History Department Publishes 2026 Issue of The Ozark Historical Review

The Department of History is thrilled to report the publication of the 2026 issue of The Ozark Historical Review.

Now in its 54th year of publication, the OHR is an academic history journal that showcases the work of the U of A's undergraduate and graduate history students. The entire U of A community is encouraged to browse this latest release, as well as past issues, at the Ozark Historical Review website or ScholarWorks@UARK.

With the regular OHR editor, assistant professor Justin Gage, on teaching leave during the spring 2026 semester, associate professor Matthew Stanley stepped in to helm this year's editorial duties. Stanley praised the 2026 issue's scholarly excellence. "The two essays in this year's volume offer cogent historical analysis based on original primary research," he explained. "In doing so, they illuminate unexplored areas of investigation, make critical thematic connections and draw compelling conclusions about their respective topics. Their overall quality, moreover, testifies to the high level of undergraduate research and writing within the History Department."

As is typical, this year's OHR articles began as research papers written in U of A history courses. Students learn to navigate historical methods of research and writing with the help of their professors. Students who are interested in publishing can then submit their paper to the editor of the OHR, who guides them through the publication process.

"Our faculty are creating pathways for students to engage actively in research from the earliest stages of their academic journey," said Caree Banton, chair of the History Department. "By connecting classroom learning with scholarly inquiry, students gain valuable experience asking important questions, analyzing evidence and developing the skills needed to succeed as informed citizens and future professionals. These high-impact experiences advance the university's commitment to providing every undergraduate student with meaningful opportunities to apply knowledge, deepen their learning and participate in the discovery and creation of new knowledge."

The 2026 issue features articles by undergraduates Kartik Joshi, a political science major, and Michael Lynch, a history and psychology major. The first of these, titled "From Print to Film: Political Censorship and Nationalism in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Central Europe," is a comparative historical study of the interaction between technological change and state censorship in Austria, Germany and Hungary. In it, Joshi surveys how technological innovations, combined with emerging ideologies, led to an increase in subversive political discourse, which state powers from the Habsburgs through the Nazis correctly recognized as a serious threat to their power in Central Europe. From 19th-century lithography through the advent of cinema in the 20th century, Joshi ably demonstrates how "each state's administrative practices and legal tools were leveraged to shape what could be printed or distributed." Notably, Joshi concludes that much 20th century censorship, whether in Germany's Third Reich or Communist Hungary, represented the legal and cultural continuation of political censorship that dated back to the 19th century. 

Ultimately, Joshi cautions that "when weighing the balance between speech and censorship, it is important to keep the lessons of modern history in consideration, as new technologies create new challenges in a world of increasing censorship."

The second article, Lynch's '"Compromise with Lawlessness': The Relationship between Lynching and the Death Penalty in Arkansas, 1895-1925," addresses the historic connection between race, lynching and capital punishment in Arkansas. Enhancing our understanding of what scholars term the "substitution theory" of state-sanctioned execution, or how the death penalty took the place of lynching in American society, Lynch uses a statistical analysis to illustrate change over time and the role of race in Arkansas' death penalty cases. He posits that "legal lynchings" (rushed, state-sanctioned executions) became increasingly common "as a method of satisfying a community's desire for vengeance while simultaneously staving off the more infamous and extralegal method of lynchings—a method considered distasteful for state officials who wanted to promote a more civilized sense of law and order."

Above all, Lynch underscores how "blurry" this transitional period was in Arkansas, while also demonstrating that the movement between the two was a far more gradual process than scholars have previously credited. "Although the key transition appears to occur distinctly in the 1930s," Lynch argues, "its transformative origins are rooted in much earlier decades, closer to the turn of the century."

The Ozark Historical Review is now more accessible than ever. Lora Lennertz, the University of Arkansas Libraries director of open education, data and publishing services; Melody Herr, scholarly communication librarian; and Amy Allen, university archivist, have worked to get 14 issues of OHR onto ScholarWorks@UARK, the U of A's open access repository for work created by members of the university community. Student publications, like OHR, will also soon be discoverable through the U of A Libraries' OneSearch.

OHR editor, Just Gage, invites students to submit their original research papers for consideration of publication in the OHR by Dec. 20. All submissions will be reviewed by the editorial committee. The OHR is published at the end of the spring semester. More details are here: OHR Guidelines and Deadlines PDF.