Barbara Southard

Barbara Southard grew up in New York City, holds a PhD in history from the University of Hawaii, and has served as professor of history, Chairperson of the History Department and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus. She published a book on Indian history, The Women’s Movement and Colonial Politics in Bengal, 1921-1936, and co-authored with Mayra Rosario Urrutia two textbooks in Spanish on the history of the United States. Both books were selected by the Department of Education of Puerto Rico for use by high school students. Barbara has also published short stories in literary journals, and she is the author of The Pinch of the Crab, a collection of ten stories set in Puerto Rico, exploring social conflicts of island life, mostly from the female perspective. Differing concepts of gender roles and conflicting political and social ideals are important themes. In her most recent work, the historical novel Unruly Human Hearts, Barbara once again explores personal crises embedded in social conflict from the point of view of a woman protagonist, but in a different place and a different epoch. Unruly Human Hearts is based on the Beecher-Tilton scandal of the 1870s and it is written from the perspective of Elizabeth Tilton, the woman named as correspondent in the famous court case in which Reverend Henry Ward Beecher was accused of adultery. Barbara has also been active in raising funds for the Shonali Choudhury Fund of the Community Foundation of Puerto Rico, helping local community organizations working to protect women from domestic violence. She does this work in honor of her daughter, a public health professor who died of a brain tumor.