In the Spotlight Archive:
Congratulations to Francisco Rodríguez (PhD candidate in Latin American history) for his recent co-authored publication, "APSI: Studying the Underground Critiques of an Overground Magazine," Radical History Review (October 2024) on a Chilean magazine critical of the regime that appeared during the dictatorship in Chile.
Congratulations to Monique Watson (Double Major in History & Political Science, '14) for her recent selection as one of this year's 40 Under 40 honorees! Monique has held a number of fascinating roles in the non-profit section, and is currently with the Strategy Leadership Program (SLP) at College Board where she works on innovative, equity-based projects aimed at enhancing students' learning outcomes and enhancing teacher efficacy.
Congratulations to PhD students Francisco Rodriguez and Sarah Ahmedani, who co-received the Department's Jackson Main Award for Best Seminar Paper of 2023-24. Both Francisco and Sarah were students in Prof. Lori Flores's "Oral History" seminar, and produced papers that required interviewing multiple subjects. Francisco won for his paper "Voices from the Diaspora: Pan-Arabism and the Arab Identity in Chile After the Nakba, 1950-1999" and Sarah won for her paper "Trauma and Legacy at New York's Thomas Indian School, 1920-1950."
Will Mack (PhD, 2023) has published his first article drawn from his dissertation in The Journal of Urban History. The article, "The War at Home": Winning the Hearts and Minds of the Black Community-Race and Policing in New York City, 1970-1973" considers the multi-dimensional political response of the NYC Black community to the violent conflict between the Black Liberation Army (BLA) and the NYPD.
Professor Kathleen Wilson's book, Strolling Players of Empire: Theater and Performances of Power in the British Imperial Provinces, 1656-1833, is one of the four books selected for this year’s Snow Book Prize shortlist for the best book in British Studies dealing with the period from the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century.
After defending her PhD thesis in 2023, Aishani Gupta worked at an upcoming heritage museum in Kolkata, India and has recently joined the MAP Academy in Bangalore as its Outreach, Research & Editorial Associate. A chapter from her thesis, "Women of the Empire at Ajmer’s Dargah: Negotiating Sacred and Civic at a Prominent Sufi Pilgrimage Site, 1900–1920" was published in Gender & History's 2023 issue.
Congratuations to Professor Lori Flores who recently won the 2024 Robert W. Cherny Award for her article "Wreathed in Worry, Pining for Protection: Latino Forestry Workers and Historical Traumas in Maine," which appeared in the flagship Journal of American History. The Cherny Award is given to the best article in US labor and political history in a given year published by a member of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association (PCB-AHA). Congratulations again Dr. Flores!
We're happy to share this terrific essay, entitled, "Are These Truths Self-Evident? Students Recreate the Second Continental Congress," from our Ph.D. alumnus and newest colleague, Research Assistant Professor Ricky Tomczak, just published in AHA Perspectives.
The Stony Brook History Department prepares its doctoral students for a wide range of career opportunities! Michelle Spinelli, who received her PhD in 2020, has launched a successful career as an independent scholar and editor. She is now at Yale University, where she is resident historian at the Yale School of Management, helping them prepare a history to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its founding in 1976. Check out her most recent post “The Historian’s Notebook: 50 Years of Business and Society.”
Congratulations, Michele! We are so proud of you!
Congratulations!!
Fernando Amador, who defended his dissertation in March, has just accepted a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor of Digital and Environmental History at California State University.
Bonnie Soper, who recently defended her dissertation, has accepted the position of Assistant Professional Professor at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi where she will start in the fall.
Congratulations to Dafina Nedelcheva (PhD candidate) for winning the Edward Guiliano Global Fellowship for her dissertation project, "Europe’s Post-Soviet (Memory) Spaces." The funding will permit Dafina to conduct additional research in Varna, Bulgaria in the coming year.
Congratulations to our Business Administrator, Erin Giuliano (MA, History '13), for being awarded the College of Arts & Sciences Staff Excellence Award! We are so thrilled to have Erin back in the department in this critical administrative role and cannot think of a more well-deserved award to honor her commitment to the History Department. Yay, Erin!
Karl Nycklemoe (PhD candidate) was awarded a "Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries Grant" to spend two weeks in May at the University of Wisconsin and Wisconsin State Historical Society in Madison, WI for dissertation research. Karl also received a Consortium Dissertation Fellowship at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies in Philadelphia, PA, where he will be in residence for the 2024-25 academic year.
Congratulations to Will Mack (PhD, 2023) has been selected as the Carr Center Racial Justice Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He will spend a year revising his dissertation, "Triple Minority: Haitian Immigrants, Policing, Race and Identity in New York City and Haiti During the Cold War," as a book manuscript.
Professor Shobana Shankar recently participated in a forum to discuss India’s evolving relationship with Africa, its implications for US Africa policy, and the continent’s development trajectory, hosted by the Foreign Policy ResearchInstitute.
Shayna Murphy (PhD student) received a fellowship from The Women's History Institute, which researches the lives of women previously ignored in the organization's research and programming. Her fellowship will allow her to study the theme of motherhood in New York throughout the long 19th century, with a focus on how race and class shape cultural perceptions of this role and how the expectations of motherhood differed depending on these variables.
Professors Chris Sellers and Mark Chambers have won a two-year Faculty Fellow Teaching Award from the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT). They will be using the award to design a teaching website and "open syllabus" for a new course that draws upon research materials from a previous NSF grant, tentatively entitled "History and Practice of Environmental and Climate Justice."
Congratulations to Distinguished Professor Paul Gootenberg, whose recently published edited collection, The Oxford Handbook of Global Drug History (Oxford, 2022) has been selected as one of the Best Historical Materials published in 2022 and 2023 by the American Library Association.
Assistant Professor Susannah Glickman has been elected a member of the international organization, Diversity of Mathematical Research Cultures and Practices research network. DMRCP, based in Hamburg, connects researchers who work on diverse mathematical research cultures and practices. Its aim is to gain understanding of mathematical research as a human activity, and to recognize the mutual dependency between cultural practices and mathematical research.
Congratulations to George Osei (PhD candidate) for winning the Edward Guiliano Global Fellowship for his dissertation, "Harm or Heal? A History of Witch Camps and Humanitarianism in Ghana, 1927-2020" (Supervised by Shobana Shankar).
Congratulations to undergraduates Tripp Hayes, Bethany Gatto, Dylan Bondanza, Shane McHugh, and Alexander Leavitt on being awarded the prestigious Catherine Wang Scholarship for excellence in academic achievement. The award comes with a financial support of $2,000 that will be applied towards tuition.
Congratulations to former history department PhD student and adjunct professor Tara Rider, who won the Chancellor's Teaching Excellence Award 2023.
Congratulations also to history department affiliate professor George Fouron, (Africana Studies) who has been appointed to the rank of Distinguished Professor — a prestigious honor bestowed upon professionals of the highest caliber
Congratulations to Dr. Willie Mack who successfully defended his dissertation, “'Triple Minority': Haitian Immigrants, Policing, Race and Identity in New York City and Haiti, During the Cold War." He was advised by Robert T. Chase and his committee members were Kathleen Wilson, Chris Sellers, and Brandon Byrd (Vanderbilt University). Dr. Mack has now taken up a tenure-track position as assistant professor in Black Studies and the Department of History at the University of Missouri.
Stony Brook alumni Rich Acritelli (’00, ’03) honors veterans with Rocky Point museum. Read about Rich and the Museum here.
Congratulations to PhD candidate Kevin Marshall . He has been accepted to present a paper at the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference at the University of Oxford in January 2024. Kevin will discuss his research on material culture and the reading collection Alexander Clark, a Scottish overseer in colonial Jamaica.
Erica Mukherjee (SBU PhD, 2019) and Charlotte Coull (University of Manchester) have co-founded Elemental Tours, a public history project on the material environment of Manchester that combines in-person walking tours with an online community. The project is supported by a grant from the New York University Research Catalyst Prize. elementaltours.com
Professors Eric Zolov and Paul Gootenberg have published an interview they conducted with their former advisor from the University Chicago, John Coatsworth. Coatsworth was President of the AHA, Provost at Columbia University, and had many other notable achievements, scholarly and otherwise.
Read it here
Matías Hermosilla (PhD, 2022) has just released an album in Chile, Amigos de Conveniencia featuring all original music. Matías's voice accompanies the highly acclaimed Chilean singer, Rosario Alfonso. You can find the album on Spotify, Apple Music, and other sources here. ¡Muchas felicidades, Matías!
PhD Candidate, Gabe Tennen, features on the Museum of the City of New York's website with his take on Duke Ellington's New York Rise
Congratulations to Professor Lori Flores who has been named a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians (OAH) for 2023-26.
Since 1981, OAH presidents have appointed eminent U.S. historaisn to the Distinguished Leadership Program. It promotes excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history to wider and diverse audiences. Speakers can be booked for virtual and in-person lectures at colleges and universities, historical commemorations, K-12 school events, community centers, and more.
Professor Chris Sellers has published his new book, Race and the Greening of Atlanta: Inequality, Democracy and Environmental Politics in and Ascedant Metropolis.(University of Georgia Press)
Please join us in congratulating History's Advanced Doctoral Students, Karl Nycklemoe and Donal Thomas who have been selected as IDEA Grads for the Fall 2023 semester. Working for Dean Celia Marshik and her team, Karl and Donal will receive experiential learning and professional development by assisting programming and initiatives at the Graduate School to further their goals of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access for the school’s constituents.
Congratulations to Chris Sellers, Mark Chambers, and Christina Hurtado-Pierson who all got shout-outs from the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) for their annual "Thank-a-Teacher" award. Also congratulations to former PhD student Tara Rider and SOMAS faculty member, who recently received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. Way to go!
Matías Hermosilla (PhD, '22) and Prof. Eric Zolov co-edited a Special Issue, "La pregunta por la cultura popular" for the journal Autoctonía: Revista de Ciencias Sociales e Historia, bringing together six articles by Latin American scholars on new directions in popular culture studies.
Ph.D. alum Yalile Suriel has now published an anthology Cops on Campus: Rethinking Safety and Confronting Police Violence (University of Washington Press, 2024). Congratuations to Yalile on this important work!
Congratulations to Professor Paul Gootenberg for the publication of his latest book, Hecho en el Perú: Ensayos Históricos sobre la Cocaína with the Fondo Editorial PUPC, the academic press of La Universidad Católica, a collection of eight translated essays on the history of cocaine. The book is coordinated with Magally Alegre Henderson, a former Stony Brook doctoral student (Ph.D. 2012) and director of Archives of the Instituto Riva Aguero.
Mia Brett '20 was recently just hired for a tenure track position at Suffolk Community College to teach African American history and help develop their race and ethnicity courses. Mia feels very fortunate to have been hired for a tenure track position after completing her PhD at Stony Brook.
Congratulations, Mia!
Nicolas Allen (PhD candidate in Latin American History) has received a Hagley Center Exploratory Grant to do archival research this summer at the Center for the History of Business, Technology and Society at the Hagley Museum in Wilmington, DE as part of his research into RCA-Victor's early recording era of samba in Brazil.
Congratulations to Heather Barry (PhD, American History, 2002) was recently named Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at St. Joseph's University.
Congratulations to Aishani Gupta, who successfully defended her PhD thesis, "The Shrine's City: Pilgrimage, Politics, and the Making of Colonial Ajmer, c.1857-1947" which examines how Muslim sacred spaces like Ajmer's medieval Sufi burial complex were integral to modern colonial urbanisms in South Asia. Her dissertation committee was comprised of Prof. Eric Beverley (Advisor), Prof. Shobana Shankar, Prof. Nick Wilson (Sociology), and Prof. Anand Taneja (Vanderbilt University). A version of a chapter from her thesis, "Women of the Empire at Ajmer’s Dargah: Negotiating Sacred and Civic at a Prominent Sufi Pilgrimage Site, 1900–1920" has been accepted for publication in Gender & History and will appear in its upcoming issue!
Kevin Murphy (PhD 2023) is giving a talk on his dissertation research at the American Philosophical Society on May 24, David Center Seminar: "Dueling Oaths in Colonial America 1765-1773"
Congratulations to Matthew Ford, who successfully defended his dissertation "Liberalism in the Jungle: Race, Rubber, and State-Formation in the Ecuadorian Amazon" (Committee: Brooke Larson [advisor], Paul Gootenberg, Eric Zolov, Marc Becker [Truman State University]). Matthew is a lecturer at California State University at Fresno. Way to go!
Congratulations to Professor and LACS Director Lori Flores on the recent publication of an article in the Journal of American History, titled "Wreathed in Worry," and the publication of a special edition co-edited issue for the International Labor and Working Class History journal (ILWCH), about Workers and Obsolescence.
We are very proud of our 2011 alum, Jonathan Gottfried, who's headed to London to face off on the "Great American Baking Show." As we always say, you can do anything with a History degree! Good luck, Jonathan!
Congratulations to all of this year's URECA presenters! We learned about everything from Black Sign Language to Italian Fascism to Bachata, and much much more. Special shout out to Thomas F. Brennan for "Best Research Prize" and Kelcie Eberharth for "Best Presentation Prize." Everyone was amazing!
Congratulations to the following History majors, who were recently selected for the prestigious national honor society, Phi Beta Kappa: Roy Harel, Maria Kang, Patrick Larkin, Edwar Majeika, Lucas Stahlmann, Grace Armann. Amazing work!
Congratulations to first-year PhD student Nicolas Allen, who recently was awarded a Latin American & Caribbean Studies summer travel grant, in addition to a travel grant to visit the Hagley Museum & Library Archives in Wilmington, DE. Nicolas will investigate the political economy and cultural politics of samba in 1930s Brazil.
Donal Thomas (PhD Candidate)
Congratulations to Donal Thomas (PhD candidate), whose dissertation project, "Knowledge Transfer from the Natural World of the Western Ghats: Indigenous Voices and the making of Imperial Metropolitan Institutions, 1770-1905," was recently awarded a prestigious and competitive dissertation award from the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH). The award will contribute to his overseas research in India and Britain.
Congratulations to David Purifacto (PhD, 2021) who just landed a tenure-track job at River State College in Florida, "a dream come true." You're going to do great things down there!
Congratulations to Dexter Gabriel (PhD, 2016) whose dissertation was recently published by Cambridge University Press, Jubilee's Experiment: The British West Indies and American Abolitionism. Dexter is already famous for his sci-fi books published under an alias, and which will soon be optioned for a movie!
Congratulations to Kevin Murphy for defending his PhD thesis, "Coercion and Sworn Bond in the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic," which examines how and why the social bonds produced by oath-taking—also known as sworn bond—played such a central role in the everyday lives of British subjects as well as in political affairs. His dissertation committee was comprised of Prof. Jennifer Anderson (Advisor), Prof. Kathleen Wilson, and Prof. Ned Landsman. Way to go, Kevin!
After his dissertation defense at the height of the pandemic, and several years of navigating the adjunct circuit at both SBU and SCCC, Matthew Heidtmann (Ph.D 2020) has accepted a full-time position as Director of Studies at the European Academy Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, an institute for political education in Germany. Matt and his family will be relocating to Germany permanently in June.
Willie Mack (PhD Candidate)
We are thrilled to announce that Willie Mack (PhD candidate) has accepted a tenure track position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Black Studies and an affiliation with the Department of History at the University of Missouri, Columbia (the state's flagship public university). Willie will be taking up that position in January 2024 after his November 2023 dissertation defense of "Haitian ‘Boat People,’ Policing, and Mass Incarceration in New York City and Haiti, 1960s-1990s.” His dissertation committee members are Robert Chase (advisor), Kathleen Wilson, and Chris Sellers. Hurrah — Willie is Mizzou bound!
Donal Thomas (PhD candidate)
Congratulations to Donal Thomas (PhD candidate) for winning the "Faculty-Staff Dissertation Fellowship" from the Graduate School. Donal's work focuses on the Indian Ocean World, Environment, and Medicine.
We're proud to announce that two of our recent PhD graduates have received teaching positions. Sergio Pinto-Handler (Ph.D 2018), who works on Brazilian history, will begin a tenure track job in History at Marist College upstate in Fall 2023. Sergio has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Trinity College and St. Olafs. And Charlotte Rossler (defending in late Spring) who works on race, science, and gender in Victorian-era Britain, received a two-year appointment as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Modern European History at Hollins University, a private liberal arts university in Virginia. Congratulations to you both!
Matthew Ford (Alumni)
Congratulations to Matthew Ford (PhD candidate, Latin American History) for receiving the "Best Essay" award from the Ecuadorian Studies Committee of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) for his chapter, "Liberalism in the Jungle: The Rubber Vortex, Indian Labor, and the Transformation of the Oriente" which will appear in Alberto Harambour and Margarita Serge, eds., La era del imperio y las fronteras de la civilización en América del Sur (Universidad de los Andes).
Nicholas Smith (Undergraduate)
Congratulations to Nicholas Smith, a Human Evolutionary Biology major, who was named "URECA Researcher of the Month." Combining his love of medicine and history, Nicolas is writing a senior honors thesis under the direction of Prof. Paul Kelton (Interim Chair of History) on the origins of the 1918 influenza pandemic. You can read more about Nicholas' amazing academic accomplishments, community engagement, and future plans here.
Willie Mack (PhD Candidate)
Congratulations to Willie Mack (PhD student), for becoming a member of the 2023 Inclusion Diversity Equity and Access (IDEA) Fellows program! Under the mentorship of colleagues in the CAS Dean's Office and Graduate School Dean's Office, Willie will receive professionalization training and targeted work experience in addition to financial support.
Magally Alegre Henderson (PhD, 2012)
Congratulations to Magally Alegre Henderson (PhD, 2012) who was recently appointed Director of the archive of the Instituto Riva Aguero in Peru. For more information on the institution click here.
Karl Nycklemore (PhD Candidate)
Karl Nycklemoe (PhD candidate) published a book review of James A. Kushlan, Seeking the American Tropics: South Florida's Early Naturalists (2020) for H-Net. A PDF of the review can be found here.
Spencer Segalla (Alumni, 2003)
Congratulations to Spencer Segalla (PhD 2003) on the publication of his book, Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954 (University of Nebraska Press). An interview with Segalla about the book can be found here.
Nancy Tomes (Distinguished Professor)
Shobana Shankar (Professor)
Professor Shobana Shankar's latest book An Uneasy Embrace: Africa, India, and the Spectre of Race has been named a finalist for the P. Sterling Stuckey Prize of the Association for the Worldwide Study of the African Diaspora.
Eric Zolov (Professor)
Drawing upon papers from the conference, "Global Sixties in the Global South" in May 2022 at the Humanities Institute, Prof. Eric Zolov and Assoc. Professor Sohl Lee (Art History) coordinated a Special Issue for the journal, The Global Sixties. You can read their Introduction to the Special Issue here.
Kathleen Wilson (Distinguished Professor)
Distinguished Professor Kathleen Wilson recently contributed to the forum, "Slavery and Empire Making" concerning the book, Tacky's War: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War (2020) by Vincent Brown in the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History.
Eric Zolov (Professor)
Prof. Eric Zolov will be in conversation with former Mexican Ambassador to the United States, Roberta Lajous, and former Mexican Foreign Minister, Jorge Castañeda, at Columbia University Thursday, Dec. 8 at 4pm (in person and via Zoom link)
Rob Chase (Professor)
Congratuluations to Professor Rob Chase! His most recent book, We Are Not Slaves: State Violence, Coereced Labor and Prisoners' Rights in Postwar America won the H.L. Mitchell Award for Best Book on Southern Labor and the Working Class from the Southern Historical Association.
Donal Thomas (PhD Candidate)
Congratulations to History PhD Candidate Donal Thomas who won the Edward Guiliano Global Fellowship to support research on his dissertation, “Knowledge Transfer from the Natural World of the Western Ghats and the Making of Imperial Metropolitan Institutions, 1770-1905.” He plans to use the award to work in archives and collections in the United Kingdom.
Zinnia Capó Valdivia (PhD Candidate)
Congratulations to Zinnia Capó Valdivia (PhD candidate) on the publication of her chapter, "Educar para fortalecer la virtud y disaudir el vicio (1889-1905)" in the edited volume, Drogas, historia y derecho: Crisol del continente Americano (Mexico). The chapter is drawn from her forthcoming dissertation research on public morality and anti-vice legislation in Mexico, c.1880-1930.
Kathleen Wilson (Professor)
Congratulations to Distinguished Professor Kathleen Wilson on the recent publication of, Strolling Players of Empire: Theater and Performances of Power in the British Imperial Provinces, 1656-1833 (Cambridge). This latest project offers what Linda Colley calls a "rich, sophisticated, and adventurously researched" book as well as "an arresting and significant work."
Ned Landsman (Professor)
Congratulations to Professor Ned Landsman who was recently accorded an Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society Lifetime Achievement Award. The ECSSS Lifetime Achievement Award is bestowed upon scholars who have made outstanding contributions to eighteenth-century Scottish Studies over the course of their careers. Honorees are announced at the annual conference.
María-Clara Torres (PhD, 2020)
Former PhD student María-Clara Torres (2020) recently published an op-ed, "El prohibicionismo nuestro," in the influential Colombian newspaper, El Espectador, about the 1940s anti-coca movement in Colombia.
Richard Tomczak (PhD, 2020)
Former PhD student Richard Tomczak, who is now the Director of Faculty Engagement in the Dean's Office at Stony Brook University, recently was awarded a major NEH public history grant to support student internships and public history programming at the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum in New York City.
Zinnia Capó-Valdivia (PhD Candidate)
Congratulations to Zinnia Capó-Valdivia (PhD candidate in Latin American History), for winning the Alcohol and Drugs History Society prize for best conference paper from their recent meeting in Mexico City. Her paper is now invited for peer-review submission to the society's top-tiered journal, Social History of Alcohol and Drugs for a special issue.
Shobana Shankar (Professor)
Congratulations to Prof. Shobana Shankar, whose book An Uneasy Embrace: Africa, India and the Spectre of Race (Hurst/Oxford, 2021) is shortlisted as a finalist for the International Studies Association's Global Development Section book award.
José Manuel Baeza-Zuñiga (PhD Candidate), Willie Mack (PhD Caniddate)
Congratulations to José Manuel Baeza-Zúñiga (PhD Candidate) and Will Mack (Phd Candidate) for being awarded Inclusion Diversity Equity and Access (IDEA) Fellowships. The award comes with a $10,000 stipend and provides professionalization training in grant writing and other activities to a select graduate cohort across the university.
Willie Mack (PhD Candidate)
Willie Mack (PhD Candidate) is participating in an upcoming online discussion with the Haitian Studies Association. The Haitian Studies Association's Emerging Scholars Committee would like to invite you to its first ever Emerging Scholars Café on September 9, 2022 at 2:00 p.m./East on Zoom. We welcome Dr. Felix Jean-Louis to present on Haitian Internationalism in the Age of Global Blackness; and Willie Mack, PhD candidate in History, on the topic of Triple Minority: Haitian “Boat People,” Policing, and Mass Incarceration in New York City. Register to join HERE.
Matías Hermosilla (PhD, 2022)
Matías Hermosilla (PhD, 2022) has a new book,"La verdad también se inventa," a series of published interviews with noted Chilean artists, intellectuals, and other personalities based on his celebrated podcast with Marcelo Valverde. If you're in Santiago, be sure to swing by the GAM for his book presentation! ¡Felicidades, Matías!
Yalile Suriel (PhD, 2021)
Congratulations to Yalile Suriel, whose 2021 dissertation, “Campus Eyes: University Surveillance and the Policing of Black and Latinx Student Activism in the Age of Mass Incarceration, 1960-1990,” has won the Eggersten best dissertation prize from the History of Education Society. Yalile is Assistant Professor of Universities and Power in the Department of History at the University of Minnesota.
Chris Sellers (Professor) and Mark Chambers (Professor)
Congratulations to Prof. Chris Sellers and Lecturer Dr. Mark Chambers on receiving a three-year, $468K Collaborative Research Grant from the National Science Foundation for their project, "Data, Science, and Environmental Justice at the Environmental Protection Agency." In addition to supporting their research, the grant will fund three one-semester graduate assistantships in the History Department.
Shobana Shankar (Professor)
Congratulations to Professor Shobana Shankar, who will be a Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC this coming academic year. Prof. Shankar will be working on her next book project, “A Nigeria-India Nexus: Negotiating Cultural Economic Power in the Global South.”
Paul Gootenberg (Professor)
The Alcohol and Drugs History Society (ADHS) held its international Biennial Conference this week, June 15-17 at UNAM in Mexico City. Current 2021-23 ADHS President (Stony Brook History Professor) Paul Gootenberg delivered a Presidential Address “Why are We in México? 5,000 Years of Pivotal Drug Histories in Las Américas.” Many current and former History graduate students participated, including Adrián Márquez, Zinnia Capó-Valdivia, Froylán Enciso, Eron Ackerman, Hernán Pruden, and Susan Gauss.
April Masten (Professor)
The History Department is proud to announce that Associate Professor April Masten has received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching! You can read more about the award here.
Paul Gootenberg (Professor)
The Alcohol and Drugs History Society (ADHS) held its international Biennial Conference this week, June 15-17 at UNAM in Mexico City. Current 2021-23 ADHS President (Stony Brook History Professor) Paul Gootenberg delivered a Presidential Address “Why are We in México? 5,000 Years of Pivotal Drug Histories in Las Américas.” Many current and former History graduate students participated, including Adrián Márquez, Zinnia Capó-Valdivia, Froylán Enciso, Eron Ackerman, Hernán Pruden, and Susan Gauss.
Congratulations to Andrew Ehrenpreis (PhD, 2018) who will be a Visiting Assistant Professor at Bowdoin College for 2022-23. Andrew's dissertation is entitled, “Coca Nation: The Protean Politics of the Coca Leaf in Bolivia, 1900-1962"
Alfreda S. James (PhD, 2006)
Alfreda S. James (History PhD, 2006) was honored by the university in a recent profile, "Alfreda S. James Contributes to a Generation of SBU Students," celebrating her 34 years of service, mentoring, and collaboration with the Career Center, the Department of Political Science, Center for Inclusive Education, Graduate Career Association, the Graduate School and many others. Congratulations Alfreda!
Congratulations to our recently announced History Department Undergraduate Awards Winners: Donald Jimenez (Catherine Wang Award), Franklin Eck (Traum Research Award), Joshua Berkowitz (Staudenraus Award), Rachel Steigerwald (Martin Scholarship), Veronica Buhler (Stony Brook Foundation Award), Gina Parisi (Wunderlich Memorial Award), and Tyler Bakunas (Ferguson Award). For a full description of prizes see our awards page.
Adrián Márquez (PhD Candidate) and Nicolás Barrientos (PhD Student)
Congratulations to Latin American History PhD students Adrián Márquez ("Risky Business: From Places of Vice to Illicit Networks in the South Atlantic and Caribbean, 1919-1965") and Nicolás Barrientos ("The New Right, Aesthetics, and the Global Sixties: The Case of Patria y Libertad in Chile") for receiving the LACS Graduate Student Research Fellowships!
Joy-Louise Gape (History Major) and Naveed Nickpour (School of Medicine)
Congratulations to Joy-Louise Gape (BA/MA '22) who presented a poster at the recent meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine, "Covid-19 Discrimination Aimed at Asian-Americans: Medical Scapegoating in a Historical Perspective," and to Naveed Nickpour (School of Medicine) for his poster presentation, "Integration of Medicine and the Community: How the 1984 Family Doctor and Nurse Program in Cuba Transformed Health Care." Both worked under the mentorship and supervision of Professor Nancy Tomes.
Andrew Ehrenpreis (PhD, 2018)
Congratulations to Andrew Ehrenpreis (PhD, 2018) who will be a Visiting Assistant Professor at Bowdoin College for 2022-23. Andrew's dissertation is entitled, “Coca Nation: The Protean Politics of the Coca Leaf in Bolivia, 1900-1962"
Eric Zolov (Professor)
Prof. Eric Zolov's new book, The Walls of Santiago: Social Revolution and Political Aesthetics in Contemporary Chile, co-authored with Assoc. Professor Terri Gordon-Zolov (The New School), analyzes the Chilean social revolution of 2019 by focusing on the political graphics that channeled the demands of a leaderless, grassroots movement.
Willie Mack (PhD Candidate)
Doctoral candidate Willie Mack has received the 2022 John Higham Research Fellowship from the Organization of American Historians (OAH). These prestigious fellowships are given annual to two graduate students writing dissertations for a Ph.D. in American history. His topic is “‘Triple Minority’: Haitian ‘Boat People,’ Policing, and Mass Incarceration in New York City and Miami.”
Nancy Tomes (Distinguished Professor)
Distinguished Professor of American History, Nancy Tomes, was recently awarded a National Humanities Center Fellowship for her next book project, "A History of the Modern Infodemic." Prof. Tomes will spend next year researching and writing at the Center's institute in North Carolina.
Paul Gootenberg (Professor)
Professor Paul Gootenberg (Chair) is General Editor of the newly published Oxford Handbook of Global Drug History (Oxford Handbooks, 2022). With 36 contributions encompassing the entire globe, the Handbook is the first major compendium of the "new global drug history," covering some 5,000 years of intoxicating academic histories.
PhD candidate Dafina Nedelcheva and faculty affiliate Daniel Levy.
Congratulations to Dafina Nedelcheva (PhD candidate) and History Affiliate Faculty member Daniel Levy, whose co-authored article “Civilizational mnemonics and the longue durée: The Bulgarian case” was recently published in the premier peer-reviewed journal, Memory Studies.
PhD Candidates Jocelyn Zimmerman and Kevin Marshall
Jocelyn and Kevin have been accepted to present their research to the Eighteenth Century Scottish Studies Society conference at the University of Liverpool in July 2022.
Jocelyn will demonstrate how Scottish folklore influenced the ways in which Scottish East India Company emissary, George Bogle, and his contemporaries negotiated otherness within and around them, while Kevin will discuss group formation and identity of Scottish plantation workers in colonial Jamaica.
Jocelyn Zimmerman (PhD Candidate)
Congratulations to Jocelyn Zimmerman (PhD candidate) for receiving the "Edward Guiliano Global Fellowship" from Stony Brook University to travel to London where she will pursue further research on her doctoral dissertation, "George Bogle’s 'Fairy Dreams:' Polygamous Possibility, Sexual Enlightenment and the Tibetan Encounter, 1760-1790."
David Yee (Alumnus)
Dr. David Yee (PhD, 2020; Stony Brook University, Professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver) recently published an article "Forging Mixtec Identity in the Mexican Metropolis: Race, Indigenismo and Mixtec Migrant Associations in Mexico City, 1940-1970" in the top-tier, peer-reviewed Journal of Latin American Studies.
Sara Lipton (Professor)
Congratulations to Professor Sara Lipton who has been invited as a fellow next Fall at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study (School of Historical Studies) to work on her book project: How Pictures Hate: The Sources, Mechanisms, and Effects of Inflammatory Images from the Middle Ages to Today. Professor Lipton will also spend Spring '23 on a fellowship at All-Souls College Oxford.
Matías Hermosilla (PhD, 2022)
Congratulations to Matías Hermosilla (PhD Candidate) for his chapter, "Singing in Solidarity: The Latin American Protest Song Movement and the Vietnam War" recently published in the edited volume, Protest in the Vietnam War Era (Palgrave MacMillan).
Mark Chambers (Professor)
Congratulations to Dr. Mark Chambers (History/Africana Studies) on the publication of his first book, Gray Gold: Lead Mining and Its Impact on the Natural and Cultural Environment, 1700-1840 (University of Tennessee Press).
Sarah Lipton (Professor)
Congratulations to Professor Sara Lipton , who has been elected "Second Vice-President" of the Medieval Academy of America, the largest and most prestigious body of medievalists.
Eric Zolov (Professor)
Professor Eric Zolov was recently inducted as a member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations (COMEXI), an independent organization dedicated to the analysis, study, and debate of the major global trends and their impact on Mexico.
Yalile Suriel (PhD, 2021)
Congratulations to Yalile Suriel on the defense of her dissertation, "Campus Eyes: University Surveillance and the Policing of Black and Latinx Student Activism in the Age of Mass Incarceration, 1960-1990." Dissertation Committee: Robert Chase (Advisor), Lori Flores, Nancy Tomes, Simon Balto (outside member, Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison). Beginning in Spring 2022, Yalile will be Assistant Professor of Universities and Power in the Department of History at the University of Minnesota. We wish you well!
Shobana Shankar (Professor)
Congratulations to Professor Shobana Shankar on the publication of her second monograph, An Uneasy Embrace: Africa, India, and the Spectre of Race (2021).
Sara Lipton (Professor)
Prof. Sara Lipton has been offered a prestigious visiting fellowship to All-Souls College in Oxford, UK next year to finish her new book on How Pictures Hate: The Sources, Mechanisms, and Effects of Inflammatory Images from the Middle Ages to
Today.
Erin Chavez (PhD student)
Erin Chavez (PhD student) has been selected as a 2021-2022 Cold War Archives Research (CWAR) Institute Fellow. The fellowship is sponsored by the Wilson Center and Erin is one of only 16 fellows selected from over a hundred applicants. The fellowship includes bi-monthly Zoom lectures and culminates in a fully funded ten day trip to Budapest in May-June 2022 to visit two different archives and to attend a Cold War History conference. Congratulations, Erin!
Eric Beverley (Associate Professor)
Associate Professor Eric Beverley has been Awarded the HISB Faculty Fellowship for next Spring (2023) to complete his book project "Hyderabad in a World of Cities: Urban Property and Global Connections."
Robert Chase (Associate Professor)
The American Society of Criminology has awarded We Are Not Slaves: State Violence, Coerced Labor, and Prisoners' Rights in Postwar America (2020 ) by Assoc. Professor Robert Chase the Best Book Award in Critical Criminology and Social Justice.
Jennifer Anderson (Associate Professor)
Associate Professor Jennifer Anderson recently published the article, "Empowering Appetites: The Political Economy and Culture of Food in the Early Atlantic World" in a co-edited issue of Early American Studies.
Congratulations to our prize winners from this year's URECA research fair and to everyone who presented on their work!
Best symposium presentation, with attention to speaking skill, structure and organization of presentation, clarity of thesis and argument, attention to balance between text/imagery, keeping to allotted time, fielding of questions: Eli N. Avila, II, PCBs, Bucket Gardening, and Toxic Fishing: The History and Legacy of Corporate Pollution, Public Health Activism, and Judicial Precedent in Anniston, Alabama from the 1930s to 2014 (Advisor: Professor Mark Chambers)
Best poster design, with attention to visual imagery, use of images, balance of text and images, communication in writing : Kyle O'Hara, The Iron Crown of the East: The Symbolic Power of Railways around the Russo-Japanese War (Advisor: Professor Janis Mimura)
Innovative research, with attention to content of material, use of sources, balance of primary and secondary sources, communication of idea: Anika Choudhury, Improved Hygiene and the AIDS Pandemic (Advisor: Professor Joshua Teplitsky)
Lori Flores (Associate Professor)
Professor Lori Flores has just become a co-editor of UNC Press's brand-new book series Latinx Histories. See the full press release from UNC Press here.
Graduate Student Fellowships!
Congratulations to our History PhD Candidates who just won the first round of Presidential Dissertation Completion Fellowships: Gregory Lella for his work on policing in the Arizona-Mexico borderlands, and Emmanuel Pardo for his work on film criticism and politics in Argentina. Congratulations also to Aishani Gupta, who was awarded a Presidential Critical Research Funds Fellowship for her continuing research on Sufism and urbanism in South Asia. Amazing dissertations are in the pipeline!
Graduate Student Research Grants
Congratulations to the following PhD students, each of whom received Turner Summer Research Grants to support their dissertation work: Fernando Amador, "Children of the Land: Identities, Landscapes & Migrations from Rural Mexico"; Gregory Lella, "Their Job is to Deport Me: Policing Latinx and Indigenous People in the Arizona-Mexico Borderlands, 1964 to the Present"; and Willie Mack, "Triple Minority: Haitian Immigrants, Policing, and Mass Incarceration, 1965-1990s."
Taylor Esposito (History Minor)
Congratulations to History Minor, Taylor Esposito, for being awarded a prestigious Fulbright English Teaching Award! She will be traveling to Estonia next year — a wonderful opportunity!
Anika Choudhury (History Major)
Congratulations to undergraduate major, Anika Choudhury, for receiving the Connie
& Lee Koppelmann Endowed Scholarship award! Anika plans on taking a year off to prepare
for the LSAT and then head off to law school. You'll do great, Anika!
José Miguel Munive Vargas and Fernando Amador (PhD Students)
"Congratulations to José Miguel Munive Vargas(PhD student) and Fernando Amador (PhD candidate) for receiving the 2021 LACS Graduate Student Research Fellowships! José will pursue research on his dissertation topic, “The Making of a “Civilized Indio:” Race, Ethnology and the Struggle for Citizenship in Peruvian Rural Education” and Fernando on his dissertation thesis, “Children of the Land: Identities, Landscapes & Migrations from Rural Mexico.”
Yalile Suriel (PhD, 2021)
Congratulations to recent PhD student, Yalile Suriel, who has just accepted a tenure track position in "Universities and Power" at the Department of History at the University of Minnesota. Yalile's dissertation is entitled, “Campus Eyes: University Surveillance and the Policing of Black and Brown Student Activism in the Age of Mass Incarceration, 1960-1990." Yay, Yalile!
Eron Ackerman (PhD, 2021)
Congratulations to recent PhD Eron Ackerman, who was just appointed Visiting Assistant Professor at Albion College in Michigan! Eron's dissertation is entitled, "Ganja Diasporas: Cannabis & Colonialism in the British Caribbean, 1838-1938."
Faculty Book Talk
Eric Zolov (Director Undergraduate Studies) will give a presentation on his new book,
The Last Good Neighbor: Mexico in the Global Sixties, hosted by the University of Chicago, Tuesday, April 20th at 2pm (EST). Register here.
Paul Gootenberg (Professor and Chair)
Chair of History Paul Gootenberg, recently opened a roundtable on "The Past, Present, and Future of Drug History" with a talk " The Globalization of Drug History, 1990-2020." The event was sponsored by Virginia Tech and the Alcohol and Drug History Society (ADHS). Gootenberg is President-elect of the ADHS, the world's largest body for the study of intoxicants in history.
Mohamad Ballan (Assistant Professor)
Assistant Professor Mohamad Ballan was awarded a prestigious Mellon Fellowship at the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame. He will have a year in residence to complete his first book, Lord of the Pen and Sword, which examines the phenomenon of the “scholar-statesman”—litterateurs, physicians, and jurists who ascended to the highest administrative and executive offices of state—in Islamic Spain and North Africa.
Aishah Scott (PhD, 2019)
Congratulations to Aishah Scott (PhD, 2019) on her joint appointment as Assistant Professor in the Health Policy and Management Department and Black Studies at Providence College.
Sara Lipton (Professor)
Professor Sara Lipton will be participating in a panel discussion moderated by NYT editorialist Bret Stephens, "Conspiracies Then and Now" hosted by the University of Southern California on March 18th. For more information and registration see here.
Joshua Teplitsky (Associate Professor)
Associate Professor Joshua Teplitsky will present a lecture at Hebrew Union College, "Kashruth, Community, and Control: Shehitah Manuals and the Afterlives in Early Modern Europe" on Monday, March 1st, 1pm (EST). To register go to: huc.edu/libraryseries
Mohamad Ballan (Assistant Professor)
Read Assistant Professor Mohamad Ballan's short essay, " A Connected World: Exploring the Early Middle Ages with Ibn Faḍlān" about how he uses the ancient text of Ibn Faḍlān, Mission to the Volga, to teach about travel in the medieval world.
Eric Beverley (Associate Professor)
Professor Eric Beverley recently co-edited a special section titled "Rethinking Sovereignty" and authored the introduction and the article "Old Borderlands: Sovereignty and Autonomy in the Hyderabad Deccan, ca. 1800–2014" in the journal Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
David Yee (PhD, 2019)
Congratulations to David Yee (PhD, 2019) on the publication of his article, " Shantytown Mexico: The Democratic Opening in Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, 1969-1976" in The Americas 78:1 (January 2021).
Matt Ford (Phd Candidate)
Congratulations to Matt Ford (PhD Candidate) for his recent publication of "Indelible Divides and the Creation of Myths: Visions of the Ecuadorian Amazon" in the peer-reviewed journal, A Contracorriente 18:2 (Winter 2021): 63-91.
Matías Hermosilla (PhD Candidate)
Matías Hermosilla (PhD Candidate) has recently published his second poetry book: Memorias incómodas de un mal viajero (2020). Find the book here. Congratulations Matías!
María Clara Torres (PhD, 2020)
Congratulations to María Clara Torres (PhD 2020)for winning the prestigious AHA-Conference on Latin American History's Lewis Hanke Prize for best dissertation, with support to transform it into a book. The title of María Clara's dissertation
is “The Roots of an Illicit Peasant Crop: Coca in Colombia, 1950–2010." ¡Felicidades María Clara!
Spencer Austin (PhD Candidate)
Has been awarded a Chateaubriand fellowship in Humanities and Social Sciences, which will allow him to work 4 months in France next year on his dissertation about French-speaking coal-miners in PA.
Matías Hermosilla (PhD Candidate)
Has published a peer reviewed article entitled "La Palmada en la Frente (1970): Political Cartoons, the Global Sixties, and Popular Culture in Chile" in Studies of Latin American Popular Culture (May 2020). Link found here.
Cody Rossler (PhD Candidate)
Just won the prestigious Charlotte W. Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship (examining ethics and religion) for his thesis "Race Science on Tour: Instructing Publics in Provincial Britain, 1830–1870."