History 2009-2010
Overview
The History Department is one of the largest on campus and offers classes on every part of the world and on many topics including popular culture, women and gender, intellectual trends, comparative religion, issues of race and ethnicity, the Holocaust, war, prehistory, and much more.. As is apparent from the list of faculty that follows, the department is large enough to offer a varied and rich selection of offerings to students taking courses as majors or as electives. History is an important element of the core curriculum and the department is responsible for at least half of the required sophomore research seminars required for graduation.
Classroom Experience
A history degree prepares students for a wide range of careers. It teaches students to read widely, to marshal disparate materials, organize them rationally, think about them analytically, and interpret them in clear, persuasive writing. There is ample opportunity for close faculty-student interaction and for students to develop their ability to work independently. Professors teach all courses; there are no teaching assistants.
History offers a concentration in one of five fields: Africa, Middle East, Asia, Europe, Latin America, or United States. To complete the major students take at least 12 courses in history, including a junior seminar and a two-term senior project. Students may complete a minor in history with 6 courses, or a minor in public history. This new minor was added to the curriculum for students interested in work with museums, historical interpretation, media, etc. The public history minor requires 7 course, including the Introduction to Public History, at least one 300-level course; and a department-approved Public History internship.
All history majors, complete a two-term senior project based on independent research under the direction of a professor, normally resulting in a written thesis, but occasionally in movies, or other innovative forms of presentation. Students draw on the resources of the well-equipped Schaffer Library that houses collections dating back over two centuries.
Independent Research and Travel
History majors have had the opportunity to work with faculty during the summer and the academic year as research collaborators. Through research funds many students have been able to travel in this country and abroad to Mexico, India, Japan, England, Ireland, France, Argentina, Brazil, and many other countries to pursue their research.
The department offers two different three-week study tours during the winter break. One to South Africa is housed in the Centre for Open Learning at the University of Cape Town; another, the Civil Rights Mini-term, is a study-tour of key historic sites in the US South, including Atlanta, Charleston, Birmingham, Selma and more. Students who are primarily history majors earn course credit as they learn the history of either the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa or the black freedom struggle in the US. Each trip includes visits to museums, monuments, art galleries, historical archives, and public history expositions. A history faculty member travels with the students, and lectures and guided tours are provided by local experts.
History majors have graduated at the top of the class, been inducted into honorary societies, won prizes for their independent work, and presented their research at local and national conferences on undergraduate research.
After Union
Many of the department’s graduates have continued their study in graduate school at top ranking universities for masters and doctoral degrees in history or related academic fields, or have entered law, medical, and business schools, and other post-graduate degree programs in museum studies, masters in teaching, and public history programs. Graduates secure positions in academia, teaching, government, publishing, museums, communications, public history, cultural and artistic institutions, philanthropy, social service, foundations and many areas of business.
The Faculty
The History Department believes that excellent teaching relies on active participation in one’s field, including sharing research with other scholars. The history department excels in both teaching and scholarship. Professors have been honored for their teaching and their mentorship of students. Four members of the department have been awarded endowed chairs, the highest honor the College bestows on its faculty.
All members of the department have published widely in their fields, primarily in books, but as well in major journals, and edited collections. Many department members have more than one book. Historians at Union are extremely active in the profession, presenting papers at the major conferences and professional meetings, serving on book and article prize committees, as officers in the professional associations, editorial boards of journals, and as invited speakers to local, national and international groups. Several members of the department have received prestigious grants, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities grants, Fulbright Lectureships and many prestigious teaching and research fellowships in Africa, East and South Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and throughout the United States.
Students who take history courses thus have instructors with national, and even international, reputations, who are also committed to effective teaching and close involvement with their students. The reputation of the faculty is of enormous benefit to history majors when they apply to graduate and professional schools. The faculty members, their graduate schools, and areas of teaching and research are listed below.
Kenneth Aslakson
Assistant Professor of History
Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin
African-American history, history of the South, legal history, U.S. Constitution, race and gender in U.S. law, and Early American history.
Stephen Berk
Henry and Sally Schaffer Professor of Holocaust and Jewish Studies
Ph.D., Columbia University
Russian and Soviet history, Middle East, modern Jewish history, history of Poland, Holocaust.
John Cramsie
Associate Professor of History
Ph.D., University of St. Andrews
Britain and Ireland, political culture, ethnic identity, social and religious history, women in British history, multi-ethnic Britain.
Andrew Feffer
Associate Professor of History
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
U.S. cultural and intellectual history, film studies, the Sixties, popular culture, women and the history of ideas.
Andrea Foroughi
Associate Professor of History
Ph.D., University of Minnesota
U.S. women’s history, the Civil War, popular culture, American Indian, the frontier.
Melinda Lawson
Lecturer in History
Ph.D., Columbia University
U.S. history in the 19th century, slavery, abolitionism, reform movements, African American, public history.
Joyce Madancy
Associate Professor of History
Ph.D., University of Michigan
East Asia, China, women of China and Japan, World War II, museum studies.
Teresa Meade
Florence B. Sherwood Professor of History and Culture
Ph.D., Rutgers University
Latin America, Brazil, Mexico, women and gender studies, Cuban Revolution, U.S. Latino history, popular culture.
Andrew Morris
Associate Professor of History
Ph.D., University of Virginia
20th century U.S. political history, public policy, welfare state, the Depression and the New Deal, labor, environmental history, the War in Vietnam.
Shailaja Paik
Visiting Assistant Professor of History
Ph.D., University of Warwick
South Asia, women and gender history, caste and caste conflict, religious history
Brian Peterson
Assistant Professor of History
Ph.D., Yale University
Africa, Mali, history of Islam, European colonialism, race and ethnicity in contemporary France.
Steven Sargent
Professor of History
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Medieval and Renaissance Europe, the Crusades, witchcraft and mysticism, Scientific Revolution.
Mark Walker
Department Chair
John Bigelow Professor of History
Ph.D., Princeton University
Modern Europe, intellectual history, history of science and technology, prehistory, public history
Robert Wells
Chauncey H. Winters Professor of History
Ph.D., Princeton University
American colonial history, American Revolution, U.S. Constitution, demography, family history, U.S. folk music.
Additional information about the department’s offerings and staff can be found on the History homepage.