Chair’s Letter

Dear Stanford History Department Alumni and Friends,

Summer greetings from History Corner! As we all scatter to libraries and archives for summer research, I am delighted to share with you the 2023 issue of the Stanford Historian.

In this issue, you will find brief reports from the faculty and students who have launched new projects, secured competitive fellowships, and pursued collaborations with scholars around the world. Their efforts were bolstered with innovative courses such as the History of 2023, and conferences such as Professor Fiona Griffiths’ Priests’ Wives and Concubines in the Medieval West (800-1200). Faculty publications received numerous awards, continuing the department’s tradition of influential scholarship. Our undergraduate majors continue to inspire us. Kyra Jasper has been named a 2023 Marshall Scholar, and she and her fellow graduates wrote theses on topics ranging from the economic history of modern Mexico to marriage in early modern Venice to human rights in Indonesia. Check out the latest edition of the student-run journal Herodotus for more of their historical writing.

You’ll see some new faces around the department in 2023-24. We are delighted to be welcoming two new faculty members, Professors Rachel Jean-Baptiste (African History) and Anne Twitty (American History), and three postdoctoral teaching fellows: Eduardo Acosta, Theresa Iker, and Samia Errazzouki. Our new Academic Technology Specialist Dr. Anne Ladyem McDivitt assists faculty and graduate students with digital projects.

Your generous contributions help us to pursue all of these exciting activities, and to maintain our top ranking among history departments in the United States. This year we were immensely grateful to receive a new endowment, the Young-Park Honors Thesis Mentorship Program Fund, which supports undergraduate education in History through a year-long collaboration between honors thesis writers and advanced graduate students.

We are always interested in hearing your professional updates. Please feel free to reach out to us at history-info@stanford.edu. You can also follow us on Twitter, visit our website, and support our activities here

Sincerely,

Caroline Winterer Chair, Department of History

William Robertson Coe Professor of History Stanford University