Past Newsletters
Winter 2008-09
Spring 2008
Winter 2006-07
Spring 2007
Winter 2007-08

SPRING COMMENCEMENT

On Friday, May 22, 2009, the Graduate Faculty, the Dean of the Graduate School, and family and friends welcomed three new doctoral recipients and thirteen master of arts conferees to the ranks of History graduate alumni. The Commencement festivities can be viewed online by clicking here.

ADMISSIONS

For the 2008-09 admissions cycle, the Department received 275 applications, a historic high. Eighty-eight offers of admission were made. The matriculating class of Fall 2009 will number twenty-seven.

ALUMNI NEWS

Robert Chase (PhD, US, 2009; Advisor: Gary Gerstle) served as a consultant and expert historian for Behind the Walls, a historical documentary on the Tennessee prison system and the Walls penitentiary. In May, Dr. Chase presented "Jail House Attorneys, Building Tenders, and Slaves of the State: The Evolution of a Prison-Made Civil Rights Movement," at the Law and Society Association's annual conference, held in Denver, CO. Dr. Chase also took part in the round table discussion "Working and Living Behind Bars: The Politics and Economics of Mass Incarceration" at the Labor and Working-Class Historical Association's conference, held in Chicago, IL.

Mark Hagerott (PhD, Technology, Science, and Environment, 2008; Advisor: Jon Sumida), Assistant Professor at the United States Naval Academy (Annapolis, MD), presented "Learning to Command Men and Machines: Technology, Education, and the Transformation of the Naval Profession, 1899-1975" at the symposium Military Frontiers, held at The Ohio State University on May 15, 2009.

Matthew Mason (PhD, US, 2002; Advisor: Ira Berlin), Associate Professor at Brigham Young University (Provo, UT) announced the publication of a critical edition of Edward Kimber's The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson. Originally published in London in 1754, the novel was set in various places throughout the Atlantic world, most notably in Maryland. The critical edition was co-edited with Matt's brother, Dr. Nicholas Mason. Matt also published "'The Fire-Brand of Discord': The North, the South, and the Savannah Fire of 1820" in the Winter 2008 edition of the Georgia Historical Quarterly and "Federalists, Abolitionists, and the Problem of Influence," in the March 2009 edition of American Nineteenth-Century History.

Gregory Michaelidis (PhD, US, 2005; Advisor: Gary Gerstle) has been appointed director of speechwriting for the Department of Homeland Security, headquartered in Washington, DC.

Helen Buss Mitchell (PhD, US, 1990; Advisor: Gay Gullickson), Professor of History at Howard County Community College (Columbia, MD), announced the publication of the revised edition of the two-volume textbook Taking Sides: Clashing Views in World History (McGraw Hill).

Michael Petersen (PhD, Modern Europe, 2004; Advisor: Jeffrey Herf), Historian at the Defense Intelligence Agency (Washington, DC), published Missiles for the Fatherland: Peenemuende, National Socialism, and the V-2 Missile (Cambridge University Press) in January 2009.

James D. Rice (PhD, US, 1994; Advisor: James Henretta), Professor of History at SUNY Plattsburgh, announced the publication of his Nature and History in the Potomac Country: From Hunter-Gatherers to the Age of Jefferson, out with Johns Hopkins University Press, in February 2009.

Nicholas Schlosser (PhD, Modern Europe, 2008; Advisor: Jeffrey Herf), Historian with the History Division at the Marine Corps University (Quantico, VA), won the 2009 Richard T. Farrell Prize, awarded each spring to the best dissertation submitted to the Department in the previous calendar year. The dissertation is entitled "The Berlin Radio War: Broadcasting in Cold War Berlin and the Shaping of Political Culture in Divided Germany 1945-1961."

Ingo Trauschweizer (PhD, International and Diplomatic, 2006; Advisor: Jon Sumida) received the Society for Military History's 2009 Distinguished Book (American) prize for his 2008 monograph The Cold War U.S. Army: Building Deterrence for Limited War (University of Kansas Press).

John Carter Wood (PhD, Britain, 2001; Advisor: James Cockburn), a researcher in the Department of History at the Open University (Milton Keynes, UK), began research on "Police, Press, Public and the 'Celebrity Female Victim' in Britain, 1926-1930," a new project with a colleague, Peter King, funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council grant. Dr. Wood has also completed a book manuscript on a murder trial from 1928. An article based on that research has just been accepted by the Journal of Social History.

Guangqiu Xu (PhD, International and Diplomatic, 1993; Advisor: Wayne Cole) won the 2008 Best Adult Non-Fiction Book Award from the Chinese American Librarians Association for his monograph Congress and the U.S.-China Relationship, 1949-1979 (The University of Akron Press). The Award is given to honor English or Chinese language books originally published in North America in 2007.

JOB PLACEMENTS, POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS, AND INTERNSHIPS

Robert Chase (PhD, US, 2009; Advisor: Gary Gerstle) has received a postdoctoral fellowship in African American Studies through the History Department at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH).

James Frusetta (PhD, Modern Europe, 2006; Advisor: John Lampe) has been appointed Assistant Professor of History at Hampden-Sydney College (Hampden-Sydney, VA).

Jake Kobrick (PhD, US; Advisor: Robyn Muncy) has been appointed an intern in the Federal Judicial History Office of the Federal Judicial Center (Washington, DC) for summer 2009.

Laura Kopp (HiLS, US, 2009; Advisor: Leslie Rowland) will continue her assistantship in Hornbake Library's Special Collections, also serving as an Archives Technician at the National Mall and Memorial Parks.

Nicholas Schlosser (PhD, Modern Europe, 2008; Advisor: Jeffrey Herf) has been appointed Historian with the History Division at the Marine Corps University (Quantico, VA).

Ingo Trauschweizer (PhD, International and Diplomatic, 2006; Advisor: Jon Sumida) has been appointed Assistant Professor of History at Ohio University (Athens, OH).

Angela Tudico (PhD, US, 2009; Advisor: Robyn Muncy) has been appointed as an Archives Technician at the Northeast Regional offices of the National Archives and Records Administration, in New York City.

Jonathan White (PhD, US, 2008; Advisor: Herman Belz) has been appointed to a three-year postdoctoral visiting assistant professorship at Christopher Newport University (Newport News, Virginia).

FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AWARDS, PRIZES, AND HONORS

External Fellowships, Grants, and Awards

Jeremy Best (PhD, Modern Europe; Advisor: Jeffrey Herf) has won a Fulbright-IIE award to pursue dissertation field research in Germany.

Diana Capiello (HiLS, Russia and Former USSR; Advisor: Michael David-Fox) has received the U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Scholarship towards summer 2009 Russian-language study through the American Council of Teachers of Russian and Russian Language Advanced Study Program in Moscow.

Robert Chiles (PhD, US; Advisor: David Sicilia) has been awarded the Anna K. and Mary E. Cunningham Research Residency from the New York State Library and the Larry J. Hackman Research Residency from the New York State Archives Partnership Trust for archival research on New York politician Alfred E. Smith.

Ted Cohen (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Mary Kay Vaughan) has received a Gilder Lehrman Fellowship to conduct research at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York, NY).

Shane Dillingham (PhD, US; Advisor: Mary Kay Vaughan) received a fellowship from the Inter-American Foundation to pursue dissertation research in Mexico. Shane also received a second Federal Language and Area Studies fellowship to participate in San Diego State University's Summer Intensive Mixtec Language Program in Oaxaca, Mexico.

John Hardin (PhD, US; Advisor: David Sicilia) has received a Research Fellowship Award from the Presbyterian Historical Society to pursue dissertation research.

Jessica Johnson (PhD, US; Advisor: Ira Berlin) has been awarded a Graduate Studies Enhancement Grant from the Social Science Research Council and a research fellowship by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

Mary-Elizabeth Murphy (PhD, US; Advisor: Elsa Barkley Brown) has been awarded the Joseph A. Skinner Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the History Department at Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, MA).

Amy Rutenberg (PhD, US; Advisor: Robyn Muncy) received the General and Mrs. Matthew B. Ridgway Military History Research Grant to conduct research this summer at the U.S. Army Military History Institute (Carlisle, PA).

Amaila Skarlatou Levi (HiLS, Jewish History; Advisor: Bernard Cooperman) has been awarded the David M. Konigsberg Memorial Scholarship to pursue summer 2009 archival research at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People and the Ben Zvi Institute (Jerusalem, Israel).

Kim Welch (PhD, US; Advisor: Ira Berlin) has received the Mellon-CLIR Dissertation Fellowship in the Humanities in Original Sources, the Littleton-Griswold Research Grant for Research in U.S. Legal History (American Historical Association), and the William and Madeline Welder Smith Research Travel Award (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin). 

Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Completion Fellowship, The Graduate School

Patricia Acerbi (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Barbara Weinstein) "Slave Legacies, Ambivalent Modernity: Street Commerce and the Transition to Free Labor in Rio de Janeiro, 1850-1920"

Katarina Keane (PhD, US; Advisor: Leslie Rowland) "Second-wave Feminism and the American South, 1965-1980"

Department Dissertation Awards, Department of History

Ted Cohen (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Mary Kay Vaughan) "Translating Race, Articulating Culture: The Intellectual Constructions of Blackness in Mexican Identity, 1916-1972"

John Hardin (PhD, US; Advisor: David Sicilia) "Retailing Religion: Corporate Advertising and Marketing in American Christian Churches, 1945-2000"

Christina Larocco (PhD, US; Advisor: Robyn Muncy) "Fractured Front: Gender, Authenticity, and the Remaking of the American Left after World War Two"

Stefan Papaioannou (PhD, Modern Europe; Advisor: John Lampe) "Balkan Wars Between the Lines: A Social History, 1912-1919"

Amy Rutenberg (PhD, US; Advisor: Robyn Muncy) "Boys Who Say No: Masculinity, Citizenship and the Avoidance of Military Service in the United States, 1945-1975"

Mary Savage Snouffer Dissertation Fellowship, College of Arts and Humanities

Paula Halperin (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Barbara Weinstein) "Modernization and Visual Economy: Film, Photojournalism, and the Public Sphere in Brazil and Argentina, 1955-1980"

Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowship, The Graduate School

Paul Gibson (PhD, US; Advisor: Robyn Muncy) "Opposing Globalization, Saving the World: The Anti-Globalization Movement in American History"

Robert Henderson (PhD, US; Advisor: David Freund) "Deregulation and the Transformation of Housing Finance, 1977-1984"

Research and Travel Awards

John Hardin (PhD, US; Advisor: David Sicilia) "Retailing Religion: Corporate Advertising and Marketing in American Christian Churches, 1945-2000"

Jessica Johnson (PhD, US; Advisor: Ira Berlin) "Black Atlantic Women: Entrepreneurship, Kinship, Religion and the Struggle for Freedom in Senegal, Gulf Coast Louisiana and Saint-Domingue, 1715-1848"

Christina Larocco (PhD, US; Advisor: Robyn Muncy) "Fractured Front: Gender, Authenticity, and the Remaking of the American Left after World War Two"

Jerry Metz (PhD, Latin America; Advisors: Daryle Williams and Barbara Weinstein) "Whose Roots? Race, Region, and the Tourism Industry in Salvador, Bahia (1950-2008)"

Ryan Misler (PhD, Middle East; Advisor: Peter Wein) "Elite Slavery, the Mamluks, and the Syrian National Narrative"

Amy Rutenberg (PhD, US; Advisor: Robyn Muncy) "Boys Who Say No: Masculinity, Citizenship and the Avoidance of Military Service in the United States, 1945-1975"

Kimberly Welch (PhD, US; Advisor: Ira Berlin) "Public Confrontations: Southern Subordinates and the Local Legal Culture in the Old South"

CONFERENCES, PAPERS, PUBLICATIONS, AND PRESENTATIONS

Tom Castillo (PhD, US; Advisor: David Sicilia) presented "Frontiers of Abundance: 1930s Struggles for Class Harmony" at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, held in Seattle, WA, March 26-29, 2009.

Dennis Doster (PhD, US; Advisor: Elsa Barkley Brown) presented a paper entitled "'Thank God Segregation Is Dead': The Baltimore NAACP and the Role of the African American Lawyer in the Fight Against Residential Segregation, 1910-1917" at The Civil Rights Century: The NAACP at 100 conference at The Johns Hopkins University on February 7, 2009. Dennis was interviewed on the Friday, February 6 edition of WYPR FM Baltimore's Maryland Morning for the segment "Where You Live: A History of Housing Segregation Laws in Baltimore" Click here to listen to the interview.

Joe Frechette (PhD, Ancient Mediterranean; Advisor: Arthur Eckstein) presented "The Archaic Phalanx and the Rise of the Greek Polis Reconsidered" at the annual meeting of the Society of Military History, held April 2-5, 2009, at Middle Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro, TN).

Claire Goldstene (PhD, US; Advisor: Gary Gerstle) presented "Recovering the Radicalism of Booker T. Washington" at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, held in Seattle, WA, March 26-29, 2009.

Katarina Keane (PhD, US; Advisor: Leslie Rowland) presented "Struggles for Justice in the Post-Civil Rights South" at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, held in Seattle, WA, March 26-29, 2009.

Melissa Kravetz (PhD, Modern Europe; Advisor: Jeffrey Herf) presented "Conforming Doctors or Pioneering Women? Reconciling Female Physicians' Work in Weimar Marriage Counseling Centers" on April 28, 2009, for the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies in Berlin, Germany. She is also presenting "Promoting Eugenics: Women Doctors and Marriage Counseling in Weimar Germany," on June 4, 2009, for the Women of Science, Women in Science: Figures and Representations, 18th Century to Present Conference, to take place in Grenoble, France.

Shari Orisich (PhD, Latin America; Advisor: Mary Kay Vaughan) will present "Sarcastic and Insolent, Insubordinate and Immoral: The Making of Juvenile Delinquency in Mexico City, 1926-1970" at the Latin American Studies Association Congress, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 11-14, 2009.

Stephanie Reichelderfer (PhD, US; Advisor: Julie Greene) presented the prize-winning paper "Building the 'Cultural Bridge': Filipino, Japanese, and Chinese Student Outreach and Activism in America, 1921-1930" at the 2009 University of Maryland Graduate Research Interaction Day Competition in History and Sociology.

Amy Rutenberg (PhD, US; Advisor: Robyn Muncy) presented "Citizen-Civilians: Federal Manpower Policy and the Redefinition of Masculine Citizenship in the Postwar United States" at the War and Identity Conference, held at The Clinton Institute for American Studies, University College Dublin (Ireland) in May.

Darren Speece (PhD, US: Advisor: David Sicilia) organized "The States v. the Feds: National and Regional Environmental Politics and Policies," a panel at the 2009 Conference of the American Society of Environmental Historians, held at Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL) February 25-March 1, 2009. Darren also presented "The Ghosts of Muir and Pinchot: The Redwood Wars and the Fights over Humanity's Place Among the Giants, 1968-1999." His article "Corporatism to Citizen Oversight: The Legal Fight over California Redwoods, 1969-1996" will be published in the October 2009 issue of Environment History.

Glen Williams (PhD, International and Diplomacy; Advisor: Jon Sumida) presented "Dunmore's War: No Other Motive Than the True Interest of This Country" at the symposium Military Frontiers, held at The Ohio State University on May 15, 2009.