Tuesday, September 29 2015, 4pm Miller Learning Center 350 Lecture Dr. Monique Laney will discuss her book “German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie”. Reception will follow Dr. Laney’s lecture at 5:00p. In 1950, Wernher von Braun and his team of rocket experts relocated to Huntsville, Alabama, a town that would celebrate the team, despite their essential role in the recent Nazi war effort, for their contributions to the U.S. Army missile program and later to NASA’s space program. Laney’s book— published this year by Yale University Press— demonstrates how the histories of German Nazism and Jim Crow in the American South intertwine in narratives about the past. This is a critical reassessment of a singular time that links the Cold War, the Space Race, and the Civil Rights era while addressing important issues of transnational science and technology, and asking Americans to consider their country’s own history of racism when reflecting on the Nazi past.
