Global History of Medicine.” Current Research in Digital History, Vol. 1 (2018). George Mason University Center for History and New Media: http://crdh.rrchnm.org/.
  • “’Will It Come Here?’ Using Digital Humanities Tools to Explore Medical Understanding during the Russian Flu Epidemic, 1889-90,” Medical History, Vol. 61, No, 3 (July 2017), pp. 474-477.
  • Lead author, with Veronica Kimmerly and Sinclair Ewing-Nelson, “‘Look Out for La Grippe’: Using Digital Humanities Tools to Interpret Information Dissemination during the Russian Flu, 1889-1890.” Medical History Vol. 60, Issue 1 (January 2016), pp. 129-131. DOI 10.1017/mdh.2015.84.
  • “Maternity and Modernity: Soviet Women Teachers and the Contradictions of Stalinism.” Women’s History Review Vol. 19, No. 3 (July 2010), pp. 451-477.
  • “If the Teacher was a Man: Masculinity and Power in Stalinist Schools.” Gender & History Vol. 21, No. 1 (2009) pp. 107-129.
  • “The Repudiation of Single-Sex Schooling: Boys’ Schools in the Soviet Union, 1943-1954.” American Educational Research Journal Vol. 43, No. 4 (Winter 2006) pp. 621-650.
  • “A Stalinist Celebrity Teacher: Gender and Professional Identities in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.” Journal of Women’s History Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter 2004) pp. 92-118.
  • “Personal Acts with Public Meanings: Suicide by Soviet Women Teachers in the Stalin Era.” Gender & History vol. 14, no. 1 (April 2002) pp. 117-137.

Book Chapter

  • “‘Taking the Path of Least Resistance’: Expulsions from Soviet Schools in the Stalinist 1930s.” Chapter in Carla Aubrey, Michael Geiss, Veronika Magyar-Haas, and Jurgen Oeklkers, eds., Education and the State. International Perspectives on a Changing Relationship (Routledge: London, 2015), pp. 219-233.
  • 2018 National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Seminar for Schoolteachers on the Spanish Influenza of 1918, as project director ($94,000).
  • 2017 National Endowment for the Humanities, Digital Humanities Advancement grant, $40,000, to host Viral Networks workshop, in partnership with National Library of Medicine (NIH).
  • 2017 Ferenc Gyorgyey Research Travel Grant for research on the history of epidemic influenza, Yale Medical Historical Library, $1500.
  • 2016 Competitive Research Grant, funded by 4VA consortium of Virginia Universities, $35,000 for undergraduate research stipends and other expenses related to medical history research.
  • 2015 National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Seminar for Schoolteachers on the Spanish Influenza of 1918, as project director ($101,000).
  • 2015-17  National Endowment for the Humanities, Tracking the Russian Flu in U.S. and German Medical and Popular Reports, 1889-1893, in partnership with Leibniz University, Hannover, 127,600 Euros from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and $175,000 from NEH.
  • 2015-16  National Endowment for the Humanities, Cooperative Agreement, for workshop, Images and Texts in Medical History, in coordination with History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine and Wellcome Trust (UK), April 2016 (Project Director, $70,000).
  • 2012-14  National Endowment for the Humanities, Digging into Data Challenge, “An Epidemiology of Information: Data Mining the 1918 Influenza Pandemic” (Project Director, $123,778).
  • Introduction to Data in Social Context
  • Age of Revolution
  • Age of Globalization
  • Empires in World History
  • Epidemics in World History
  • Russia to Peter the Great
  • Imperial Russia
  • History of the Middle East
  • Topics: U.S. Policy in the Middle East
  • Topics: U.S.-Iran Relations
  • Topics: European Women
  • Topics: 1918 Influenza Pandemic

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