Dear Friends,
It’s been a very long year and, during COVID, our efforts at communicating with the broader public have been limited at best. As we start to move back toward something resembling normalcy, it seemed like the right time to provide some news.
The good news is: we made it through the academic year with most of our history classes meeting in person. Students, faculty, and staff were incredible: masking up, social-distancing, and ensuring that things continued on as normally as they possibly could.
While work of all sorts has been difficult, members of the history department (old and new alike) continue to flourish. Some recent highlights are included below:
RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND AWARDS
Early in the spring, Professor Jon Huener published his new book, The Polish Catholic Church under German Occupation: The Reichsgau Wartheland, 1939-1945 (with Indiana University Press). For details see: https://iupress.org/9780253054043/the-polish-catholic-church-under-german-occupation/
Professor Sarah Osten’s article [“Out of the Shadows: Violence and State Consolidation in Postrevolutionary Mexico,” The Latin Americanist (Vol. 64, No. 2)] received an honorable mention for best article in the social sciences from the Latin American Studies Association, Mexico Section.
Professor Felicia Kornbluh received a Mellon-Schlesinger Summer Research Grant from the Schlesinger Library at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for her project, “How to Fight a War on Women: New York’s Abortion Decriminalization and the Rise of Reproductive Justice.”
Professor Paul Deslandes released a new Great Courses lecture series titled: Notorious London: A City Tour. For details see: https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/notorious-london-a-city-tour OR https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/notorious-london-a-city-tour
RECENT PRESS ON FACULTY RESEARCH
Professor Nicole Phelps’s research was recently highlighted in a podcast put out by the Roy Rosenzweig Center at George Mason University titled “Consolation Prize.” It focuses on her work on the US Consular Service. Her scholarship is featured in episode 1 and there is an interview with her in Bonus Episode 1. For details see: https://consolationprize.rrchnm.org/category/episodes/.
Professor Bogac Ergene was recently interviewed for an NBC news story on food prices during Ramadan. For details see: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/grocery-price-hikes-hit-muslims-during-ramadan-n1266501.
OTHER FACULTY ROLES
Professor Paul Deslandes was recently reappointed as Chief Reader for the College Board’s AP European History Program. He held this position from 2013-2018 and has been appointed to this role for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years. In this capacity, he oversees the scoring of some 100,000 student exams, plays a leading role in test development, and functions as a spokesperson for the program.
NEWS ON RECENT GRADUATES
Ruby Daily (MA, 2014), who is now finishing a PhD at Northwestern University, recently had her research on letters from people in the British world to the American sex researcher Alfred Kinsey highlighted in an article in the Times (of London). For details see: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sex-scouts-and-stutters-please-were-british-qmsnwnpx5.
Sarah Chute (MA, 2021) was admitted with full funding to the PhD program in history at the University of Toronto.
Alex Auman (BA, 2009) was recently sworn in as a US Foreign Service Officer.
Sara Corsetti (BA, 2020) will be attending NYU’s Global School of Public Health in the fall for graduate study.
And finally:
The History Review, our student-run and edited journal, recently received an honorable mention in the 2020 Gerald D. Nash competition for student publications that is run by the Phi Alpha Theta Honor Society.
If readers have news they’d like to share, please e-mail the chair at paul.deslandes@uvm.edu or the department’s general e-mail address at history@uvm.edu.
Happy spring and enjoy the summer!
