Tag: ‘race’

Reimagining and decolonising higher education

Below Dr Jodi Burkett, UoP senior lecturer in late twentieth-century history, imperial history and race, writes about a conference she attendance sharing ideas for decolonising the university curriculum.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Reimagining Higher Education: Journeys of decolonising conference held at the Institute of Education in London (thanks to SASSHPL for funds to support this!). I was attending with my colleague Bhavin Dedhia (Dentistry) to present some work that we have been doing with Lena Grinsted (Biology) to decolonise science teaching and promote inclusive teaching and learning spaces here at Portsmouth. This work is based on research that Lena undertook a few years ago which will be published shortly in Plos One.

While it was really helpful and interesting to present what we’ve been working on, listening to the keynotes and other speakers was perhaps even more useful. In reflecting on the day I think that there were three things in particular that stood out to me about the conference and the presentations that I saw.

First, there was a clear recognition that we need to pay more attention to the emotions involved in decolonising work. One of the first plenary sessions was from the team at De Montfort who have done extensive work on decolonising the university. They encouraged conference participants to reflect on the joy that came with doing decolonising work. This is very true – undertaking work to decolonise curricula has allowed me to work with colleagues that I might never have met which has been amazing. The work itself has also encouraged me to think about my research and my teaching in new and different ways and has been fulfilling work. That said, the reason we needed to be reminded to reflect on the joy is because the challenge and the emotional difficulty of doing this work are so apparent and ever-present, which I will expand upon a bit next.

The second thing that kept recurring throughout the day was the particular challenges that most people across the sector are experiencing. Decolonising work is challenging to do, not just because it requires a high level of self-reflection and commitment to change the way you think and do things. It is also challenging because there are many people who don’t think it is possible or worth doing (or who are adamantly opposed to it). One of the keynote speakers spoke about trying to do this work while politicians in his state actively sought to prevent him. Doing this work therefore becomes logistically and strategically difficult and takes an emotional toll that is often overlooked.

Finally, the importance of history for decolonising was mentioned repeatedly by a whole range of speakers. One of the most significant first steps in decolonising is to know about the context in which our societies, our assumptions, and our ways of knowing were created. And understanding context is what we, historians, do best! One of the main pillars of the work that I’ve been doing with Lena and Bhavin has been to highlight how important transdisciplinarity is to the project of decolonising. This is a collective endeavour that is best achieved in partnership. We all need to know and understand the context of the world we live in, but that doesn’t mean that everyone needs to be an historian. What it does mean, is that historians are crucial. Teaching students the skills of historians – to evaluate data, to understand various interpretations, and to know the historical context – is, itself, part of the decolonising project. This conference reinforced for me the importance of historians and historical knowledge and the importance of historians in sharing this knowledge and working with those outside of our disciplines and in the wider world.

November 13, 2024
The different experiences of black and white women within the US feminist movement

Recent UoP history graduate Rebekah Sistig’s dissertation looked at how inherited racism divided members of the second-wave feminist movement in the USA. She discusses her research below, with some good tips on breaking down the process. Rebekah’s supervisor was Dr Lee Sartain.

Angela Davis, Betty Friedan, bell hooks and Gloria Steinem – all icons of the second wave feminist movement in the US, all women who dedicated their lives to fight against sexism. But were they truly united in their fight against the patriarchy? Was the supposed ‘sisterhood’ all it was chalked up to be? Judging by their contrasting books, organisations, ideologies, and social groups, I think it may not be.

The 1960s and 1970s in the US was a time of immense social change and political movements, all of which interacted and influenced each other. Many of the women who were at the forefront of the feminist movement were also heavily involved in the Civil Rights movement, the New Left movement and many others. The impact of these movements all occurring in the same time period lead to great divides in ideological thought even within the movements themselves. In the feminist movement there was much divide over which tactics were most effective in achieving equality amongst men and women and how best to use the movement’s resources.

U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) 101454320; IHM: C00945

Through my dissertation, I sought to investigate why and how black and white feminists were divided in their cultures and experiences throughout the second wave movement. I investigated key literature, spanning from Friedan’s mighty The Feminine Mystique to grassroots magazines like Azalea: A Magazine by and for Third World Lesbians, and organisations as large as NOW: the National Organization for Women, founded in 1966, to as small as Bread and Roses, a socialist women’s collective founded in 1969. What I concluded was that the divide between white and black feminists was fuelled by decades of racial discrimination and exacerbated by white feminists’ lack of accountability and acknowledgement of their inherited racism in ideological theory and practice. This led to a necessity for black feminists’ to create their own feminist spaces, cultures, and ideology in order for them to tackle the duel oppression they faced in the US.

Members of NOW including Betty Friedan (left)

My decision to research the experiences and cultures of women during the second wave movement came from a specific lecture I had during my second year of learning. In the lecture the different forms of feminist ideology were being described, beginning with liberal feminism and trickling down to black feminism and intersectionality. I found myself asking how this separation in ideology had occurred and how this separation may have represented itself in the lives of black and white feminists of the 1970s. Did it change the clothes they wore? The music they listened to? The books they read? This is where I began my research. I began researching feminist music and fashion of the 1970s which I soon found a challenging endeavour, both because of the growing complexity of some of the reading I was finding and due to the seemingly limited amount of historical analysis of feminist culture – particularly relating to black women. So my comparison began to look rather one sided, with many sources either referring to ‘feminists’ as one unified group or focusing blatantly on white feminist groups. So, I expanded my topic outward.

I went back to my second year lecture reading list, as well as one which my supervisor, Dr Lee Sartain, had provided me with after my dissertation proposal, and spent the start of my third year familiarising myself with the wider movement and the most prominent pieces of analysis on the topic – scholars like bell hooks, Wini Breines and Margaret A. Simons to name a few. While doing this foundational research was where my supervisor was most helpful. When I was unsure or unaware of a particular book, organisation, or individual, my supervisor was extremely helpful in recommending reading and documentaries to familiarise myself with certain aspects of the second wave feminist movement.

Writing your dissertation can be an extremely daunting task. From the word count, the structural formalities, referencing, researching and even your acknowledgements, it can be extremely stressful and overwhelming. A helpful tactic for writing your dissertation is to follow your initiative when it comes to your research and to choose a topic which interests you, or at least one you think you would be able to write 10,000 words about. Either way by the end of your writing you might find yourself completely sick of your topic, I know I certainly did at times.

What I found most helpful in regulating my own stress and keeping my research and writing somewhat manageable was to break it all down as much as possible. I viewed the dissertation as three 2,500 word essays (each one a chapter) put together, one on the historiography surrounding my topic, and two based off of the most comparable aspects of black and white feminist cultures – literature and organisations. Then I broke each chapter down even further. The historiography chapter I divided into different debates/issues which existed in existing research on the second wave movement. Due to my dissertation being a comparison, I was able to divide my second and third chapters into two sections, one focusing on black feminists and the other on white feminists. Once I had broken down my workload into what seemed more manageable, I did my research in sections as well, focusing on one second of my dissertation at a time, allowing me to relax a little bit more.

I’m sure many of my fellow graduates will agree that your final year of study goes much quicker than you would expect! Between your dissertation, assessments, final year dinners, parties, and nights out, to your graduation, your final year is one to remember. Try to stop and smell the roses, look after yourself and your peers, and be proud of all that you have and will accomplish!

August 14, 2024
The experience of Italian Jews under the racial laws of 1938

Italy’s involvement in the persecution of Jews is often overshadowed by the horrors of Nazi Germany. Chanel Parker earned a first in her dissertation titled “Inscribed Otherness: The Role of Historical Integration on Italian Jews’ Experiences and Responses to the Leggi Razziali,” where she unveiled Italy’s historically understated role in anti-Semitic prosecution, and investigated how the country has perpetuated the idea of its benevolence towards Jews. Below, Chanel details the intricacies of her research, and discusses her experiences and advice for writing the dissertation.

Primo Levi’s haunting memoirs are among the few famous reminders of Italy’s involvement in Jewish persecution. In the overbearing shadow cast by Nazi Germany, Italy has been depicted as a beacon of morality, embodying a contrasting narrative of salvation, assimilation, and righteousness. Yet, beyond the harrowing confines of Auschwitz, Levi bore witness to the insidious effects of the Leggi Razziali– a set of racial laws imposed by Mussolini’s regime, to systematically marginalise and disenfranchise Italian Jews. He was one of many victims of Italian antisemitism.

Primo Levi as a child with his family in Rapallo, Italy, 1927, CDEC digital library

In my pursuit of underrepresented avenues in Holocaust history, I encountered the Italian racial laws for the first time. How interesting, I remember thinking, that Italy has been perceived historically as a safe haven for Jews – a lesser evil – despite its concurrent implementation of a racially discriminatory campaign independent of Nazi directives. Moreover, I found myself questioning if the substantial integration of Italian Jews into fascist society could have affected the ways in which they chose to navigate the sudden onset of antisemitism. Fascism was not anti-Semitic at its roots like Nazism; perhaps Italian Jews responded uniquely to this ideological shift. This is what ultimately inspired my dissertation question.

Deciding on my question was the most difficult part. Being notoriously indecisive, I allowed myself an anticipated period of hesitation before beginning my reading in late November. Two research challenges quickly became apparent. Firstly, the subject had garnered little attention in the English language until the revisionist period in the 1980s, when historians began to reassess prevailing ideas of Italian tolerance and leniency. This meant that many of the primary sources that I encountered were in Italian, and, even upon translation, often carried an underlying propagandistic tone. Secondly, Germany stands as the epicentre of major historiography on the Holocaust and Jewish experiences, meaning that the literature documenting Italian Jews’ experiences is notably limited in comparison to German Jews, or the global Jewish community.

Setbacks like this can leave you with your head in your hands– I spent consecutive days staring at the wall, I totally get it. However, if it is any reassurance, it is also these challenges that underscore the significance of your dissertation; the objective is to fill a gap in the historical knowledge, so approaching the topic from a unique and less-explored perspective is highly indicative of a successful piece of scholarly work. For me, the scarcity of English language literature on my topic also served to reaffirm the critical importance of minority studies; I knew that I had to responsibly portray the diverse experiences of Italian Jews under the Leggi Razziali, refraining from generalisations, and acknowledging the individuality of each perspective. This depth of research required the analysis of several diary entries, letters, and transcribed interviews, recorded in the works of leading scholars such as Renzo De Felice, Alexander Stille, and Joshua Zimmerman, among others.

What became evident from these diaries, was that the historical integration of Italian Jews resulted in distinct traumas and responses when the Leggi Razziali was implemented in 1938, emphasising the importance of assessing Italy’s history independently from the wider Jewish experience. Italian Jews’ widespread prevailing hope in Mussolini, and their struggle to relate to the Jewish aspect of their identity, influenced the ways in which they reacted to anti-Semitic legislation, causing many fascist Jews to comply with measures, with the intention of reasserting their loyalty to the regime. Italian Jews’ coping mechanisms also exhibited considerable variation depending on socio-economic status. Notably, lower-class Jews experienced comparatively less impact, primarily due to their pre-existing financial impoverishment, strong religious adherence, and infrequent affiliation with fascist ideologies. Moreover, feelings of isolation, confusion, and betrayal were particularly heightened for Italian Jews, since antisemitism had not always been a part of Italy’s fascist state, which was not the case for Germany, like other European countries.

Cartoon published in “La Difesa della Razza”, 15 November 1938 on the anti-semitic laws, Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Milan. It states that Jews were prohibited from military service, acting as guardians, owning defence interests, owning land or buildings, and from having Aryan domestics in their households. Foreign Jews were to be expelled. Jews were prohibited from all aspects of government, banks, insurance companies and universities.

While there is so much to be said about Italian-Jewish experiences, the most important conclusion to be drawn is that the unique traumas of Italian Jews do not, of course, diminish the unique traumas of Jews of other nationalities; each community’s history is valid, and deserving of recognition. I placed significant stress on myself to address every facet of my topic comprehensively, however the reality is that the constraints of a 10,000 word limit inevitably leave some areas unexplored. While this realisation can be disheartening, it is essential to focus on delivering a thorough and coherent analysis within the given parameters. Refine your arguments, prioritise your most crucial points, and cut out anything that you don’t need- you will be completely fine.

I wish I considered myself equipped to give advice such as “start early,” and “do a little bit every day,” but that has never been my work style. If you thrive on the adrenaline of a last-minute deadline like I do, then ensuring that you have a rich repository of detailed notes and references is paramount. As you deepen your understanding of your topic through extensive reading, you are unknowingly laying the foundations that will enable the natural and effortless articulation of your argument at a later date. I sincerely can’t write well without extreme pressure, so this is what completely saved my degree. More importantly, cliché as it is, ensuring that your topic ignites a passion within you is crucial for creating compelling work. The dissertation is a lengthy process, but it can be incredibly academically rewarding; aim to approach it in a way that ensures you can reflect on it with satisfaction, not resentment. Choose a topic that really interests you, and I promise that it’s not as scary as it seems.

Good luck, you’ve got this.

June 27, 2024
Polar Exploration and the Imperial Imagination: the social influences that drove arctic explorers to risk all

Most histories of polar exploration focus on the biographies and psychologies of heroic, driven individuals. Matthew Voyce’s UoP BA history dissertation, Polar Exploration and the Imperial Imagination 1845-1922: Race, Science and Competing Approaches, sought to go beyond this to understand the complex ways in which these events connected with the broader social influences and ideas of their time, including imperialism, and the impetus towards scientific advancement. Matthew’s supervisor was Dr Matt Heaslip. Below Matthew writes about his approach to the topic, and his experience of the process of writing the dissertation.

Captain Scott’s grave is a lonely place. A solitary cross, hastily nailed together from pine board, watches the endless, unsettling Antarctic plain from its home on Observation Hill. This isn’t where Scott is buried. He’s buried underneath the drifting snow and shifting ice of the Ross Ice Shelf, forever part of the continent.

Of course, Scott wasn’t the first man to die during one of the myriad British expeditions to both the north and the south pole. He knew better than most the risks he was running, the suffering he would have to endure. So why did he, and countless others, go?

This is ultimately what my dissertation is about. Traditional orthodoxy places the primary motives for polar exploration in something deeply ingrained within these explorers, a certain attraction to the desolation of the poles. I believe there is some truth to this. I do not dispute the drive and ferocious bravery of every soul who ventured their lives for these voyages. But they were human. They lived in complex social systems riddled with doubt and contradictions. Focus solely on the forces at play within the minds of explorers is simply not a satisfactory answer when trying to understand why generations of Briton’s gave so much in pursuit of the poles.

When I began reading in October, two things were immediately obvious. Firstly, historians have barely scratched the surface of what polar study has to offer to the study of history. The vast majority of polar histories are biographical, choosing to portray expeditions not as part of the fabric of their era but as stand-alone curiosities. Secondly, those historians who had combined polar exploration with the broader strands of British society (naturally) did not agree with each other. One strand saw polar exploration as a product of imperial thought, and all its associated evils. The other champions scientific advancement and industrial impetus.

I knew my dissertation needed to address both of these points. It had to try to tie polar expeditions into the prevailing themes and concerns of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, whilst acknowledging the ongoing debate between imperial drive and scientific determination. After what felt like a lifetime agonising about how I could manage this in only 10,000 words, I decided to compare the two competing debates. As these two themes connected polar exploration the broad streams that made the zeitgeist of the time, I reasoned that by comparing the ongoing debate I could both demonstrate analytical skills and contextual knowledge.

But here the methodological reasoning ended. As I began to read more and more, I understood less and less. It was like drowning in paradox. The concepts I was dealing with were even more complicated than I first realised. Elements such as social Darwinism and British morality kept figuring in both the secondary literature and primary sources. Eventually, I was trying to grapple with the twisting contradictions that propped up British society. It was a lot.

But luckily, I had help. My dissertation supervisor, Matt Heaslip, was always available for questions, pointing me in the right direction on subjects such as Pax Britannica. I also had my teaching to fall back on. Over my three years of undergraduate study, I had studied the British Empire in depth, particularly its seedy underbelly. Because of this I already knew something of the driving forces underneath the empire and such I had a launch pad into an incredibly dense and difficult subject. That, I think, is the key. It is important to fall back onto what you know and have confidence in that base rather than fixating on what you don’t know. Only after I learnt this could I begin to dive into the substance of my dissertation.

What I found took me by surprise. The dual forces of racialised thinking and scientific endeavour were littered throughout the primary sources. You could see it in the press, you could see it in expedition publications. Underneath everything there was a perplexing blend of pseudoscience that sought to justify the human and financial expense undertaken by the likes of Scott. It was a peculiar blend of social influences that seemed to take on another dimension every time I took another look at my evidence. Explorers themselves didn’t necessarily embody originality. Yes, demonstrated bravery that is vanishingly rare in this world. But instead of being pulled to the poles by internal personalities they were pushed by the conditions of Britain at the time.

The true balance between internal drive and external pressure is difficult to understand and would require far more than 10,000 words. But looking back it is clear to me that these men themselves were products of their time in the most Victorian way. I do worry that perhaps this is unnecessarily dismissive of Scott, Shackleton and company. After all, they risked everything the most hostile environment of all, and someone doesn’t do that with extraordinary determination. But I also realise that by showing the conflicted nature of both explorers and society alike we achieve a fuller and more complete picture of this imperial niche.

I’m not ashamed to say I loved writing my dissertation. It was my first foray into history not shaped by an essay question of characterised by casual interest. It was also difficult. It was frustrating and at times agonising. But at the end of the day, I believed in my ability and knew I had 10,000 words to write and no amount of giving up would get them written. My advice to anyone reading this is three-fold. Firstly, work to your strengths. You cannot build without foundations. And secondly, keep ploughing on no matter what. You might only manage twenty minutes a day, but it all counts as progress even when it doesn’t feel like it. And lastly, try not to lose the passion. Watch films, read stories and keep that interest in your topic ignited. If you manage all three, then you will succeed no matter what gets thrown at you.

Good luck and go well.

June 19, 2024
Differential fees for overseas students

In this new post, Senior Lecturer Jodi Burkett shares a podcast in which she discusses a chapter she has written for the edited collection The Break-up of Greater Britain (MUP, 2021). Jodi’s research focuses on the cultural and social impacts of the end of the British Empire, with a particular focus on national movements like the National Union of Students, and in this podcast she reveals how the different fees charged to overseas students caused significant anger among the student community in the late-1960s.

Increasing tuition fees for University students has been a way for governments to save money since, at least, the late 1960s. While most students didn’t have to pay their tuition fees until the late 1990s (the Local Education Authority paid these fees for most students), this was not the case for those coming to study in the UK from abroad.

In 1967 the British government, for the first time, decided that international students (or overseas students as they were then known) should pay more for their tuition fees than ‘home’ students. In 1966 all students were charged £70 tuition fees, but from 1967 it was £70 for ‘home’ students and £250 for overseas students on undergraduate courses.

There are many reasons why the government took this decision. But the decision, and the debates that surrounded it, tell us a lot about the changing nature of Britain’s world role and, particularly, how Britain was relating to former colonies and the Commonwealth. One key area of discussion around this decision was what sort of ‘responsibility’ Britain had for students from former colonies. Education was seen as an important way for Britain to look after these countries, to maintain economic and cultural links with them and ensure lasting relationships after empire.

My chapter, ‘Boundaries of belonging: differential fees for overseas students in Britain, c. 1967’ (in the book The Break-Up of Greater Britain edited by Chistrian D. Pedersen and Stuart Ward published by Manchester University Press in 2021) explores how we can see Britain grappling with the end of empire through the prism of fees for overseas students.

I discussed this chapter, including how these issues fit into student politics and political activism at the time, with Michael Donnay on the recent podcast for the History of Education Society. Have a listen here!

June 13, 2022
International Women’s Day 2021: Katherine Johnson: Mathematician at NASA

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we are delighted that UoP history graduate Ian Atkins has written this profile of pioneering NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson.

For International Women’s Day I have chosen to write about Katherine Johnson, NASA mathematician, most famous for her work in calculation of the trajectory for manned space orbits, and subsequent lunar expeditions.[1] Johnson was born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia on the 26^th August 1918. She was the youngest of four children, her mother a teacher and her father an all-purpose odd job man.[2] Katherine had always excelled at maths and was ahead of her class from an early age. Margot Lee Shetterly indicates that “Johnson was ahead of her contemporaries at every level, she enrolled at High School aged thirteen and was often if not all of the time top of her class”.[3]

Katherine continued this diligent rise in education into her college years: she graduated from High school top of her class aged eighteen, after which she followed her mother into the teaching profession. When the quiet integration of race in the school system happened in West Virginia in 1939, Johnson along with two other black men were picked to attend the prestigious West Virginia University.[4] After just a year however, Johnson decided to leave and focus on starting a family, clearly still the focus of the woman in 1940s America. It is unclear if this was her choice or one that society dictated. Johnson returned to teaching when her daughters were older. In 1952 at a family gathering, a relative suggested that she applied for the open positions at the all-black West Area Computing Section at NASA forerunner: NACA.[5]

There she excelled as a ‘Computer’, the term for a person who could calculate figures and stats long before the electronic versions.[6] Johnson made a steady rise in the WAC Section excelling in many aspects of her job. She was well known among her colleagues and was making inroads in mathematical research from the beginning of her career. Katherine suffered family tragedy in 1956 when her first husband, James Goble, died of an inoperable brain tumour. Three years later however, she met and married second husband Jim Johnson. They were married for 60 years until his own death in 2019. During the Cold War period known as the Space Race the Soviet Union beat all competition when it launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, thus changing the career path of Johnson and her colleagues. Robert A Devine has assessed that the “Eisenhower administration weren’t initially concerned by the launch, the gravitas of Russia coming first was a spur to get the job done for the US”. [7] When the NACA was amalgamated into NASA in 1958 Johnson naturally came along with the programme. She was by now providing expert mathematical data. Katherine was assertive in terms of her career: her oral testimony details that she worked as hard if not harder than her male colleagues, telling people that she had done the work (necessary data analysis and mathematical equations) required to be included in meetings and doctoral reviews.[8]

As demonstrated in the 2016 Theodore Melfi biographical film Hidden Figures Katherine and her colleagues really came to the fore in 1962. The film delicately demonstrates the objectification of both race and sex in 1950s/60 America. As has been touched on, there was always a prejudice toward women and more so black women. The film aims in part to show a break down of the segregated barriers these exceptionally clever women faced. Using artistic licence, one of the film’s pivotal moments is when Johnson is confronted by her superior male colleague Al Harrison for taking many extended breaks. When she explains to him that as a black woman she must walk over half a mile to use the ‘coloured only’ bathroom he is appalled and thus breaks down the sign on the ‘whites only’ bathroom that is much closer to her work station. Later in the production, Katherine’s cementation in history is shown when she manually calculates the landing coordinates after a fault in the now more widely used mechanical computers. The film demonstrates the strong professional relationship that Johnson held with her male colleagues, although some are sceptical and some, including her immediate white female supervisor, are outright racist. The film depicts the success Johnson had and the fact that it was her work and tenacity that won through.[9]

As Dorothy Vaughan’s biography shows, much of the segregation in the film had already been dismantled before the timeline in the production.[10] However, what the film does show is that even during the days of competing with a much greater adversary (the USSR) old prejudices still prevailed. The women that Hidden Figures depicts were good enough if not better for the roles that they held, and it is because of them that the Space Programme was able to be such a great success.[11]

In conclusion, Katherine Johnson is truly one of the 20^th Century’s ‘Hidden Figures’: a woman who defied the odds of both race and gender in the post war period of US history, a woman who was not breaking down barriers for the sake of it but was doing so because she was good enough to do it. Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2015, aged 97. It is perhaps still the legacy of politics and racial tensions in the US that it took the outgoing first black President to award her the US’s Highest Civilian Honour. Johnson was a forthright and tenacious woman, a strong advocate of all creeds and colours and especially young girls and women getting involved in and excelling in the sciences. Katherine Johnson died aged 101 on 24^th February 2020; at her death as one of her many obituaries, NASA administrator James Bridenstine described her as “an American hero and her pioneering legacy will never be forgotten”.[12] This being noted, Johnson was truly a pioneering woman, one that defied the odds and allowed for ground-breaking space work to be undertaken in an age where those around her believed anything was possible. A truly inspiring woman.

[1] The National Aeronautics and Space Association (NASA). “NASA History: Katherine Johnson- The Girl Who Loved to Count.” https://www.nasa.gov/feature/katherine-johnson-the-girl-who-loved-to-count, last accessed 01 March 2021.

[2] David Gutman, “West Virginian of the Year: Katherine G. Johnson,” Charleston Gazette-Mail, December 26, 2016, 10.

[3] The National Aeronautics and Space Association (NASA). “NASA History: Katherine Johnson- Biography.” https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography, last accessed 01 March 2021.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid

[6] Oxford English Dictionary, “Computer,” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

[7] Robert A. Devine, The Sputnik Challenge. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), XIV.

[8] National Visionary Leadership Project. “Katherine Johnson: Oral History Archive.” http://www.visionaryproject.org/johnsonkatherine/, last accessed 01 Mar 2021.

[9] International Movie Database. “Hidden Figures, 2016 Film Dir. Theodore Melfi.” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4846340/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1, last accessed 01 March 2021.

[10] The National Aeronautics and Space Association (NASA). “NASA History: Dorothy Vaughan-Biography.” https://www.nasa.gov/content/dorothy-vaughan-biography, last accessed 01 March 2021.

[11] Rotten Tomatoes: The Leading Online Aggregator of Film and TV Shows. “Hidden Figures.” https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hidden_figures, last accessed 01 March 2021.

[12] James Bridenstine, Via Twitter, “Katherine Johnson Obituary.” Twitter, 24 February 2020.

March 8, 2021