News
The Corcoran Department of History will host an online, pre-filmed graduation ceremony on Saturday, May 16 at 2 p.m. EDT. Saturday’s virtual celebration will feature the reading of graduate names, the announcement of departmental prizes, and brief faculty messages honoring and celebrating graduating students. Students and their family and friends can view the ceremony on the department’s website.
Prof. Andrew Kahrl wrote an op-ed, “Preserving Postal Service and mail voting is essential”, for the Columbus Dispatch on the looming crisis facing the U.S. Postal Service and the devastating impact that efforts to privatize postal service would have on rural communities.
Prof. Christian McMillan has published an article ‘“These Findings Confirm Conclusions Many Have Arrived at by Intuition or Common Sense”: Water, Quantification and Cost-effectiveness at the World Bank, ca. 1960 to 1995’ in Social History of Medicine.
Please join us in congratulating Prof. Jim Loeffler who has just been elected a permanent Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research. Fellows of the AAJR — the oldest organization of Judaic scholars in North America — are nominated and elected by their peers and comprise some of the most distinguished and senior scholars teaching Judaic studies at American universities. Congratulations Jim on this wonderful accomplishment!
The UVA Department of History offers an MA (“4+1”) track to a small number of highly qualified UVA undergraduates who seek an MA in History in addition to the BA in either History or another discipline. The MA in History can be completed in one year after completion of the BA if the student has completed at least six graduate credits in History at UVA as an undergraduate. (Typically, this would mean taking two 5000-level History seminars that are not being counted toward the major or any college requirement.) Otherwise, the MA in History will take two full-time semesters plus one additional part- or full-time semester to complete after receipt of the BA.
Students who apply to this program are typically in the third year of undergraduate study, although second-year students are also eligible to apply.
The admissions process is streamlined, and there is no application fee or GRE requirement. The application consists of the following components:
1/ Biographical Cover Page, including the following information: Full name; email address; contact phone number; current year in college; current major(s) and minor(s); GPA within current major(s); overall GPA; proposed area of specialization*; name(s) of proposed History MA faculty adviser(s); and the names of both recommenders;
2/ List of History Courses taken at UVA, including the course number and title, semester taken, instructor last name, and grade received;
3/ Statement of Purpose of up to 500 words in length in which the applicant explains why s/he is seeking an MA in History;
4/ Unofficial UVA Transcript;
5/ Two Letters of Recommendation from UVA faculty with whom the applicant has studied. Ideally, at least one of the referees should be a member of the History faculty.
Items #1 - #4, above, should be emailed to the Director of Graduate Studies (hist-dgs@virginia.edu) as a single .pdf file titled “[Last Name]_4+1 app.” The two letters of recommendation (Item #5, above) should be emailed to the Director of Graduate Studies (hist-dgs@virginia.edu) by the faculty referees.
The deadline for applying is typically May 1st, but during the 2019-20 academic year the deadline has been extended to May 11, 2020. A further extension may be granted in exceptional circumstances upon request to the Director of Graduate Studies (hist-dgs@virginia.edu),
At this time, there is unfortunately no financial aid available for students who matriculate into the MA program after completing the BA.
*NOTE: Areas of Specialization are too numerous to list comprehensively. Examples include: colonial America; 19th- or 20th-century U.S.; modern, early modern, or medieval Europe; Ancient Greece and Rome; East Asia; South Asia; Latin America; Middle East; Africa; global history; international history; legal history; economic history; environmental history; Jewish history; gender and sexuality; war, genocide, and human rights; etc.
For more information, please contact the History Department’s Director of Graduate Studies (hist-dgs@virginia.edu).
Christian McMillen wrote a column for The Indian Express about what the histories of pandemics can teach us. Click here to read.
Sarah Milov won the 2020 PROSE Award for North American/U.S. History for her book, The Cigarette: A Political History. Please join us in congratulating Sarah on this wonderful accomplishment.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced $22.2 million in grants for 224 humanities projects across the country. Among the awardees were our colleagues Max Edelson and Kristen Alff.
Max received an NEH Summer Stipend for his digital project, “Among Towns/Along Paths: How Native Americans Imagined the Colonial South.” Kristen received an NEH Summer Stipend for her project, “The Business of Property: Levantine Joint-stock Companies, Land, Law, and Capitalist Development Around the Mediterranean.”
Click here to read the article in UVA Today. The publication previously released this interview with Dr. Braun as well, which has been read more than 160,000 times.
Click here to read the op-ed titled "Another Way Cities Can Protect Homeowners: End Tax Sales."
Please click here to read the review of Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture.
Please join us in congratulating Professor Elizabeth R. Varon, Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History, for winning the 2020 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize!
Professor Varon will be recognized during an event hosted by Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History at the Union League Club in New York City on Thursday, April 23, 2020. The award includes a $50,000 prize and a bronze replica of Augustus Saint-Gaudens' life-size bust, “Lincoln the Man.” Co-founded in 1990 by Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman, the Lincoln Prize has been awarded annually to a work that enhances the general public’s understanding of the Civil War era.
Here’s what two of the prize board members had to say about Professor Varon’s groundbreaking work, Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War (Oxford University Press):
“Armies of Deliverance is the defining history of the Civil War for the next generation, written by one of the leading Civil War authors of our time.” - James G. Basker, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History President
“Dr. Varon’s scholarly exploration of the Civil War era not only offers insights into this defining chapter in our nation’s history, but it also signals the fragility of our own democracy and the responsibilities inherent in ensuring its vitality today...Through her ambitious and important work, Dr. Varon provides readers with a unique vantage point in which to more fully understand the driving motives behind Union and Confederate forces, and how these motives—shaped by the experiences, beliefs, and aspirations of everyday people, navigating this singular moment in time—manifested themselves on the battlefield and at home. It is an inspired work worthy of our highest recognition.” - Robert W. Iuliano, Gettysburg College President
In response to the new presidential Executive Order on antisemitism, Jim Loeffler has provided commentary on NPR and wrote an op-ed for Forward. In his op-ed, Jim argues that “ the highly conflicting responses to President Trump’s executive order on anti-Semitism highlight a fundamental, century-old tension within the American Jewish community about the role of civil rights law in protecting Jews: Do we want the government to treat American Jews as a vulnerable minority group requiring specific anti-discrimination protection? Or are Jews better off seeking equal citizenship as part of the white majority, with no special protection?” For more from Jim, check out the links below:
Professor Neeti Nair was awarded a prestigious Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Research Fellowship. The fellowship is in support of her exciting book project, Hurt Sentiments and Blasphemy in South Asia. Please join us in congratulating Professor Nair!
Date: Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Time: 5:00PM
Event Location: Nau Hall 101
On Wednesday, January 15th, Will Hitchcock and GAGE will host an interdisciplinary teach-in on the U.S.-Iran crisis. Panelists include Philip Potter (Politics), Penny von Eschen (History), Farzaneh Milani, (MESALC), Jahan Ramazani (English), Fahad Bishara (History) and David Waldner (Politics). The teach-in will begin at 5 pm in Nau Hall 101. Please encourage your students to attend.
Below is a collection of some of the History Department's news and announcements, gathered throughout the Fall 2019 semester.
New Publications
Sarah Milov published a new book titled The Cigarette. Smithsonian Magazine named it one of the ten best history books of 2019.
James Loeffler published (co-edited with Moria Paz) The Law of Strangers: Jewish Lawyers and International Law in the Twentieth Century with Cambridge University Press.
Alan Taylor published Thomas Jefferson’s Education with W.W. Norton.
Kyrill Kunakhovich published (with Piotr Kosicki) The Long 1989: Decades of Global Revolution with Central European University Press.
Awards
James Loeffler's book, Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century, won the 2019 Association for Jewish Studies Jordan Schnitzer Award for Best Book in Modern Jewish History as well as the 2019 American Historical Association’s Dorothy Rosenberg Prize.
Andrew Kahrl’s Free the Beaches: The Story of Ned Coll and the Battle for America’s Most Exclusive Shoreline received the Connecticut Book Award for best non-fiction book for 2018 from the Connecticut Center for the Book. The book also won the 2018 Homer D. Babbidge Award from the Association for the Study of Connecticut History.
Philip Zelikow’s book, To Build a Better World: Choices to End the Cold War and Create a Global Commonwealth, was #8 on the Washington Post’s non-fiction best-seller list.
Forbes named Alan Taylor’s Thomas Jefferson’s Education one of the “Year’s Best Books About Higher Education.”
The Wall Street Journal named Liz Varon’s book, “Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War” one of the Best Books of 2019.
Articles & Book Reviews
Mel Leffler published an article in The Atlantic titled “China Isn’t the Soviet Union. Confusing the Two Is Dangerous.”
Philip Zelikow published an article titled “Self-Dealing in Ukraine: The Core of the Impeachment Inquiry,” for Lawfare.
Sarah Milov published an article on vaping in Time as well as an article on marijuana reform in The Atlantic.
Liz Varon wrote about UVA’s role in promulgating the Lost Cause creed for UVA Today’s series on the University in the age of segregation.
James Loeffler wrote a column in The Chronicle of Higher Education about human rights and the academic right.
Alan Taylor’s book, Thomas Jefferson’s Education was reviewed by The Atlantic.
The New Republic reviewed Sarah Milov’s book, The Cigarette: A Political History.
Neeti Nair reviewed Gyan Prakash’s book, Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy’s Turning Point in The New Rambler.
Gary Gallagher (Emeritus Professor) reviewed Sidney Blumenthal's book, The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1856-1860, in The Washington Post.
The Los Angeles Review of Books featured Sarah Milov’s The Cigarette.
Media and Miscellaneous
Andrew Kahrl was named Interim Co-Director for Academic Affairs for the Democracy Initiative. He will serve with Melody Barnes, Co-Director for Policy and Public Affairs.
UVAToday highlighted John Mason in a faculty video series, focusing on his interdisciplinary research with the Eastside Speedway (Waynesboro) drag racing community. Watch the video here.
George Gilliam gave the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Virginia Association of Countries (VACo). His address focused on the 400th anniversary of the General Assembly.
Tom Klubock organized the University of Virginia Centro de las Américas’/Americas Center’s Fall Symposium, “From the Mouth of a Shark: Causes & Consequences of the Central American Refugee Crisis” with Micheline Marcom of the English department.
Black Bus Stop, a collaborative film project involving faculty and undergraduates in the departments of History and Studio Art, screened at the New York Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival. A short review of the film was published in Artforum.
Interviews & Quotes
Sarah Milov’s interview with David Kessler, former FDA Commissioner, aired on CSPAN. Watch the program here.
Sarah Milov was interviewed by Jezebel about her new book, The Cigarette.
Neeti Nair was interviewed by the Telegraph India about the Ayodhya judgement and the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Max Edelson was interviewed by Forbes about Ken Fisher, dismissing the money manager's tweet arguing that slavery in the United States would have fallen on its own as “a fantasy."
Will Hitchcock was interviewed by UVAToday about the GAGE (Governing America in a Global Era) initiative and its mission.
Carrie Janney was interviewed in a USA Today article exploring the representation of slavery at some of the nation’s most celebrated historic sites and monuments.
Alan Taylor was interviewed in a Washington Post article about the brutal abuse endured by slaves at the University of Virginia.
Elizabeth Varon was interviewed by Voice of America about the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson for a segment offering historical context to the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump.
Justene Hill Edwards was quoted in a New York Times article about Attorney General Mark Herring’s recent announcement that couples in Virginia no longer need to declare their race as a requirement for a marriage certificate.
Carrie Janney was quoted in The Washington Post in an article about recent efforts to restore the historic Frederick Douglass cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia.
Philip Zelikow was quoted in an article by James Fallows in The Atlantic and in a column by David Ignatius in The Washington Post.
Student and Graduate News
Amelia Wald, a recent graduate of our Distinguished Majors Program and former intern at the Nau Center for Civil War History, published a blog post that explores the wartime history of Charlottesville General Hospital.
DeAnza Cook, a recent graduate of our Distinguished Majors Program, participated in a panel (“Rethinking Police Power”) at the 104th Annual Meeting and Conference of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.
Graduate student Justin McBrien wrote an op-ed, “This Is Not the Sixth Extinction. It’s the First Extermination Event,” for Truthout.
Former graduate student Shira Lurie wrote an editorial in the Toronto Star that argues that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's “brownface” scandals are just a small part of a problem plaguing Canada.
Former graduate student Melissa Gismondi wrote about Prime Minister Trudeau in a recent New York Times editorial.
Click here to read Prof. Nair's interview with The Telegraph India, covering the Citizenship Amendment Act and the ongoing protests in India.