Department News
Read the Winter 2008 Department Newsletter.
Read the Winter 2007 Department Newsletter.
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Medieval History Search
The history department will be hiring a new professor of medieval history to replace Prof. Jehangir Malegam who accepted a position at Duke University. Here is our ad for the job: The History Department of The George Washington University invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professorship, to begin Fall 2010, in the field of Medieval European history. Basic Qualification: Ph.D. in Medieval European history in hand by August 15, 2010. Preference will be given to applicants with publications and university teaching experience. How to apply: Applicants should send their cover letter, c.v., three letters of recommendation, and a writing sample to Medieval Search, Department of History, 801 22nd St. NW (Suite 335), The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052. All application materials must be received by November 15th. Only complete applications will be considered. We will interview at the AHA Convention. The George Washington University has a strong commitment to achieving diversity among faculty and staff and is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
Greg Domber wins Unterberger Prize
Greg Domber has been awarded the 2009 Betty M. Unterberger Prize for Best Dissertation on United States Foreign Policy from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations for his 2008 GW Ph.D. dissertation "Supporting the Revolution: America, Democracy, and the End of the Cold War in Poland, 1981-1989." He is currently teaching at the University of Northern Florida.
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Congratulations to Prof. Marcy Norton
Prof. Marcy Norton has won the Society of Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies Best First Article Prize, which was awarded this year for articles published in 2006, 2007, and 2008. The award was for her article “Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of Mesoamerican Aesthetics” in the American Historical Review (June 2006). Additionally, Professor Norton was given the inaugural Association for the Study of Food and Society Book Award for 2008 for her book Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures.
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Lindsay Moore awarded Mellon Dissertation Fellowship
Congratulations to Lindsay Moore, a PhD candidate working with Prof. Linda Levy Peck, who has been awarded a $25,000 2009 Mellon fellowship for her dissertation "Women at Law in the English Atlantic World, 1630-1700.” Ms. Moore was one of just 16 fellows selected from a pool of 378 applicants.
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The History Department welcomes six new full-time members to the department.
Prof. Eric Arnesen (PhD, Yale) comes from the University of Illinois-Chicago. He specializes in American labor and African-American history and is the author of Waterfront Workers of New Orleans: Race, Class, and Politics, 1863-1923 and Brotherhoods of Color: Black Railroad Workers and the Struggle for Equality.
Erin D. Chapman (PhD, Yale) will join us in Fall 2010 as an Assistant Professor specializing in African-American History. She formerly taught at the University of Mississippi and is completing a book manuscript entitled “Prove It On Me: Gender, Popular Culture, and Politics in the New Negro Era.” In AY 2009-10 she will have a Ford Foundation Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Princeton Center for African-American Studies.
Ben Hopkins (PhD, Cambridge) will be our World historian beginning in January 2010. He has been a research fellow at both Cambridge and the London School of Economics, and is the author of The Making of Modern Afghanistan.
Jenna Weissman Joselit (PhD, Columbia) is the new Charles E. Smith Professor of Jewish Studies. She had been teaching at Princeton and is the author of several book, including The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture, 1880-1950;New York's Jewish Jews: The Orthodox Community in the Interwar Years; and A Perfect Fit: Clothes, Character, and the Promise of America.
Jisoo Kim will be the Korea Foundation Assistant Professor of Korean history. She will receive her PhD from Columbia University this fall for her dissertation "Voices Heard: Women's Right to Petition in Late Choson Korea." She will join us at GW in Fall 2010 after serving as a Visiting Scholar at the Kyujanggak Institute of Seoul National University.
Katrin Schultheiss (PhD, Harvard), who previously taught at University Illinois-Chicago, is an Associate Professor of French History. She is the author of Bodies and Souls: Politics and the Professionalization of Nursing in France, 1880-1922. She is currently writing a book on the Charcot family, whose members were some of the most famous scientists and explorers in early twentieth-century France.
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Natalie Diebel wins Amsterdam Award
Natalie Diebel, a Ph.D student in Early Modern History won the university-wide Philip Amsterdam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for 2009.
Prof. Richard Stott's New Book Published
Professor Stott's new book Jolly Fellows: Male Milieus in Nineteenth Century America, has been published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
First Federal Congress Project and Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Awarded Grants
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (National Archives) announced a grant of nearly a quarter of a million dollars for the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers in the category of Publishing Historical Records. This was the highest grant given to any of the 24 awardees.
Meanwhile the National Endowment for the Humanities announced that both the Eleanor Roosevelt and First Federal Congress Project projects will receive substantial grants ($200,000 and $166,000 respectively). In this case they are among 154 projects funded across the country, and the only projects funded from the District of Columbia.
Professor Chris Tudda wins Bender Award
Chris Tudda, who teaches modern US diplomatic history, has been named the winner of the University's Bender Teaching Award. Chris won in the part-time faculty category, beating out hundreds of other faculty from every other school in the university.
Congratulations to Prof. Edward Berkowitz
His book, Social Security: A Documentary History, was recently named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2008. The award-winning title may be found here.
Undergraduate Prizes and Awards for 2009 Announced
The undergraduate history prizes and awards were announced at the department’s reception for graduating senior majors on May 16, 2009. The Gardiner G. Hubbard Memorial Prize (excellence in American History) was given to William C. Flanigen and Benjamin Lookner. Benjamin Schuman-Stoler and Erica Selig were chosen for The Jesse Fant Evans Prize (outstanding senior in a Contemporary History course). The Thomas F. Walsh Prize (student with the best essay on Irish history) was given to Molly Curtis and Richard England, the Charles Clinton Swisher Prize (student with the best essay in Medieval History) to Dupe Ajayi. Timothy Pickert was chosen for the Carl Forman Scholarship of the Society of Mayflower Descendants (junior with the best achievement in Seventeenth-Century American History).
The following students graduated with honors: Molly M. Curtis, William C. Flanigen, Heather M. Jones, Benjamin D. Schuman-Stoler, Erica A. Selig, Emily T. Sokolski, Katie B. Baker, Sincere D. Belton, Elizabeth Bettinger, Jacqueline A. Burns, Benjamin S. Davis and Kyle E. Leonard. The following 199 research theses merited “distinction”: Richard England, Heather M. Jones, Jessica Giannone, Bruce Rushing. 199 “Honorable Mention”: Laura A. Bentele, Brendan Boerbaitz, Alex Boodrookas, Margaret Chase Dross, Matthew Gladney.
Congratulations!
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Doctoral Students Present at OAH Conference
Five GW History Ph.D. students presented papers at the 2009 Organization of American Historians Conference in Seattle. Stacy Lowe Bondurant, Elizabeth Charles, Yvette Chin, Malgorzata Gnoinska, and Mike Landis presented among more than 9,300 OAH members, including fellow students, professors, pre-collegiate teachers, archivists, curators, and a range of other scholars. Professor Tyler Anbinder notes that it is an honor to present at the OAH conference. "The last time I proposed a paper for that conference, it took four tries before it was finally accepted. That they each got theirs accepted on their first try indicates how highly regarded their work must be by the world outside GW. This is truly great news for our program and GW."
Prof. Eric Foner Delivers 2009 Kayser Lecture
Eric Foner, the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University delivered the department's 2009 Elmer Louis Kayser Lecture, "Abraham Lincoln, Slavery and the Rights of Black Americans," on February 27, 2009 in a packed Duques Hall auditorium. Earlier in the day Prof. Foner discussed his work in a meeting with graduate students.
