News
Congratulations to all the students who received department awards! These students will be contributing to so much amazing research!
The awardees are as follows:
Finger Family Undergraduate Research Award
Ella Sher, 3rd year double major in History and Environmental Thought & Practice, to research An Environmental History of the Jaffa Orange with mentor Chris Gratien
History Department Research Assistantships
Sarah Ahmad, a 2nd year History & Foreign Affairs major, will work with Kevin Gaines on “Reconstructing Blackness: The World in the Civil Rights Movement”
Carson Arnold, a 3rd year History major, will work with Grace Hale on her book project, Working Class Heroes: The Past and Future of the American Labor Movement.
Sydney Bradley-Black, a 4th year History and Foreign Affairs major and Spanish minor will work with Lean Sweeney on “Rights Without Rites: Concubinage in the Post-Colony"
Jiawen Davis, a 3rd year double majoring in History and Statistics, will work with Justene Hill-Edwards to research the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company.
Blanche Delrieu, a 4th year double major in History and Economics will work with Laurent Dubois on his comic book history about the Haitian Revolution.
Tyler Dooling, a 4th year History major and Social Entrepreneurship minor, will work with Lean Sweeney on “Rights Without Rites: Concubinage in the Post-Colony"
Nash Ford, a 4th year American Studies major and History minor, will work with Erica Sterling on her book, Innovating Inequality, about federal education policy, Black politics, and philanthropy.
Ella Sher, a 3rd year History and Environmental Thought & Practice double major, will work with Chris Gratien on an environmental history of the Jaffa orange.
Congratulations to Professor Grace Elizabeth Hale on the recent publication of her book, In the Pines: A Lynching, A Lie, A Reckoning!
Link to book here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/grace-elizabeth-hale/in-the-pin...
Congratulations to Professor Brian P. Owensby on winning the American Historical Association's Friedrich Katz Prize in Latin American and Caribbean history for his book, New World of Gain: Europeans, Guaraní, and the Global Origins of Modern Economy (Stanford Univ. Press, 2022).
The American Historical Association offers the Friedrich Katz Prize in Latin American and Caribbean History, which honors Friedrich Katz, an Austrian-born specialist in Latin American history, whose nearly 50-year career inspired dozens of students and colleagues in the field. Full announcement here: https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-his...
Congratulations to Professor Christian McMillen on being selected as the 2023-2024 Resident Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at UVA.
Every year, IATH awards a two-year Resident Fellowship to UVA humanities faculty. IATH Fellows work closely with IATH staff to design and implement research projects that use digital tools and methodology to develop and publish their scholarship. His project, American Indian Land Loss: Land Sales and the Loss of American Indian Property in the Twentieth Century, will create and analyze quantitative data sets to study the tragic and deeply fraught history of land ownership by U.S. tribal nations and individual American Indians.
Congratulations to Olivier Zunz who was awarded the Prix littéraire de biographie historique Brantôme for the French edition of The Man Who Understood Democracy. The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville (Princeton 2022).
The French title is Tocqueville. L’homme qui comprit la démocratie (Fayard, 2022).
Congratulations to Professor Erik Linstrum whose book, Age of Emergency, was an editor's choice for September 2023 in the EuropeNow Journal published by the Council for European Studies!
The book has also been featured in a review essay in the Dublin Review of Books:
Records unearthed by Christian McMillen "shed new light on states’ vocal opposition in the 1950s to tribes claiming their share of the river." Professor Christian McMillen's research on the Colorado River and tribal water rights was recently featured in ProPublica and High County News joint article.
High County News article: https://www.hcn.org/articles/waiting-for-water-states-opposed-tribes-acc...
Propublica article: https://www.propublica.org/article/states-tribes-water-rights-history-re...
Congratualtions to Professor S. Deborah Kang on her recently published article, “Sovereign Mercy: The Legalization of the White Russian Refugees and the Politics of Immigration Relief” in the Journal of American Ethnic History!
Deborah S. Kang argues, "that even though these Russians were defined as refugees under international law and perceived as such by the public, their American defenders deliberately recast them as undocumented immigrants to halt their deportations to the Soviet Union and give them a pathway to citizenship."
Read here: https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jaeh/article-abstract/43/1...
Justin T. Winokur discusses the usage of Cold War history in policy making in his recent Foregin Affairs article,"The Cold War Trap."
Read the article here: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/cold-war-trap-america-foreign-policy
Congratulations to PhD candidate Musa K. Azimli on being selected as a 2023 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellow! Azimli is a part of the inaugural cohort! His project is entitled, "The Imperial Slave Market in Istanbul."
Project Abstract:
The Imperial Slave Market in Istanbul operated for over two centuries and was conceivably the largest slave market in the Middle East until the prohibition of the slave trade by the order of Sultan Abdülmecid in 1847. The history of Ottoman slavery was gradually erased from the cityscape, and before long, the location of the official slave market was lost in time. Benefitting from interdisciplinary methodologies of spatial analysis and digital history, this project explores the lost space, internal layout, and legacies of the slave market from the many-layered sources of Istanbul’s past and present. While building a digital database, this project examines the economic and social impact of this space on the Ottoman Imperial Capital and beyond.
The announcement website: https://www.acls.org/news/acls-announces-2023-mellon-acls-dissertation-innovation-fellows/
Azimli profile: https://www.acls.org/fellow-grantees/musa-k-azimli/
A University of Virginia Karsh Institute of Democracy team, featuring Professor William Hitchcock as one of its co-host, has won a coveted Webby Award for its podcast “Democracy in Danger,” beating out productions from NBC News, the Washington Post and The Economist. Please view the UVAToday's coverage of the announcement: https://news.virginia.edu/content/democracy-danger-podcast-wins-webby-award-against-stiff-competition
Professor Justene Hill Edwards discusses slavery on Grounds before the Civil War and the intersections of slavery and legal pedagogy at UVA Law on Legal Knowledge podcast. Legal Knowledge is a Podcast that chronicals the history of UVA Law School. Listen to Hill Edwards' discussion on episode two entitled, "Teachgin the Laws of Slavery."
Thomas Klubock's recent book, Ránquil: Rural Rebellion, Political Violence, and Historical Memory in Chile (Yale U. Press, 2022) won the Whitaker Book Prize from the Mid-Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies (MACLAS).
Bradly Reed won this year's AAPI (Asian and Asian Pacific American Alumni) Advancement Award. This award was established in 2022 to honor current UVA faculty members who have made significant contributions towards greater understanding and appreciation of Asian culture or Asian-American relations.
Check out Professor Zelikow's co-authored Washington Post opinion piece, "The moral and legal case for sending Russia's frozen $300 billion to Ukraine."
Read here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/20/transfer-russian-froz...
UVAToday highlights how, through a partnership between the Governing America in a Global Era Initiative (GAGE)and Washington Post's "Made by History," several of our grad students have produced remarkable work! GAGE director William Hitchcock discusses the programs importance to grad students’ professional development. Also, Bethany Bell and Brianna Frakes share their experiences!
The article can be read here: https://news.virginia.edu/content/remarkable-uva-students-expand-possibilities-through-washington-post-partnership?fbclid=IwAR2BEBE4uSfiK3FZU08S0o7bY_kl6MQVDkscieXjqJQSagVyIqCQI8iTCFM
Professor Neeti Nair recently appeared on “The Agenda,” a nightly current affairs program on Canada’s TVO Today. The episode is titled “Is India’s Democracy in Crisis?”
The episode can be viewed here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZPLM_EyFw0
Congratulations to Professor Neeti Nair on the publication of her new book, Hurt Sentiments: Secularism and Belonging in South Asia!
Her book can be found here: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674238275
Professor John Edwin Mason was interviewed by PBS NewHour about the Holsinger Studio Collection's "Visions of Progress: Portraits of Dignity, Style and Racial Uplift" exhibit — open through June 24 — that he curated for UVA's Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library : Images of 'Black life, Black joy' are immortalized in historic Charlottesville portraits
Professor Kristina Richardson awarded 2023 Monica H. Green Prize for Distinguished Medieval Research
Congratulations to Professor Kristina Richardson, who has been awarded the 2023 Monica H. Green Prize for Distinguished Medieval Research by the Medieval Academy of America.
The prize “honor[s] scholarship and public engagement that demonstrates the importance of studying the past to understand the present.” The prize's description can be found here: www.medievalacademy.org/page/MonicaHGreenPrize