Tag: Newsletter


Undergraduate Historical Society Hosts Conference

On April 2, 2022, the Undergraduate Historical Society hosted its third annual Capstone Research Symposium. The conference, organized and led exclusively by our department’s undergraduate researchers and leaders, featured a full day of research presentations–two panels, with nine papers in all. Topics ranged from slavery and Sherman’s “march to the sea” to the travels of Marco Polo, Westernization in Japan, and criminality in early modern London. Dr. Lucy Kaufman, one of the faculty mentors for the conference, described it as […]

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Alumna Returns to Discuss Book That Began as Undergraduate Research Seminar Project

Dr. Isabela Morales (UA Class of 2012) returned to campus September 29-30 to talk about her first book, Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom (OUP, 2022). Speaking to a group of fifty undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty, Dr. Morales explained how her research began in Dr. Jenny Shaw’s American Slavery Research Seminar (now HY497) during the Fall 2011 semester. The subject of that seminar was “Slavery in the Americas” and following a visit to the W.S. […]

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Department Host Inaugural Session of Southern Conversations

Last April, students and faculty gathered for the inaugural session of Southern Conversations, a series of informal discussions about southern history and historical methodology that is guided by student questions and interests. The first Conversation’s theme, “Gender Matters,” covered the past, present, and future of gender analysis in southern historical scholarship. Drs. Lesley Gordon, John Giggie, and Julia Brock each gave a short introduction of how gender analysis and their own gendered experiences in academia have shaped their academic careers […]

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Recent Graduate Placements, Awards, Service, & Publications

Fellowships & Service   Andrew Deaton – Awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in the Czech Republic and is living in Prague now doing dissertation research. David Ferrara – Awarded a fellowship to work with the department’s Dr. Julia Brock, in partnership with the National Park Service, researching the history of national park lands on the Gulf Coast. Daniel Leon – Represents the department’s graduate students in the university’s Graduate Student Association. Recent Graduate Job Placements   Ashley Tickle Odebiyi, PhD (2022) […]

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Dr. Megan Kate Nelson Speaks to Writing Workshop

This past February, historian and author Dr. Megan Kate Nelson visited The University of Alabama Department of History virtually, zooming in from her home in Boston to conduct a writing workshop entitled “Writing for Academic and Public Audiences.” In a wide-ranging presentation, Dr. Nelson shared the story of her shift from academic to popular publishing, including an explanation of how to pitch and write an op-ed drawn from her January 7, 2021 Washington Post op-ed. She also outlined the differences […]

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PhD Students’ Work Featured in The Washington Post

Ashley Steenson, PhD Candidate “Standing up against one’s party can be courageous. But it can also reflect elitism,” reads the tag line for PhD candidate Ashley Steenson’s January 27 op-ed in The Washington Post, titled “Joe Manchin might be principled. Or he might scorn his own constituents.” Steenson crafts a fascinating connection between Sen. Manchin’s opposition to President Biden’s Build Back Better Framework and the complicated political philosophy of late-nineteenth century Senator (and later US Supreme Court Justice) Lucius Quintus […]

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Summersell Center’s Queer History Project Hosts Galloway School Students

Dr. John Giggie and Isabella Garrison hosted high school students from Atlanta who are enrolled in the Galloway School’s southern queer history course. The students were led by Dr. Margaret Montgomery, a UA Department of History alumn, in an experience-based course about researching southern queer history. The visit centered on undergraduate research and experience, with an emphasis on learning the practice of local queer history. The high school students opened their visit with a campus tour led by Summersell Scholar […]

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2021-2022 Award-Winning Graduate Students

[ua_row class=”row”][ua_col class=”col-sm-6″][ua_image_boxes title=”Frank Lawrence Owsley Memorial Scholarship for Superior Competency in American History Brian Martin” alt_text=”Brian Martin” bg_color=”light” type=”horizontal” bordered=”false” centered=”false” image=”https://history.ua.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Brian-Martin.jpg”][/ua_image_boxes][/ua_col] [ua_col class=”col-sm-6″][ua_image_boxes title=”Albert Burton Moore Memorial Award for Outstanding Graduate Student in European, Latin American, or Asian History Trayce Hockstad” alt_text=”Trayce Hockstad” bg_color=”light” type=”horizontal” bordered=”false” centered=”false” image=”https://history.ua.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Hockstad.jpg”][/ua_image_boxes][/ua_col][/ua_row] [ua_row class=”row”][ua_col class=”col-sm-6″][ua_image_boxes title=”Gary B. Mills Endowed Dissertation Support Fund Aaron Hoggle” alt_text=”Aaron Hoggle” bg_color=”light” type=”horizontal” bordered=”false” centered=”false” image=”https://history.ua.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Hoggle.jpg”][/ua_image_boxes][/ua_col] [ua_col class=”col-sm-6″][ua_image_boxes title=”Christopher G. Swindle Teaching Award Mauren Schindler” alt_text=”Mauren Schindler” bg_color=”light” type=”horizontal” […]

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2021 – 2022 Undergraduate Award Recipients

The Lee David and Florence Weinberg Black Scholarship in History Kara Hutchinson Mary Payne James Hands Anna Kate Manchester Amelia Pugh Tenisha Ciby The Russell Bryant Scholarship Aliya Jaramillo The Charles Grayson Summersell Memorial Scholarship for Most Distinguished Undergraduate in History John Pace Caitlyn Jones The Howard Jones Endowed Scholarship Sarah Jaggears Washington Moore Colonial Dames Award for Most Outstanding Paper in American Colonial History James Cummings Henry Pettus Randall, Jr. Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award Faith Oldham Algernon Sydney Sullivan […]

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Senior India Rose Cary to Apply Historical Skills as a Contracts Negotiator After Graduation

While taking Dr. Lawrence Cappello’s Right to Privacy course, Senior India Rose Cary realized she had a deep fascination with the subject of privacy and the complicated interaction between history, law, and daily life. In this course, Cary learned that history should not just be studied for how it will impact the future but for its own sake as well. “While it is undoubtedly true that history can provide a great deal of insight into the contemporary and subsequent world,” […]

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Jackson Foster Wins 2022 Marshall Scholarship

Jackson Foster has a passion for people. The 2022 Marshall Scholarship winner decided to become a history major because of his profound interest in the complexities of people and their relationships to each other. Foster explained, “I care deeply about the communities, institutions, and relationships that structured and enriched their daily lives, the ways they succeeded – and failed – in navigating periods of profound change.” He hopes to use this knowledge of our histories to “create a more humane, […]

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Dr. Lesley Gordon & Students Visit Vicksburg Battlefield

Dr. Lesley Gordon took her Civil War class (HY 315) and UA History grad students on a tour of Vicksburg National Military Park this past March. They were joined by Dr. Susannah Ural and some of her students from the University of Southern Mississippi as well as UA and Southern Mississippi ROTC members. Park rangers and graduate students, such as UA History PhD students Brian Martin and Trace Brusco, co-led the tour. Undergraduate students also presented about the battle at […]

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Crimson Historical Review Continues to Grow

This past year, staff at the Crimson Historical Review transformed sixty-plus submissions into their most enterprising set of issues to date. In the spring, exceptional authors from across the US combined with CHR review board and copy editors to produce, then perfect, articles examining topics as broad as alcohol consumption in Nazi-occupied areas to masculinity in the Black Panther Party. They also marked important firsts for the CHR, centering novel inquiry on The University of Alabama’s relationship with race — […]

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Peer Mentors Continue to Serve their Fellow students

The History Peer Mentoring Program at The University of Alabama was first introduced in 2011. During the past decade the Department has recruited hundreds of peer mentors, who in turn have helped thousands of students maximize their performance in the Department’s courses by tutoring their fellow students, helping to develop their study skills; improve their test-taking strategies; and promote active reading. Though the program was initially intended for students enrolled in introductory survey courses, it is now offered for all […]

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The Summersell Center for the Study of the South Continues to Explore Hidden histories

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South has continued the research of hidden Southern history with its two new classes in the fall semester. “Race and Injustice in the Modern South” explores crime, punishment, and race in the American South from enslavement through the rise of mass incarceration in the 21st century, with special attention paid to understanding the impact of these themes on a local level. In “Queer History South,” students explore the lives and […]

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