Dr. Dan Margolies ø Batten Associate Professor of History, Virginia Wesleyan College
Email: dmargolies@vwc.edu ø
phone:
757.455.5716 ø Office: Blocker 31
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Street
musicians, Guanajuato, Mexico, Chicago: The Globe
Stereograph Co., c1906; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division,
LC-USZ62-104249
Research Interests, briefly stated
I am most interested in globalization
and American empire. My research focuses
on
I have two new projects
dealing with globalization, although they approach it in radically different
ways.
I am currently writing a book
about extraterritoriality and the manipulation of jurisdiction in the formation
of American empire for the
My first book titled Henry
Watterson and the New South: The Politics of
Empire, Free Trade, and Globalization
was published by the University
Press of Kentucky in Fall, 2006.
This book explores the ways
the great
Watterson viewed an imperial foreign policy and
free trade as the key to southern prosperity.
He argued that globalization in the form of free trade in an
ever-expanding American empire promised to usher in the final resolution of sectional
inequality and economic instability. These opportunities offered answers
to the sovereignty, development, and racial questions that had persisted in the
South since Reconstruction, and to the crisis of social disorder and
overproduction that developed nationally during the depression of the 1890s.
Watterson was one of the strongest advocates of
the idea that empire and free trade could neatly solve the problems of both the
South and the nation. "We shall go
on in religion preaching the Gospel of Christ, and Him crucified, and in
politics, the doctrines of Honest Money, Home Rule and Free Trade," he
wrote in 1897, in a characteristic statement of his view.
About my current projects on empire and
globalization in American history
I. Territoriality, Extraterritoriality, and
Globalization in American Foreign Relations
I am interested in the
politics of empire in
My research demonstrates how,
at the onset of empire, the
Extraterritoriality is the
unilateral expansion of
In this project I am tracing
the role of extraterritoriality in globalization from the guano trade of the
antebellum period through the extraterritorial Supreme Court cases of the
mid-twentieth century. In a series of historical case studies spanning
more than a century, I am exploring how American objectives were pursued
through a global system in which authority and power were distributed and decentralized
in novel ways.
Studying extraterritoriality
opens a window into the operation and structure of American empire. In significant ways, territorial limits to
jurisdiction did not prevent constitutional innovations in imperial governance;
it may even have invited them.
Divided jurisdictions
enshrined a core belief in the utility of distributed and competitive authority
coupled with promotion of economic interests. The balancing of territoriality
and extraterritoriality cleared a space in the law for unilateral,
interventionist, and imperialist action abroad.
I have presented papers on
this topic at the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Annual
Meeting in 2006 and 2007, at the Organization of American Historians conference
in 2007 and at the American Studies Association of Korea conference in
II. Latinization
and Mexican Regional Music in the South
(photo: Margolies)
Tienda y Taqueria El
Rosario and Southern Gun, Inc.,
I am also working on a survey
of the Latinization of the South by exploring one
critical and untapped aspect of this transformation: the music and
cultural geography of the new Latino (principally Mexican) immigration to the
South.
The southeast has experienced
a massive influx of immigrants (one of the largest in the country) which is
unprecedented in Southern history. The diverse, growing, and vital
immigrant Mexican population is transforming the existing, living Southern folk
culture by introducing new music and visual cultures to areas already rich with
long established cultural traditions.
I am investigating the
varieties and cultural context of different styles of Mexican regional music
being transplanted to the southeast and to the southern
This aspect of folklife and history is little studied even as it grows in
significance as the South becomes a new borderland of globalization. While borderlands culture has long been a
topic of interest in cultural histories of the southwest, this
analytical frame has not been utilized in the southeast. This project is interesting and important for
a wide variety of reasons, not least of which is its timeliness given the new
transformations in the region, and the ways it cuts across disciplines. And, the music is great.
(photo
Margolies)
I have been fascinated by the
resilience of traditional music in the new migrant populations and by the
hybrid musics being produced in the region.
I am also studying specific
folk cultural activities associated with the migrant music, such as dancing,
music festivals, and the rodeo.
I have presented my
research in Mexican music in the South at the Southwest Texas Popular Culture
Association conference, at the Appalachian Studies Association
conference in spring 2007 and spring 2009 and additional research and new
recordings at the American Studies Institute "U.S. Immigration in the
Global Context" conference at
I recently published two
articles on migrant music:
"Latino Migrant Music and
Identity in the Borderlands of the New South," Journal of American
Culture 32:2 (June, 2009): 114-125.
“Sé Que Voy a Regresar:
Migrant Music and Globalization in the Nuevo South” in American Studies 31:1 (May, 2008): 1-24.
(Photo: Margolies)
El Nuevo Atlacatl,
(photos:
Margolies)
Panderia, Taqueria, Carniceria,
(photo:
Margolies)
Los Tigres del Norte
playing to thousands at the Gran Jaripeo
in Manassas, Virginia, June 2007
(photo:
Margolies)
Aloe leaves for sale
at La Estrella Latina,
Future Projects:
When these various studies are
complete, I am going to return to a longstanding project of mine which
examines the establishment of civil aviation routes in the Pacific after World
War II.
Other Projects & My Film
In addition to my academic
research, I enjoy working on topics in old time, country, and
bluegrass music. Along with the study of history, the great passions
in my life are old time Southern banjo and fiddle music. I play clawhammer banjo and old time fiddle. I particularly
like the fiddling of the Cumberland Plateau and Eastern Kentucky, and the banjo
style of southwestern
I am
extremely interested in the music of the Texas-Mexico borderlands: Norteño y Conjunto. I
have begun studying Conjunto button accordion and bajo sexto in the traditional
style.
For related information on the
web, see my page of Old
Time Music, Bluegrass, Blues, Cajun, Mexican-American Music
links.
My wife Skye Ochsner Margolies and I are
currently completing a documentary we filmed about bluegrass, gospel, and
country music in Tidewater
We filmed at
Here are a few
of my publications that
are available online.
Back to Dr. Margolies' homepage