Stephen R. Ortiz Homepage
At commencement with Rachel Blaifeder, Lindsey Mcclafferty, Jeff Roth, and Nick Pulakos--the amazing 2017 graduates from the History Department.
Stephen R. Ortiz, Associate Professor
Department of History, LT 617
Binghamton University
Binghamton, NY 13902
(607) 777-2646
Thrilled to report that Dr. Audra Jennings' contribution to my edited volume above, titled "'An Emblem of Distinction': The Politics of Disability Entitlement, 1940-1950," has been awarded the Society for History in the Federal Government's 2013 James Madison Prize for best article/essay on the federal government published in 2012 AND the 2013 Disability History Association's Outstanding Article award.
Office Hours, Fall 2021: tbd
In the Lecture Hall and with New Deal seminar students at the FDR Home in Hyde Park, NY. At commencement with David Melstner, Nafisa Chowdhury, and Dov Berkman
--three remarkable 2013 graduates from the History Department.
Fall 2019 Courses:
HIST 380, Soldiers and Veterans in the Modern US
HARP 180, Sports, Culture, and Diplomacy
More about me:
My new project
This project, a monograph tentatively titled, Comrades in Arms: Veterans Organizations and the Politics of National Security in the American Century seeks to understand both what happened to make veterans organizations a “natural” choice for national security hawks as they waged the domestic politics of national security and what impact veterans actually had on American national security policy from the end of World War I until the war in Vietnam undermined the Cold War assumptions on projections of strength and military interventions abroad. The premise of the project is that veterans organizations hold a vital—but almost entirely unexamined—position in American political life as a domestic interest group focused on national security issues. I will argue that beyond veterans’ general stature in American political culture, these organizations’ extraordinary clout in the politics of national security was based both on their strong relationships with, and nearly unfettered access to, policymaking elites, and on their grassroots organizational structures reaching into thousands of communities across the nation.
Watch my Clarke Forum Lecture at Dickinson College on Veterans and the politics of World War II:
Click here to see me discussing my book at the 2010 Roosevelt Reading Festival on CSPAN2's BookTV.
Click here to see me on PBS's History Detectives (2008).
Miscellaneous things I like:
On my mentor, Bob Zieger (1938-2013), and the historical profession:
"In a profession of clowns, he was a stand-up guy!"
Steven Noll
On Writing:
“Plain clarity is better than ornate obscurity.”
Mark Twain
On everything:
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
Voltaire