News & Notables
Winter 2008 Edition

Commencement | Admissions | Alumni News and Job Placements
Fellowships, Grants, Awards, and Prizes | Papers, Publications, and Conferences | Celebrations

Past Newsletters
Spring 2007
Winter 2007
Spring 2006

AHA Reception

WINTER COMMENCEMENT

On December 20, 2007, the Department faculty, the Dean of the Graduate School, and family and friends welcomed four new doctoral recipients and one master of arts conferee to the ranks of History graduate alumni. A slideshow of the Commencement festivities can be viewed online by clicking here.

ADMISSIONS

For the 2007-2008 admissions cycle, the Department received 257 applications, just shy of the previous year's historic high. Admissions decisions will be announced in late winter 2008.

ALUMNI NEWS AND JOB PLACEMENTS

Askar Askarov (PhD, Russia & Former Soviet Union, 2007; Advisor: Michael David-Fox) has accepted a permanent post as a television-radio news anchor for the Azeri-Turkish language programs at the Voice of America.

Paul Burton (PhD, Ancient Mediterranean, 2000; Advisor: Arthur Eckstein) has accepted a position as Lecturer in Ancient History at the Australian National University (Canberra, Australia).

Harvey Cohen (PhD, US, 2002; Advisor: David Grimsted), Lecturer at King's College-London, delivered guest lectures about Duke Ellington and "Harlem Meets Broadway" at the Center for Study of the Americas, Copenhagen Business School and the Southbank Centre's Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall during the London Jazz Festival.

Nancy S. Hall (PhD, Science and Technology, 2002; Advisor: Lindley Darden), Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Delaware Academic Center (Georgetown, DE), published "R. A. Fisher and His Advocacy of Randomization" in the 2007 volume of Journal of the History of Biology.

Brad Houston (HiLS, Modern Europe, 2007; Advisor: Donald Sutherland) has accepted the position of University Records Archivist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In this position, he serves both as the primary archivist for records of UW-Milwaukee offices and departments and as the campus records manager.

Alexander B. Magoun (PhD, Science and Technology, 2000; Advisor: Robert Friedel), Executive Director David Sarnoff Library (Princeton, NJ), published Television: The Life Story of a Technology with Greenwood Press in June 2008. Dr. Magoun was recently appointed to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) History Committee as well as the board of the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame.

Susan Gelfand Malka (PhD, US, 2003; Advisor: Robyn Muncy), lecturer at the University of Maryland, published Daring to Care: American Nursing and Second-Wave Feminism with the University of Illinois Press in November 2008.

Matthew Mason (PhD, US, 1997; Advisor: Ira Berlin), Assistant Professor of History at Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah), presented “The Geopolitics of Slave Trade Abolition in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World,” at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture Conference ’The bloody Writing is for ever torn:’ Domestic and International Consequences of the First Governmental Efforts to Abolish the Atlantic Slave Trade, held in Elmina, Ghana, in August 2007.

Gregory Michaelidis (PhD, US, 2005: Advisor: Gary Gerstle) has accepted the position of Director of Research and Strategic Analysis at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York (Buffalo, NY). A Buffalo native, Dr. Michealidis has responsibility for research, analysis, and speechwriting activities for Dr. John B. Simpson, University President.

Christina Morina (PhD, Modern Europe, 2007; Advisor: Jeffrey Herf) has been appointed to the position of Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter for 20th-century history at the Historical Institute of the Friedrich-Schiller-University (Jena, Germany). In 2008, Dr. Morina will teaching a course on intellectuals and ideologies of European fascism, as well as starting to work on her second book, a group biography about leading communist intellectuals in Germany, France, and Russia between 1848 and 1933.

Richard Osborn (PhD, US, 1990; Advisor: Emory Evans), President of Pacific Union College (Angwin, CA) who currently serves as the Chair of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU), will publish his dissertation about William Preston in three forthcoming issues of the online Journal of Backcountry History. An article drawn from the dissertation, “William Preston – Revolutionary,” will appear in the 2008 volume of The Smithfield Review.

Reynolds J. Scott-Childress (PhD, US, 2003; Advisor: James Gilbert), Assistant Professor of History at SUNY New Paltz (New Patz, NY) published "Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Project of Cultural Reconstruction," in the 2007 volume of African American Review.

Donald R. Shaffer (PhD, US, 1996; Advisor: Ira Berlin) has accepted a faculty position in the Division of Liberal Arts at Upper Iowa University (Fayette, Iowa).

Ingo Trauschweizer (PhD, International and Diplomatic, 2006; Advisor: Jon Sumida), Visiting Assistant Professor of History at New Mexico Tech (Socorro, NM), has accepted a prestigious Max Weber Fellowship at the I have accepted at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy), for the 2008-09 academic year. Dr. Trauschweizer's article, "Learning with an Ally: The U.S. Army and the Bundeswehr in the Cold War," will appear in the April 2008 volume of The Journal of Military History and his monograph, The Cold War U.S. Army: Creating Deterrence for Limited War will be published by the University Press of Kansas in mid-2008.

Keith Swaney (HiLS, US, 2007; Advisor: Leslie Rowland) has accepted a position an Archives and Records Management Specialist, working on electronic access to archival materials, at the New York State Archives (Albany, NY). Keith formerly worked as an archivist at the Dudley Observatory (Schenectady, NY).

FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AWARDS, AND PRIZES

Erik Christiansen (PhD, US; Advisor: James Gilbert) has received a research grant from the Hagley Museum and Library (Wilmington, DE).

Steven Scala (PhD, Modern Europe; Advisor: Jeffrey Herf) has been appointed as an affiliated researcher at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, Germany), to work on his dissertation, "Orthodoxy, Reformism, and Political Change: Foreign Policy Experts in the Soviet Union and East Germany, 1945-1971."

PAPERS, PUBLICATIONS, AND CONFERENCES

Patricia Acerbi (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Barbara Weinstein) will present "An Atlantic Experience of Freedom: Afro-Brazilians, Immigrants, and the World of Street Commerce in Rio de Janeiro, 1890-1902" at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, held in Washington, DC, January 3-6, 2008.

Erik Christiansen (PhD, US; Advisor: James Gilbert) will present the paper "'They Knew Not Joseph': History Lessons from DuPont's Cavalcade of America" at the Eighth Graduate Humanities Conference, to be held February 28-29, 2008, at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA).

Paula Halperin (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Barbara Weinstein) and Sarah Sarzynski (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Barbara Weinstein) coorganized, with Maryland historian Saverio Giovacchini, the international conference Neorealismo: Examining the History and Politics of a Transnational Cultural Movement, held October 4-5, 2007, at the University of Maryland.

Katherine Keane (PhD, US; Advisor: Leslie Rowland) will present "Southern Belles and the Second Wave" at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, held in Washington, DC, January 3-6, 2008.

Rinna Kullaa (PhD, Modern Europe; Advisor: John Lampe), have been invited to present a paper at the Thirtieth Anniversary Conference of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), to be held in March 2008.

A. Ricardo López (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Barbara Weinstein) will present "Conscripts of Empire: Transnational Governmentality, State Formation and the Historical Making of the Middle Class in Colombia, 1949-1958" at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, held in Washington, DC, January 3-6, 2008.

Jay Metz (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Barbara Weinstein) will publish "The Rise and Fall of Samba-Chanchadas Starring Kid Morengueira: Malandragem , Nationalism, and the Cinematic Sambas of Moreira da Silva and Miguel Gustavo (1960-1972)" in a forthcoming issue of Studies in Latin American Popular Culture.  Jay was also invited by the editor of SLAPC to present the paper at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association conference, to be held in San Francisco, CA in March 2008.

Sarah Sarzynski (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Barbara Weinstein) will present "'The Symbol of the New Nordeste ' : Histories of Delmiro Gouveia During the Cold War " at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, held in Washington, DC, January 3-6, 2008.

Jonathan White (PhD, US; Advisor: Herman Belz) will present "Copperheads in the Union Army" at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, held in Washington, DC, January 3-6, 2008. Jonathan will be joined by alum Matthew Mason (PhD, US, 1997; Advisor: Ira Berlin) on a panel entitled "Identity, Ideals, and Politics in the Civil War Era."

Rebecca Wieters (PhD, US; Advisor: Leslie Rowland) presented a paper entitled "Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in Washington, D.C., 1900-1918" at the 34th Annual Conference on Washington, D.C., Historical Studies, held in Washington November 1-3, 2007.

CELEBRATIONS

Jeremy Sullivan (PhD, US) and Amy Widestrom married on July 2, 2006.

Joseph Frechette (PhD, Ancient Mediterranean) and Adriane Griffen had a baby boy, Luc Nicholas Frechette, born June 5, 2007.

Leandro Benmergui (PhD, Latin America) and Paul Halperin (PhD, Latin America) were married on August 9, 2007.

Darren Speece (PhD, US) and Tiernan Sittenfeld had a baby boy, Porter Paul Speece, born August 26, 2007.

Ian Drake (PhD, US) and his wife had a baby boy, Owen Emerson Drake, born September 12, 2007.

Daryl "Gus" Grissom (PhD, Ancient Mediterranean) and his wife Erin had a baby girl, Pandora Elaine Grissom, born September 16, 2007.

Erik Christiansen (PhD, US) and Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz married on September 23, 2007.

Jake Kobrick (PhD, US) and Stacy Sandusky married on October 13, 2007.

Ted Cohen (PhD, Latin America) and Joanna Varrone were engaged to be married on November 24, 2007.

Keith Swaney (HiLS, US, 2007) and his fiancée, Kristen Rimany, will be married May 17, 2008.