Peter Ling
Professor of American Studies, Faculty of Arts
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Biography
My recent work has been essentially historical sociology, attempting to test the proposition that social capital was critical to the success of the civil rights movement. One aspect of this is to see whether donations are occasional and spontaneous or significantly connected to pre-existing networks of association. A second aspect is to look at the Citizenship Schools in South Carolina and Mississippi to establish whether the recruitment of teachers and pupils tapped or created networks of association. This should produce a monograph Backing Dr King by 2015. Meantime, I have been commissioned to write a biography of John F. Kennedy for Routledge's Historical Biographies series for publication in 2013.
Teaching Summary
American History
The Presidency.
The Civil Rights Movement
Research Summary
American history. Political education in the civil rights movement. North American environmental history. Social capital and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Social capital refers to the… read more
Current Research
American history. Political education in the civil rights movement. North American environmental history. Social capital and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Social capital refers to the ntetworks, norms and sanctions that enable a group to perform more effectively as a group than as individuals. While segregation and discrimination clearly limited the levels of capital held by the African American population, it allowed for the formation of certain forms of social capital that proved basic to the civil rights movement. My research looks at the networks that channeled donations to SCLC and those that enabled grassroots organizing via the Citizenship Schools, using South Carolina and Mississippi as case studies for the latter.. I am writing articles detailing the processes by which SCLC elicited funds in response to media spot-lit events and the role of celebrities in fund-raising.
I am writing a general biography of John F Kennedy
Past Research
Introduction of the automobile.
Future Research
Comparative study of Martin Luther King Jr. (Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Frederick Douglass, Billy Graham, Cesar Chavez, Malcolm X, and Jesse Jackson, Lyndon Johnson, John F. and Robert F. Kennedy). Political Education in the Civil Rights Movement.