11:05 a.m., Nov. 1, 2010----David Suisman, associate professor of history at the University of Delaware, has been selected by the University's Francis Alison Society to receive its 2010 Gerard J. Mangone Young Scholars Award.

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The award, named in honor of a distinguished University professor, recognizes promising and accomplished faculty. The recipient is chosen by fellow faculty who have received the Francis Alison Award, UD's highest faculty honor.

Speaking on behalf of the Francis Alison Society, Donald L. Sparks, S. Hallock du Pont Chair in Soil and Environmental Chemistry and director of the Delaware Environmental Institute, said Suisman “has compiled a remarkable record in scholarship and in teaching and mentoring students. His seminal book, Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music, published by Harvard University Press, has received numerous accolades, including the prestigious Hagley Prize as the best book in business history in 2009.”

Suisman also co-edited Sound in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, published in 2010 by the University of Pennsylvania Press, with colleague Susan Strasser, Richards Professor of American History at UD.

“I am humbled to receive this award. With so many outstanding, innovative young scholars at UD, it comes as a tremendous honor to have my work recognized,” Suisman said. “I am delighted that the Francis Alison Society has chosen someone in the history department and the humanities. For me, this award honors not just my own work, but the vital scholarship going on throughout the humanities.”

A member of the UD faculty since 2004, Suisman received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship in 2007-2008.

He is currently working on The Soundscape of the State, which analyzes instances where the state and sound have intersected in meaningful historical ways, such as wiretapping and audio surveillance, as well as political battles over sonic booms from aircraft and the various uses of sound by the military.

“When I began researching music and sound, many historians, and a few other scholars, didn't know what to make of my work, because it didn't fit easily within conventional disciplinary boundaries,” Suisman said. “It is gratifying now to see that work reaching across disciplines and speaking to a wide range of scholars.”

Suisman teaches courses on consumer capitalism, cultural history, music and sound in the United States. His articles and reviews have appeared in the Journal of American History, Social Text, The Believer, Journal of Southern History and other publications.

He received his doctorate in history in 2002 from Columbia University, and graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in history in May 1992. Suisman also completed coursework in history, film, art history and French at the Universite de Paris (Sorbonne).

Gerard J. Mangone

The Mangone Young Scholars Award is named in honor of Gerard J. Mangone, who joined the UD faculty in 1972 and created the UD Center for the Study of Marine Policy, renamed in his honor in 2003.

Mangone, University Research Professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, received the Francis Alison Award in 1983. Earlier this year, he received an honorary degree from UD.

Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photo by Kathy Atkinson