Research

Marlene Mayo's essay is among seven which have been selected for publication in a recent e-book, a Project Muse issue published in October 2022 by University of Hawaii Press, entitled Celebrating 60+ Issues of "U.S.-Japan Women's Journal, edited by Alisa Freedman.

Her essay is "A Friend in Need:  Esther B. Rhoads, Quakers, and Humanitarian Relief in Allied Occupied Japan, 1946-1952," U.S.-Japan Women's Journal  50 (2016): 54. 

Find the e-book HERE.

On May 25, 2023, Julie Taddeo published a review of "This is Britain: Photographs from the 1970s and 1980s," a recent photo exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The exhibit included 46 photos, most of them in black and white which present multiple versions of what it means to "be British" as a generation of socially conscious photographers expose issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality that threaten inclusivity during these two tumultuous decades. The exhibit also includes an hour-long film, Handsworth Songs, made in 1986 by the Black Audio Film Collective and directed by John Akomfrah for Channel Four's series, Britain: The Lie of the Land. The newsreels and still photographs from the 1985 riots featured in Handsworth Songs provide context for the racism directed against the Black community in Birmingham in the 1980s. The exhibit ran until June 11, 2023. Read the full review HERE.

Jim Gilbert's most recent novel, Murder at Amapas Beach (Atmosphere Press) was featured in the June 14 edition of MarylandToday. The book features Amanda Pennyworth, the American consul to the resort city of Puerto Vallarta. She finds herself trying to solve two murders, one of a close friend.

See the full article HERE

The English translation of Antoine Borrut's first book will be published by Brill in July 2023 (with a new preface) under the title Between Memory and Power: The Syrian Space under the Late Umayyads and Early Abbasids (c. 72-193/692-809). 

Antoine Borrut co-edited a volume entitled Mers et rivages d’Islam: de l’Atlantique à la Méditerranée. Mélanges offerts à Christophe Picard (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2023) which was published in May. The volume consists of 25 contributions gathered in a Festschrift dedicated to Prof. Christophe Picard. Antoine’s essay in the volume is entitled “Histoires astrologiques et construction du temps culturel dans les débuts de l’islam.” 

Karin Rosemblatt was awarded a Faculty-Student Research Award from the UMD Graduate School. The grant will support travel to Mexico during Summer 2023 for Karin and a graduate student to conduct research for a book project exploring how 20th century anthropologists, archaeologists, and ethnohistorians established truths regarding the pre-Columbian history of Mexico. This grant will support archival research for Karin's current book project, a book of essays examining public controversies in which archaeologists and anthropologists debated the contours of pre-Columbian history and the effects of the Spanish Conquest. The book seeks to understand the value of the past for the Mexican state and Mexicans more broadly.

Stefano Villani has won a UMD Graduate School Faculty-Student Research Award for a project with PhD student Jordan S. Sly. The project is titled "Narrating a massacre. Samuel Morland and the Waldensian slaughter of 1655 between propaganda, religion and diplomacy." The project investigates the 1655 massacre of the Protestant Waldensian minority in the Piedmontese valleys of Northern Italy by troops of the Duke of Savoy. These communities claimed a direct continuity with the Waldensians, a medieval heretical group. Still, the Dutch Republic, the Protestant Swiss cantons, and England reacted in defense of the persecuted Waldensians. Oliver Cromwell sent diplomat Samuel Morland to stop the massacres and re-establish toleration for these communities. After returning to England, Morland published the History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piemont in 1658, which served as a record of his diplomatic mission and a celebration of the Waldensian church's ancient history.

Julie Taddeo edited a Special Issue of the Journal of Popular Television (April 2023) on the Netflix series, Bridgerton. She and her fellow contributors examine how the popular period TV series interrogates race, feminism, sexuality, and gender issues in Regency England, as well as the fandom culture that surrounds Bridgerton and how academics can use Bridgerton for public history purposes.

St efano Villani has published two book reviews: on Mathilde Monge and Natalia Muchnik's Early Modern Diasporas: A European History (Routledge, 2022), in Società e Storia 179 (2023): 176-177); and on Hannah Marcus's Forbidden Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2020), in Rivista di Storia e letteratura religiosa, 58 (2022): 326-330.

Shay Hazkani has received a 2023-2024 NEH Fellowship for Scholars Conducting Field-Based Humanities Research in Palestine. The Fellowship is administered by the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC). PARC promotes academic research on Palestine by US researchers and assists in disseminating those research findings. 

Shay has also been awarded the Concordia University Library/Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies Best Book in Israel Studies Award for his recent book Dear Palestine: A Social History of the 1948 War (Stanford University Press, 2021).

The May 2023 issue of Commonweal Magazine includes Piotre Kosicki's new article about the weaponization of historical memory of Pope John Paul II in Poland. The article also addresses the suppression of research into his ties to clerical abuse in Poland. The digital version is available HERE.