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News and Events

Welcome to the News section for the Department of History. Review news stories about alumni, faculty and students. Contact the Department at history@purdue.edu with items of interest for us to share with our viewers. 

May 2013 Alumnus Ryan Anderson has received tenure with promotion at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

May 2013 Alumnus Johnny Smith has accepted a tenure-track position in the Department of History at Georgia Tech.  He will help develop an interdisciplinary sport studies program.

May 2013 Cambridge University Press has just published Yvonne Pitts' book Family, Law, and Inheritance in America:  A Social and Legal History of Nineteenth-Century Kentucky. 

May 2013 Alicia Decker has just published:  “Militarismo, nazionalismo e matrimonio: un ritratto privato delle cinque mogli di Idi Amin” [Militarism, Nationalism, and Marriage: An Intimate Portrait of Idi Amin’s Five Wives] Afriche e Orienti 14, no. 3-4 (2012): 124-138.

April 2013 Department Head Doug Hurt has  been elected as Associate Fellow of the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska. 

April 2013 John Contreni has has just published:

"The Patristic Legacy to c. 1000.”  In The New Cambridge Medieval History of the Bible, volume 2, from 600 to 1450. In Richard Marsden and E. Ann Matter, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 505-535.

“ ‘Old Orthodoxies Die Hard’: Herwagen’s Bridferti Ramesiensis Glossae,” Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland, 22/23 (2012), 15–52.

April 2013 Rebekah  Klein-Pejšová has been appointed to the International Editorial Board of the Forum Historiae by the Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences.

April 2013 Neil Bynum presented a lecture at the A. Philip Randolph Institute—Lansing Chapter “Community Role Model Celebration” held in the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center at Michigan State University, April 27, 2013. See photo.

In recognition of his research and book on A. Philip Randolph, Neil received a proclamation from the Lansing, Michigan, city council.  Great recognition for Neil and our department.  See photo.

April 2013 Chris Snively has received the 2013-2014 Individual Advanced Research Opportunities Program (IARO) Fellowship funded by the U.S. Department of State (Title VIII Program) and administered by IREX (the International Research & Exchanges Board).   He will conduct research in Hungary and Serbia during the coming academic year.

April 2013
Spring Awards recipients:

Paul and Reed Benhamou Graduate Scholarship - Yasir Yilmaz

Miletus L. Flaningam Award - Joshua J. Jeffers and Andrew R.M. Smith

Harold D. Woodman Graduate Research Award - David R. Graham, Timothy J. Olin, Jeffrey T. Perry, Liberty P. Sproat

Graduate Student Teaching Award - Brandon M. Ward

Jon C. Teaford Faculty Award - David C. Atkinson

Office of the Dean of Students Staff and Faculty Impact Award - Michael A. Morrison

CLA Award for Education Excellence - John L. Larson

CLA Kenneth T. Kofmehl Oustanding Undergraduate Teaching Award - Randy W. Roberts

Henry G. Waltmann/Phi Alpha Theta Award - Samantha T. Richards

David W. and Geryl L. Bischoff Undergraduate Scholarship - Taylor A. Vincent

Lorena Murphy Undergraduate Scholarship - Kaylyn R. Balmoria

Gordon R. Mork Global History Award - Mae Christensen

Gordon R. Mork Scholarship in History - Katherine E. Martin and Jennifer J. McVeigh

James J. Shevlin Study Abroad Scholarship - Kaylyn R. Balmoria and Frank G. Speek

John F. Stover Undergraduate Scholarship - Nicole E. Cory

Senior Graduating with Excellence - Hayley R. Bowman

Outstanding Senior Award - Olivia M. Hagedorn

April 2013 Yvonne Pitts has received a Teaching for Tomorrow Award for the next academic year.

April 2013 Alicia Decker has just published “An Accidental Liberation:  Women on the Front Lines of Idi Amin’s Economic War,” in the Women’s History Review.

April 2013 John Fahey has received a fellowship for Hungarian language study at Indiana University for the SWEESL summer program.

April 17, 2013  2013 Honors Program, 5:30 p.m., UNIV 201

April 2013 Ray Dumett has published a chapter titled “Parallel Mining Frontiers in the Gold Coast and Asante in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries,” in Mining Frontiers in Africa:  Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, edited by Katja Werthmann and Tilo Grätz (Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2012.

April 2013 Josh Jeffers has received a year-long PRF grant for his project “Native Spaces, Settler Landscapes, and the Culture of Manifest Destiny:  Imagining the Ohio Country, 1701-1820.”  His major professor is Dawn Marsh.

April 2013 Suparna Chakraborty has received a year-long PRF grant for her project “Tools of Emancipation:  Western Science and the Empowerment of Women in Colonial India.”  Tithi Bhattacharya is her major professor.

April 2013 David Atkinson has received the William Roger Louis Prize from the British Scholar Society for his article manuscript titled “’Let it be Pure and Spotless’: The White Australia Policy, Empire, and the World” which will be published in Britain and the World.

April 2013 Congratulations to the HGSA on its successful conference on Saturday.  Brian Alberts, Andrew McGregor, Rachel Steely, and Mark Otto exerted considerable effort.  Thanks as well to the faculty who participated and to you who attended.  A good job all the way around.  You helped strengthen the reputation of the department.

Mar 2013 Neil Bynum has received a Summer Faculty PRF Grant for his project “West Indian Radicals and New Negro Opposition to Jim Crow, 1917-1937.”

Mar 2013 Sally Hastings has just published “Traveling to Learn, Learning to Travel:  Japanese Women as American College Students, 1900-1941,” in Modern Girls on the Go:  Gender, Mobility, and Labor in Japan, edited by Alisa Freedman, Laura Miller, and Christine R. Yano (Stanford University Press).

Mar 2013 Randy Roberts has just received the 2012-2013 Kenneth T. Kofmehl Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award.  The Kofmehl Award is the highest honor granted by the College of Liberal Arts for undergraduate teaching.

Mar 2013 Please join us in welcoming Silvia Mitchell to our department as Assistant Professor of Early Modern European History and Kathryn Brownell as Assistant Professor of U.S. History specializing in post-World War II political history.  They are excited to join us, and we are excited to have them as  colleagues.

March 22, 2013 March at Purdue, 10:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m.  Contact Whitney Walton if you are interested in joining this March.

*http://www.facebook.com/pages/March-at-Purdue/327959323982975

* http://marchatpurdue.tumblr.com/

* https://twitter.com/MarchAtPurdue

Mar 2013 We had a terrific turnout for our Women’s History Reception last night.  President Daniels attended and stayed longer than he had originally planned.  Dean Weiser was very complementary as were many others who attended.  Thanks for Melinda Zook and Nancy Gabin for organizing the event and thanks as well to Alicia Decker who participated.  We appreciate your support of the department.

Mar 2013  Mike Morrison has just published “President James Buchanan:  Executive Leadership and the Crisis of the Democracy” in James Buchanan and the Coming of the Civil War, edited by John W. Quist and Michael J. Birkner (University of Florida Press).

Mar 2013 Melinda Zook reports that Karen Sonnelitter, previous grad student and previous Continuing Lecturer for the department, has accepted a tenure-track position at Siena College.  Melinda served as her major professor.  A very good placement.

Mar 2013 Jacqueline Mougoue has just published an essay titled “Big Buttocks and Sultry Behavior:  Perceptions of Post-Colonial African Women in British Women’s Travel Narratives” in Women, Gender, and Sexualities in Africa published by the Carolina Academic Press.

Mar 2013 Alicia Decker has just published an essay titled “On the Promotion of ‘Certain’ Ugandan Women:  Was Idi Amin Feminist or Foe?” in Women, Gender and Sexualities in Africa, published by the Carolina Academic Press.

Mar 7, 2013, 7:00 p.m.
Stover Lecture Series
"Hoboes in Heaven:  Race, Manifest Destiny, and the Roots of Mass Incarceration in the Modern American West, 1880-1910" by Kelly Lytle Hernandez.  Click here for more information.

Mar 2013 Sally Hastings has just published “Japanese Women Legislators:  Getting Into Office and Staying There,” in Studies on Women’s Education in Turkey and Japan for Social Development:  Panels and Research Findings.

Mar 2013 Alicia Decker has just published “’Sometime you may leave your husband in Karuma Falls or in the forest there’: a gendered history of disappearance in Idi Amin’s Uganda, 1971-79,” in the Journal of Eastern African Studies.”


Feb 2013 Sally Hastings has just published an essay titled “Political Representation for Nurses in Postwar Japan,” in Japan Since 1945:  From Postwar to Post-Bubble, edited by Christopher Gerteis and Timothy S. George (London:  Bloomsbury, 2013).  Congratulations!

Feb 2013 Jeff Perry has received the Wills Research Fellowship from the Tennessee Historical Society.

Feb 2013 Haeseong Park has just published “Colonial and Gender Discourse in Modern European Travel Writing About East Asia” in History Research.  Well done.

Feb 25, 2013 Department of History Undergraduate Newsletter Spring 2013

Feb 22, 2013 Department of History 2013 Newsletter

Feb 2013 Jacqueline Bethel-Mouguoue has accepted a tenure-track position at Baylor University.  Well done.

Feb 14, 2013 Professor Michael Miller will be giving a lecture titled “Jewish Beauty and Jewish Questions in Hungary, Poland and the Land of Israel.” on Thursday February 14th at 4:00pm in Krannert Auditorium. See flyer.

Feb 2013 Susan Curtis and Frank Lambert contributed essays to The Cambridge History of Religions in America.  That book has won a 2012 PROSE Award  for Excellence in Reference Works as well as for the category Multivolume Reference/Humanities and Social Sciences.  Two prestigious awards recognizing the best in scholarly writing and publishing.  Great recognition for their work.

Feb 2013 The History Book Club and the Military Book Club have each selected Carrie Janney's forthcoming book Remembering the Civil War  as club sections.  This is terrific recognition for Carrie.

Feb 2013 In The Exponent the students voted History 151 as the “Best Class” on Campus.  The vote was taken last fall.  John Larson and Jeff Perry taught History 151 and the combined vote gave the tally to them and History 151.  Great recognition for both of them and once again great recognition that the Department of History has gravitas.  Thanks to their good work in the classroom, the department maintains great public visibility.

Feb 2013 John Larson has just received the CLA Award for Educational Excellence.  Clearly well-deserved and great recognition for John and our department. The Department of History has a campus-wide reputation for excellence in teaching, and John’s award affirms that recognition.

Jan 2013 Amy Harris has been selected to receive the Center for Research on Diversity and Inclusion graduate student Research Excellence Award.  Money, a plaque, and a line on her vita—a triple play.

Jan 2013 The Purdue University Press has just published a second, revised, and expanded edition of Charlie Ingrao's Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies:  A Scholars’ Initiative.

Jan 12-13, 2013 Randy Roberts’ class “ World War II and Popular Culture” aired on C-Span last Saturday and Sunday.  The full class can be seen on this link. http://www.c-span.org/History/Events/Lectures-in-History-Popular-Culture-amp-World-War-II/10737436712/

Jan 2013 Jen Foray has just published “An Old Empire in a New Order:  The Global Designs of the Dutch Nazi Party, 1931-1942” in the European History Quarterly.

Jan 2013 Jeff Perry has received a Filson Fellowship to support his research at the Society.

Jan 2013 Rebekah Klein-Pejsova has been awarded a Library Scholars Grant for her project “Across the Iron Curtain:  Hungarian Jewish Refugees.”  She will use the funding to support her work at the YIVO Archives at the Center for Jewish History in NYC.

Jan 2013 Melinda Zook has been appointed the Director of the Religious Studies Program.

Jan 2013 John Larson has been elected as a Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society.  Well-earned fame indeed.

Dec 2012 Carrie Janney has just been named a University Faculty Scholar.  This is great recognition for her and our department.

Dec 2012 Neil Bynum has been appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Dec 2012 Jacqueline Mougoue was interviewed by Sahara TV about her research in Cameroon for her dissertation.

Nov 2012 Andrew Mcgregor has published, “Amateur Boxing and Assimilation at the Stewart Indian School, Carson City, Nevada, 1935-1948,”  and  “Billy Mills:  Olympic Champion, Lakota Warrior”, in The Native Americans’ Identity in Sports:  Creating and Preserving a Culture. Edited by Frank Salamone (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013).  The first is based on a seminar paper, and the second essay is a revision of a chapter of his M.A. thesis.  An excellent approach for anyone starting to build a resume.

Nov 2012 Mauricio Castro has just received a Samuel Flagg Bemis Dissertation Research Grant.  It will be awarded at the annual meeting of the AHA by the Society of Historians of American Foreign Affairs.

Nov 2012 Jeff Perry has received a one-month fellowship to conduct research at the Kentucky Historical Society.

Nov 2012 Mauricio Castro has just received an Abba Schwartz Fellowship to conduct research at the John F. Kennedy Library.

Nov 2012 Mauricio Castro has received a Mood Research Grant from the LBJ Foundation to conduct research at the LBJ Presidential Library.   Not so loving called the Texas Pyramid by some.

Nov 2012  Yvonne Pitts's book Family, Law, and Inheritance in America: A Social and Legal History of Nineteenth-Century Kentucky (Cambridge University Press) is scheduled for publication release on April 30.  However, it is available now for preorders through Amazon.

Oct 2012 Tim Olin has received a Research Synergy Grant for Students to support his project titled "German Colonists in the Borderlands of Empire: the Case of the Banat of Temesvár."  Another excellent achievement.

Oct 2012 Adrianna Lozano has received a Global Research Synergy Grant for Students  to help support her research for her project titled “Traveling Pedagogies:  A Comparative Study of International Women’s and Gender Studies Programs.”  Excellent grant and project.

Oct 2012 Haeseong Park has just published “Korean New Women:  Korean New Women’s Fluctuation in International and Korean Contexts” in History Research. Well done.

Oct 2012 TJ Boisseau and Alicia Decker have received a grant from the Office of Engagement to help support a project titled “The Change We Wish to See:  Women’s Studies as Anchor and Bridge between India and Purdue University.”  Busy scholars indeed.

Oct 2012 Brian Alberts has had his article, "Andrew Bolter (1820-1900)” accepted for publication in Immigrant Entrepreneurship:  German-American Business Biographies 1720 to the Present.  He wrote this paper for Dr. Gray’s seminar last spring.  This is an excellent approach to the preparation and publication of your work.

October 16, 2012, 4:00 p.m., LWSN 1142
The Department of History is pleased to have for its first guest lecturer Professor Dayong Niu, Executive Vice Dean of the Institute for Advanced Humanities Studies and former chair of the Department of History at Peking University, China.  Professor Niu’s specialty is China during the Cold War era.  The title of his lecture is “A Reassessment on PRC Foreign Policies.”

Oct 2012 Carrie Janney has just published “’I Yield to No Man an Iota of My Convictions’:  Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park  and the Limits of Reconciliation,” in The Journal of the Civil War Era. Well done!

Sept 2012 Charlie Ingrao has received a grant from the Global Policy Research Institute to continue his work with the Scholars’ Initiative.

Aug 31, 2012 Friday, August 31, 1:30-2:20 pm -  History Honors Homecoming and Open House

Aug 2012 TJ Boisseau has just published “Kiss-Kiss, Bang-Bang Nation:  Hollywood and the En-Gendering of Modernity in the Youth of the Early Turkish Republic,” in The Transnational Turn in American Studies:  Turkey and the United States.  What a terrific way to join our department.

Aug 2012 Rebekah Klein-Pejsova has just published “Building Slovak Jewry:  Communal Reorientation in Interwar Czechoslovakia” in Shofar:  An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies.  Well done.

Aug 2012 Randy Roberts has just published with David Welky  John Wayne:  Treasures.  Nicely done.

Aug 2012 Whitney Walton and Dorothée Bouquet have just published essays in Teaching America to the World and the World to America:  Education and Foreign Relations Since 1870.  Whitney’s essay is titled “Sex Education:  Gender, Sexuality, and Race in French-American Relations in the Twentieth Century.”  Dorothée’ s essay is titled “French Academic Propaganda in the United States, 1930-1939.”  Great recognition.

Aug 2012 Bob May’s book Manifest Destiny has been translated into Spanish with the title El Bajo Mundo Del Destino Manifesto.  Great recognition of his scholarship.

Aug 2012 Amal Cavender, PhD candidate, who has accepted a position to teach World History at IUPUI for the fall semester.  Great achievement and experience.

Aug 2012 Sally Hastings has just published “Mount Holyoke College:  Teachers to Japan, Students from Japan,” in Asian Cultural Studies.  Well done.

Aug 2012 Phi Alpha Theta's The Purdue Historian:  Undergraduate Journal of History, 2012, Vol. 5

July 2012 Kara Kvaran, Ph.D. graduate, has accepted a lectureship in the Women’s Studies program at the University of Akron.  Good news indeed.

July 2012 Neil Bynum will be in the “Fiery Cross” segment of the upcoming season of History Detectives on PBS, Tuesday, July 24th, 2012 at 8PM EST / 7PM CT [in most areas].

July 2012 Stacy Holden has just published A Documentary History of Modern Iraq.  The University Press of Florida did a nice production  job.

June 2012 Yvonne Pitts has just had her article published titled "Disability, Scientific Authority, and Women's Political Participation at the Turn of the Twentieth Century United States" in Journal of Women's History 24 No.2 (Summer 2012): 37-61.

June 2012 Will Gray has been appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board of the Purdue University Press.

June 2012 Erica Morin, Ph.D. graduate, has accepted a position as visiting assistant professor of history at Texas Tech.

June 2012 William Vogel, a recent graduate of Department of History, has been named one of fifteen winners of the 2012 Gilder Lehrman History Scholar Award.  Selected from candidates across the country, the Award recognizes outstanding graduating college seniors who have demonstrated academic and extracurricular excellence in American History or American Studies.

May 2012 Amal Cavender will teach courses titled History of Islamic Architecture this summer at the IUPUI-Herron School of Art.  She also will teach a course titled Islamic Art during the spring semester of 2013.

May 2012 Jacqueline Mougoue has been appointed as a visiting scholar at the Program of African Studies at Northwestern University.

May 2012 Patrick Pospisek has received a research grant from the Mining History Association.

May 2012 Jeff Perry has received a research fellowship from the Filson Historical Society.?

May 2012 Ray Krohn, past graduate student, has accepted a position at Boise State University.

May 2012 Samuel London, Ph.D. graduate, has been promoted to associate professor with tenure at Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama. He also has been appointed chair of the Department of History and Political Science.  Great success for Samuel.