Recent News

On December 6, 2018, the Department of History's branch of Phi Alpha Theta inducted 11 new members! Phi Alpha Theta is the national honor society for undergraduate and MA students in the field of history, with 860 chapters on college and university campuses across the nation. Membership is a mark of intellectual accomplishment and commitment, and brings with it participation in local, regional, and national Phi Alpha Theta events.

Elisabeth C. Davis, PhD Candidate, has been awarded the John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award by the American Catholic Historical Association.  The Ellis Dissertation Award is granted to an advanced graduate student studying some aspect of Catholic History.  It comes with a grant of $1500 with Elisabeth will use to complete research on her dissertation, "The Centralization Controversy: Nuns, Bishops, and the Developement of American Catholicism, 1800-1865."  Congrats Elisabeth!

Derek Taylor, PhD Candidate, received an award from the Andrew C. Duncan Catholic History Trust to help fund his dissertation research. It follows an award he won from the David Rogers Research Fund, which is through the Catholic Record Society.  Derek's dissertation is a study of George Conn, the papal legate to the court of Henrietta Maria from 1636-39. Unlike most other legates through the period, Conn was a Scot (a native of Aberdeenshire), and in fact helped advise Charles I in his handling of the First Bishops' War. Often mentioned in histories of the period just prior to the English Civil War when religious tensions in England are assessed, no biography or study that places him at the center of such assessments exists.  Congrats Derek! 

Emily Bowlus-Peck was accepted into a prestigious seminar program at the Folger Library Institute.  The year old seminar, Researching the Archive, is geared towards advanced doctoral candidates, who have successfully completed their course work and qualifying exams and who will materials from the Folger’s collections in their dissertation.  The seminar meets once a month in Washington D.C. and is run by historians Carole Levin and Alan Stewart.  Congratulations Emily!

Justin Higner, MA student, has an exhibit of various model and sculptural ships on display at the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University. The show, entitled "The Higner Maritime Collection: A Retrospective," uses locally salvaged material to create models of historical and imagined cargo ships, cruise ships, ocean liners, salvages, shipwrecks, tankers, and tenders. Many have extensively decorated interiors. Justin has been creating these ships for over twenty-five years and has exhibited them at various local events, fairs, workshops, and contests, including the Lewiston Council on the Arts: Edmund Fitzgerald presentation and music event, held Nov. 3, 2018.   In addition to ship building, Justin is an active volunteer at various local historical sites throughout the area and is Wheatfield, N.Y.’s Town Historian.  "The Higner Maritime Collection" will run through March 17, 2019.  Admission is free.  More fine examples can be found at the Niagara Arts & Cultural Center until December. Congrats Justin!

Kristin Stapleton was one of only a few historians invited to contribute an essay to the Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature, which has just been published. Stapleton’s chapter in the handbook, “Ba Jin’s Fiction and The Family,” draws on work she did for her 2016 book, Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin’s Family. 

Shanleigh Corrallo has received a competitive Fellowship on Women & Public Policy through the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society, through the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy. She was awarded a field placement with the Child Support Services division of the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. The fellowship trains graduate students and mid-level professionals on public policy and offers direct experience with legislators, advocacy organizations and state offices. Fellowship alumnae have gone on to become the CEO of health associations, Executive Directors of state councils and senior staff with legislators.  Shanleigh will be in Albany from January-June 2019.  Congrats Shanleigh!

Recent PhD Sarah Handley-Cousins' article, "'Wrestling at the Gates of Death:' Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and Nonvisible Disability in the Post Civil War North" was published in the Journal of the Civil War Era. The article, drawn from Sarah's Dissertation, is available on Project Muse. Congratulations, Sarah!

Congratulations are in order for both Professors Michael Rembis and Camilo Trumper, who have recently announced new publications and prizes. Professor Michael Rembis has co-edited a handbook, The Oxford Handbook of Disability History, which will be published by Oxford University Press in July. Professor Camilo Trumper, who joined the department this spring, has won several prizes for his recent book, entitled Ephemeral Histories: Public Art, Politics, and the Struggle for the Streets in Chile, including the Best Book Award, Historia Reciente y Memoria Section, Latin American Studies Association,  the Marysa Navarro Best Book Prize from the New England Council of Latin American Studies, the Best Book Prize in the Humanities from the Latin American Studies Association Southern Cone Studies Section,  and the Murdo J. MacLeod Book Prize from the Southern Historical Assocation, Latin American and Caribbean Section (Honorable Mention).