2023 Past, Present, & Future: History Department Magazine

PAST PRESENT &FUTURE Department of History / 2023 Report

Bringing Documents to Life

Read more about Catherine Wan's internship on pages 8 –9

History major Sabrina Ishanyan explores archival materials in Jennifer Heuer’s Craft of History course. Flip to page 2 to read more about the undergraduate program's embrace of experiential learning.

JASON KOTOCH

In This Issue

CONTENTS 2 Undergraduate Program 16 Graduate Program 24 Public History Program 32 Faculty and Student News 44 Class Notes 48 New Books 50 In Memoriam 51 Our Donors

Carina Dreyer ’23MA leads the last discussion section of the semester for History of Western Science and Technology. Stories and highlights from the graduate program begin on page 16.

2 Hands-On History

8 On the Cover: Unearthing Asian History 11 The Victory of Violence

Expanding Experiential Education for Undergraduates

Internship Insights from Catherine Wan

12 Confronting Empire 21 Unsilencing the Past 30 On Vacation in East Germany 36 A Lasting Impact

Depicting War on the Column of Marcus Aurelius

Feinberg Series Explores History of U.S. Empire and Anti-Imperialist Resistance Timothy Hart’s analysis of the Marcus Aurelius victory column reveals fresh insights into the Roman Empire. Read more on page 11.

Sheher Bano Asks, “Which Mother Birthed Bhagat Singh?”

Jon Olsen on the History of Travel in a Socialist Land

Celebrating David Glassberg on the Occasion of His Retirement

Public history student Piper Prolago photographs a mural in Wichita, Kans., as part of her Hyde Fellowship with the Ulrich Museum of Art. Turn to page 24 for news from the Public History Program.

TAFELN I - LXIV, 1896.

COVER PHOTO BY JASON KOTOCH

LETTER FROM THE CHAIR

As I end my second and final term as chair of the Department of History, I am struck by how much has changed since I was first elected in spring 2016. The advent of COVID-19 in December 2019 and its ramifications are most obvious. I was on sabbatical leave when the university pivoted to fully remote teaching in March 2020, but I was back in the office—virtually, like almost all of us—in August, when we prepared for a year in which nearly all history courses were offered remotely.

We all—students, staff, and faculty—did our best to adapt to challenges ranging from serious illness and death to internet bandwidth problems and limited access to libraries. We were all changed by that experience, though I’m amused at how often people on Zoom meetings, myself included, still forget to unmute. Those awkward moments remind me that faceto-face interactions are still at the heart of the residential university. Still, I think that remote and hybrid interactions will remain important for all of us at UMass.

The United States and the world have gone through many other changes beyond COVID-19, including an insurrection that ended the 224-year-old tradition of the peaceful transition of power between U.S.

"In the face of enormous change, the Department of History teaches UMass Amherst students how historical understanding explains where we are today. We remain committed to the history of all parts of the world, as well as the global histories that bind us together."

presidential administrations, the racial justice movement inspired by the unjust deaths of George Floyd and so many other Black Americans, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the continuing climate crisis, and many other developments I don’t have time to list.

During my tenure as chair, the department has addressed these issues in our courses, in public events, in media interviews, and in publications aimed at diverse audiences.

I’m proud to have been able to support, and in a few cases to initiate, these historically informed responses to current events.

However, as I reflect on those changes, I also note that in many ways, our core values and activities have remained the same. We continue to offer a wide range of General Education courses that help ensure that all UMass Amherst students, whatever their majors, are introduced to how historical understanding can explain where we are today. We’ve continued our longstanding commitment to teaching the history of all parts of the world, as well as the global histories that bind us together. And our department and our university are in a strong position in 2023 to move confidently into an uncertain future, thanks in good part to our former chancellor, Kumble Subbaswamy—the most effective academic leader I’ve had the good chance to work with in my 26 years at UMass—and our former provost, John McCarthy, whose high standards were always leavened with compassion for the challenges that we all face.

As part of our ongoing reflections on how to make our department and the university a better place, I am delighted that Garrett Washington is taking on the position of director of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the department. By creating this new role, the department hopes to intensify our efforts to be an inclusive and welcoming community, and to provide our members with resources for addressing difficult and contentious histories in the classroom.

As is almost always the case, we have had a number of transitions this year. We welcome three new full-time faculty members: Elizabeth Jacob, Jessica Keene, and Matthew Wormer. They are profiled below. We also say farewell to four members of our community: David Glassberg,

who has retired after 37 years at UMass; Amy Fleig, who has taken a position in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts; Mark Roblee ’19PhD, who has taken a lectureship in the Commonwealth Honors College; and Barbara Krauthamer, who accepted a deanship at Emory University.

We miss them and wish them well!

In closing, I express my profound gratitude to the staff and project assistants who have worked to keep the department running smoothly over the past year: Mary Lashway, Stefanie Austin, and Meredith Pustell—each of whom took on overtime after Amy’s departure—as well as Jess Johnson, Alison Russell, Heather Brinn ’23PhD, and Maya González ’23MA. I also thank Priyanka Srivastava, Joel Wolfe, Sarah Cornell, Sam Redman, and Daniel Gordon for holding faculty administrative positions.

My two terms as chair would have been impossible without the support and good cheer of everyone who works together to accomplish our teaching, research, and outreach missions. And I thank our students, alumni, parents, and friends for their ongoing support. Finally, I thank my dear colleague Anne Broadbridge, one of the department’s greatest teachers and scholars, for agreeing to succeed me as chair. I rest easy knowing that our future is in her capable hands.

Sincerely,

Brian Ogilvie 1

Hands-On

Students in Jessica Keene’s Renaissance and Reformation Europe course learn how to operate a printing press at UMass’s Arthur F. Kinney Center for Renaissance Studies.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

FROM THE DESK OF THE UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM DIRECTOR

History Expanding Our Commitment to Experiential Learning

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ast year marked my first year as the undergraduate program director. It is a great honor to serve as UPD, and I especially enjoyed meeting so many of our students, but it was also daunting because our undergraduate program has approximately 250 primary majors (as well as secondary majors and minors). I was fortunate to be mentored by my predecessor, Heidi Scott, and I benefited enormously from working closely with the undergraduate program coordinator, Meredith Pustell, and with all the faculty and staff who are instrumental in the smooth running of the program.

One of the defining commitments of the history department’s undergraduate program is experiential education, a strength that we continued to expand this past year. Several classes visited the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, allowing

students to examine collection highlights and discuss primary research directly with archivists. We offered nine Junior Year Writing seminars, which meant our students were able to research and write about a wide variety of subjects. And many history majors are completing more original research while writing senior theses. While historically, theses were largely undertaken by Commonwealth Honors College students, more history majors are now tackling them thanks to the leadership of Honors Program Director Daniel Gordon.

One of the year’s highlights was the 2022–23 Feinberg Series on the history of U.S. imperialism. Many of our majors eagerly enrolled in one of the four dedicated Feinberg courses and 16 affiliated courses, which offered them the opportunity to delve deeply into a compelling topic and to meet and learn from internationally renowned scholars, journalists, and community organizers at the forefront of writing—and making—history.

We also encourage experiential learning through internships and by supporting our students as they transition from their studies into careers. The department’s Internship and Career Development Office flourished, adding new events and revitalizing past ones like the alumni dinner. As a measure of our commitment to this work, the department hired Jessica Keene, who serves as a career advisor for history and humanities and fine arts students in addition to teaching history classes. Heather Brinn ’23PhD, our internship and career advisor for several years, completed her PhD and is taking these skills to her new role in Smith College’s Lazarus Center for Career Development. We are lucky that doctoral candidate Yuri Gama is stepping into the role.

History majors also seek to apply their skills in other venues, such as producing the student-run Undergraduate History Journal. Furthermore, student presenters honed their public speaking skills at a variety of events, including a two-day thesis symposium. I am especially thankful to the students who participated in the History Open Houses and Flash Presentation nights, sharing their knowledge, experiences, and enthusiasm for a full range of resources and opportunities available to history majors.

Last year saw a marked rise in applications for history department awards and scholarships, which support our students’ future endeavors and honor those who have distinguished themselves with exceptional academics, outstanding writing, and remarkable contributions to the department, college, university, and wider community. I am very grateful to our donors, who make this possible.

Awards ranged from funding honors thesis research in Argentina to supporting future teachers and summer internships at institutions like the Massachusetts Export Center, the Cape Cod Museum of Art, and the Fryeburg Historical Society. Additionally, the Undergraduate 3

Studies Committee supported equity in access to study abroad opportunities with scholarships for the Oxford Summer Program. The excellence of our majors was also recognized with prestigious college or university awards. For example, Catherine Wan’s summer internship was funded by the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, while Ciara Smith received a UMass Women into Leadership Fellowship. I warmly congratulate all award winners!

As the field of history evolves, the curriculum also changes. Last year the department converted over 30 temporary or experimental courses to permanent offerings while also introducing a slate of new experimental classes, including The Ancient World in Popular Media, U.S. Empire and Solidarity in Central America, Animals in Human History, and an Indigenous history course designed for STEM majors. The faculty joining us this fall are offering new courses, including Elizabeth Jacob's courses on African history and Matthew Wormer's course on the global history of drugs and capitalism.

I invite you to delve more deeply into our students’ experiential learning last year by reading the accompanying stories about the Feinberg Series, editing the journal, interning, and more! —Sarah Cornell Sarah Cornell is a senior lecturer in the history department, the director of the department’s undergraduate program, and an award-winning teacher and scholar whose research focuses on the United States and the world in the age of emancipation. She thanks the numerous staff and faculty whose work was essential to this year's successes. In addition to those mentioned within, she especially thanks Stefanie Austin, Anne Broadbridge, Emily Hamilton, Mary Lashway, Jess Johnson, Brian Ogilvie, Jon Berndt Olsen, Alison Russell, and Asheesh Siddique.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

Mia Galvam explored career pathways for women in politics during her summer internship at Power in Place, which culminated in the publication of an interview with Northampton mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra.

“Senior Bridges is an incredible resource for building a rock-solid job application, and it gave me the skills and confidence I needed to land an amazing job after graduation.” —LAURA HASKELL ’23

Finding Their Passions History Majors Explore Career Pathways

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he Internship and Career Development Office had a successful 2022–23 academic year with an exciting array of initiatives and offerings for undergraduate history majors.

They were organized by undergraduate career advisor and lecturer Jessica Keene, who joined the history department in January 2023, and by PhD student and longtime internship and career advisor Heather Brinn ’23PhD. Highlights included mentoring sessions aimed to support students in applying for graduate school and law school, sessions with Robert LaRussa ’76 on pursuing careers in Washington, D.C., a personal statement workshop, and an info session with Aibhlin Hannigan ’17 on job opportunities at Old Sturbridge Village.

We were also thrilled to host the annual UMass History Alumni Networking Dinner

JOIN US IN SUPPORTING HISTORY MAJORS! We look forward to connecting with more UMass history alumni to expand our initiatives for history majors. If you are interested in participating in alumni career panels, networking events, mentorship programs, or in serving as an internship sponsor, please reach out to Jessica Keene at jkeene@umass.edu.

AWARD-WINNING UNDERGRADUATES Scholarships Support Internships, Research, Tuition, and Travel Thanks to our generous donors, the history department offers numerous scholarships that support experiential learning, including student research, travel, and internships. Awards also offset students’ costs, champion first-generation students and future teachers, and reward students’ academic and community efforts. Congratulations to the awardees!

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in person for the first time since 2019.

Bringing together alumni in eight different fields, the dinner was attended by more than 30 history majors who took advantage of the opportunity to develop professional contacts and learn about a variety of career pathways.

The office also offered semester-long courses giving intensive support for students. These included a practicum on career development with Brinn and Senior Bridges (a class designed to help senior history majors transition to life after UMass) with Keene. Students in that class secured positions with the American Antiquarian Society, Northeast Legal Aid, Old Sturbridge Village, AmeriCorps, and more. Looking to the future, Keene hopes to make the work of the office more accessible to all history majors by tying careers education more closely to required coursework for the history major.

The Internship and Career Development Office thanks the numerous UMass students, staff, faculty, and alumni whose collaborations make this work possible, including the following department alumni: Luke Bergquist ’18, Kate Freedman ’09MA, ’18PhD, Aibhlin Hannigan ’17, Peter Lamothe ’93, Robert LaRussa ’76, Jorge Marinez ’18, Ellie (Rousseau) Page ’16, Christina Poletto ’98, and Michael Nicholson ’16.

Awards Disbursed by the History Department in 2023

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Individual Students Won Awards

Department of History Summer Internship Award Josy Hunter Ryan Richards Kaylan Snow

Frederic Gilbert Bauer Award / Oxford Summer Scholarship Hannah Bension Andrew Bielecki Elliot Hajjaj Emily L’Etoile Abigail Seero

Harold W. Cary Prize Eleanor Costello Patience Gubisch Jeremy Spevack Cicely Weber Abigail Wing

The History Opportunity Award Rowan Vail

James and Cynthia Redman Scholarship Sebastian Hersey Hannah Whalen

READ MORE ABOUT HISTORY DEPARTMENT AWARDS!

Louis S. Greenbaum History Honors Research Award Anna Pelletiere

New Phi Alpha Theta Members Andrew Bielecki Laura Haskell Lila Ives Sari Morakawa Ciara Louise Smith

Nicholas Carr Bergstein Scholarship Andrew Bielecki Brianna Hastry

Paul E. Giguere Scholarship Benjamin Clark Josy Hunter

Potash Travel Grant for Latin America, Spain, or Portugal Luca DeCola

Richard W. Bauer Scholarship Eleanor Costello Albert Thomas Hannah Whalen

Robert H. McNeal Scholarship Abigail Wing

Simon and Satenig Ermonian Memorial Scholarship Andrew Bielecki Eleanor Costello Gabriel “Jack” Fatyga Evan Fournier Madeline Grudinskas Patience Gubisch Bret Hackenson Sebastian Hersey Anna Pelletiere Ryan Richards Ethan Salvesan Kaylan Snow Jeremy Spevack Tycho Traumann-Davis Rowan Vail Cicely Weber Abigail Wing

Louis S. Greenbaum History Writing Prize Long Essay Claire Gagnon George Fenn, Honorable Mention Short Essay Evan Fournier Tycho Traumann-Davis

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“My thesis work was difficult but rewarding, allowing me to develop a deep, specialized knowledge of the topic and work with professors I highly regard.”

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

ELLIE COSTELLO ’23

At the Helm of History Writing and Editing History at UMass As editor in chief of the Undergraduate History Journal, I proofread and edited students’ research submissions and worked with other editors to produce this student-run publication. The best part of the process was engaging with other history students to clarify and build up their arguments: I got to understand their work better, and I was happy to provide feedback that brought out their ideas and strengthened their pieces. Working as an editor has shown me that great writing—and the historical method—is collaborative, rather than a purely individual project.

At the same time, I also embarked on the most significant writing project of my undergraduate career.

Working with Professor Joel Wolfe, I researched and wrote an honors thesis on the late 20th-century decline of Mexico’s PRI party, which maintained a

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Department of History / 2023 Report

“perfect dictatorship” in the country for more than 70 years. Focusing on the period surrounding Mexico’s neoliberal turn, I explored the party’s oscillating relationship with the banking sector, arguing that it alienated economic elites, furthered everyday Mexicans’ growing disillusionment with the one-party state, and ultimately contributed to the party’s electoral losses to the oppositional National Action Party in 2000. —Ellie Costello Eleanor “Ellie” Costello graduated with honors in May 2023. She is the recipient of the Richard W. Bauer Scholarship, the Harold W. Cary Prize, and the Simon and Satenig Ermonian Memorial Scholarship in recognition of her exemplary academic achievements. Costello is currently a paralegal at Northeast Legal Aid and is contemplating a graduate degree in history or a career in public interest law.

2023 COLLEGE OUTSTANDING TEACHING AWARD

LESSONS IN LAW Jennifer L. Nye Honored for Exemplary Teaching and Mentorship

A lawyer by training, Jennifer L. Nye joined the history department faculty eight years ago. She teaches legal history with a focus on issues of race, gender, sexuality, and reproductive justice, and she mentors history students interested in legal careers. In Nye’s own words, her aim is to “demystify the law for students, empower them to be engaged citizens, and even inspire a few of them to pursue careers in public interest law.”

For Nye, this work has become more vital than ever in the face of significant challenges to the rule of law. In response, she’s developed innovative new courses like Rape Law: Gender, Race, (In)Justice.

She also organizes panels of guest speakers on the historical roots of current legal battles, connects legal history with issues impacting students such as campus sexual assault and abortion rights, and creates opportunities outside the classroom. In addition to encouraging students to get involved in issues they care about, she’s helped send dozens of students to Yale’s Rebellious Lawyering Conference.

As her numerous nominators testified, the impacts of Nye’s work run deep.

Leila Aruri ’18, now a graduate student at Vanderbilt University shared, "Professor Nye transformed my world Jennifer Nye as an undergraduate student. Her courses and thoughtful teachings served as the foundation for my passion and pursuit of a career in reproductive justice."

Evan Fournier ’23, who graduated in May with history and political science degrees and quickly landed a job as a paralegal, sums it up: “I can confidently say that Professor Nye has had the largest impact on both my academic and professional career aspirations out of anyone in my life.” —Alison Russell Alison Russell is a PhD candidate in the UMass Amherst history department and was the department’s communications coordinator during the 2022–23 academic year.

FUTURE LAWYERS Pictured here among the law books in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, Theodore Bellak ’23, Evan Fournier ’23, and Honour Rhoades ’23 were among the six students, faculty, and alumni who collaborated to nominate Nye for this award. All three took multiple courses with Nye and plan to enter the legal field.

READ MORE ABOUT NYE'S TEACHING AND MENTORSHIP.

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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

CATHERINE WAN

Unearthing Asian History at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

HIGHLIGHTS FROM WAN’S RESEARCH—INCLUDING A TIMELINE, PROFILES, PRIMARY SOURCES, AND MORE—ARE FEATURED ON PAFA’S WEBSITE. CHECK OUT HER PROJECT HERE!

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Department of History / 2023 Report

ABOUT THE PROJECT Over the course of her internship, Catherine Wan researched, digitized, and cataloged academic files from students of Asian descent who attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1917–1949.

She also curated a digital history project bringing these hidden histories to light.

“I’ve held the same pages held by students decades ago, turning them from never gave much thought toward the creation of sources I used in essays. Databases and journal articles were simply crumbling paper into online. However, interning at the Pennsylvania Academy something that of the Fine Arts (PAFA) Archives allowed me to be directly involved in the creation of a database. This database, or digital will outlast collection, contains all PAFA’s documents on Asian students who even myself.” attended from 1917 to 1949. As a Chinese American with an interest in

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Asian American history, I was excited to bring these students out of the files and into the public eye.

A lot of work goes into digitization: scanning; formatting; making sure a document’s size, type, language, and origin are properly labeled; and, finally, choosing the best layout for online presentation. My internship has given me immense appreciation for the work of archivists.

I’ve gotten a taste of the countless hours of work put into digitizing historical documents. And there’s a level of satisfaction in knowing I’ve contributed a bit to the sea of online resources. At PAFA, I’ve held the same pages held by students decades ago, turning them from crumbling paper into something that will outlast even myself. —Catherine Wan Catherine Wan is a rising sophomore majoring in history and legal studies. As a Philadelphia native, she was particularly excited to intern at such an important historical institution as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

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THE CLASS OF 2023 The history department warmly congratulates the undergraduate class of 2023 on this truly remarkable accomplishment! We wish you joy and luck in all your future endeavors.

VIEW THE LIST OF 2023 GRADUATING SENIORS!

“THE MOST CHALLENGING ACADEMIC EXERCISE” Record Number of History Majors Pen Senior Theses Traditionally, writing a thesis was an endeavor largely undertaken by students in the Commonwealth Honors College. No longer. In the department’s embrace of experiential education, all graduating history majors are now highly encouraged to undertake this intensive, yearlong project. Theses help students hone their critical thinking, research, and writing skills, transforming them from passive learners of history to active contributors to the field.

The number of thesis writers is rising steadily. During the 2022–23 academic year, 18 history majors wrote theses under the direction of faculty members in the history department; eight more did so through the Commonwealth Honors College. Daniel Gordon, the director of the department’s honors program and a strong advocate for thesis writing, is thrilled to see this precipitous rise. “The senior thesis is the most challenging academic exercise an undergraduate student can complete,” he notes.

2022–23 HISTORY DEPARTMENT THESES Shai Bocarsly ’23, “Connecting the Cosmic Dots: The Thoughts of Spinoza, Marx, Weber, and Heschel on Religion’s Utility and Truthfulness” Meredith Boyle ’23, “A Step Towards Liberation: English Walking Dresses, 1790–1830” Hunter Cohen ’23, “Alexander Hamilton in the Age of Neoliberalism”

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Department of History / 2023 Report

Matthew Dardis ’23, “The Man Who Knew Too Much: Examining Vietnam-Era America through Public Perception of Daniel Ellsberg” Brandon DeCoff ’23, “Sports and the First Amendment” Eleanor Costello ’23, “Withdrawal: Bank-Party Relationships and the Electoral Decline of the PRI in Late 20th-Century Mexico” Gabriel “Jack” Fatyga ’23, “Curse the Devil, but Take His Tools: A Case Study of Fordism in the USSR”

George Fenn ’23, “The Church and the Light: Four British Theologies 1534–1691” Claire Gagnon ’23, “The Children of Today: British Children’s Wartime Experiences and the Reflections of the Education Act of 1944” Patience Gubisch ’23, “The Student-Led Fight for Educational Equality in East Los Angeles and Chicago, 1968: An Educational Resource for the High School History Teacher” Abby Lamson ’23, “A Comparison of Gender and Race: Sandra Day O’Connor and Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court Nomination Hearings” Joshua dos Reis ’23, “Walter Cowles: The Story of a 19th-Century Amherst Businessman” Benjamin Schnurr ’23, “Catholic Conservative Media Activism in the Age of Postmodernity” Jeremy Spevack ’23, “Autocrats at War: A Comparative Analysis of the Causes of Saddam Hussein’s Assault against Iran and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine” Justin Taylor ’23, “Not Prison but the Guillotine: The French Revolution in the Bolsheviks’ Revolutionary Script” Albert Thomas ’23, “‘All Rights Are Held Subject to the Police Power’: The Rise and Fall of the Police Powers in American Constitutional Law” Hannah Whalen ’23, “Defining Black Motherhood: The Fight for Black Mothers’ Autonomy in the U.S.”

RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

TIMOTHY HART

THE VICTORY OF VIOLENCE Depicting War on the Column of Marcus Aurelius

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his engraving comes from the narrative frieze that spirals up the length of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius’s monumental victory column in Rome. Completed after the emperor’s death by his son Commodus, the column celebrates Rome’s Marcomannic Wars, which were waged from 166 to 180 CE against an alliance of peoples who dwelt on the northern banks of the river Danube. Depicted here is a scene of intentional terror wrought by the Roman army. We see a Marcomannic village set ablaze by Roman troops while the inhabitants are rounded up for enslavement. The scenes on Marcus’s column tend to depict the cruelties of war with an unflinching eye, which historian Elizabeth Wolfram Thill suggests sets it apart from the less violent scenes of conflict on the slightly earlier column of Emperor Trajan.

In the second chapter of his forthcoming book, Beyond the River, Under the Eye of Rome, Timothy Hart argues that the explicit violence and terror depicted on Marcus’s column both reflects popular sentiment toward the Marcomanni at the time and illustrates imperial support for this dehumanization

Tafeln I - LXIV. 1896. Bd. tafe,1. Die Marcus-Säule auf Piazza Colonna in Rom. München: Bruckmann. doi:10.11588/diglit.9328.

of Rome’s Transdanubian neighbors. Hart explains that concurrently with the Marcomannic Wars, the Roman world was ravaged by a deadly pandemic known to scholars as the Antonine Plague. Faced with incurable disease bringing death to the heart of Roman cities, the wars along the Danube offered a chance for Marcus Aurelius to prove his ability to lead and protect his people by eradicating the “barbarian” menace. Thus, despite repeatedly seeking peace with the empire, the Marcomanni and their allies suffered more than a decade of death and enslavement to ease the minds of a fearful Roman public. In the frieze of Marcus’s column, we see the Marco manni receiving what they “deserved” after years of demonization as Rome’s designated enemy.

Marcus’s victory column is just another tourist stop in Rome today, but a closer look at the monument’s frieze reminds us of some hard truths the tour guides usually omit: The Roman state was often a brutal agent of imperial oppression, and emperors—even those deemed “good” by posterity—were often deeply complicit in that violence. —Timothy Hart Timothy Hart is a lecturer in the history department, where he teaches courses on a range of subjects related to ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern history. His research focuses on the ways Greek ethnographic theory and writing influenced Roman perceptions of, and actions toward, peoples dwelling beyond the imperial frontiers.

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FEINBERG FAMILY DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES

CONFRONTING EMPIRE

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Department of History / 2023 Report

The 2022–23 Feinberg Series, Confronting Empire, brought together scholars, journalists, educators, writers, community organizers, and survivors of state violence to examine global histories of U.S. imperialism and anti-imperialist resistance. Engaging an international audience of thousands, the series comprised nine public events—including lectures, panels, and a poetry reading—as well as a four-part workshop series for K–12 educators and more than two dozen linked undergraduate courses.

JOHN CARBUTT, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

Presented in collaboration with the Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy and co-sponsored by more than three dozen community and university partners, Confronting Empire traced the roots of U.S. imperialism from the conquest of North America through the creation of a formal and informal overseas empire in the late 19th century, ending in the present day.

The series opened last September with a keynote conversation between Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Rigoberta Menchú Tum and journalist Vincent Bevins. With Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman as moderator, together they explored the devastating consequences of U.S.-backed state terror in Central America and Southeast Asia and the path that survivors have charted for healing historical trauma.

On the heels of the keynote, Barnard College professor and historian Manu Karuka presented “The Imperialist Roots of the U.S.A.,” which traced the evolution of U.S. imperialism from the conquest of North America to the creation of an overseas empire by the close of the 19th century. Drawing on the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, Karuka offered a definition of imperialism and made the case that it is central to understanding and overcoming the major crises of our moment, including climate change, poverty, and the looming threat of nuclear war.

The Asia-Pacific region has been a major site for the development and maintenance of U.S. empire. In November, scholars

A railroad company executive stands on railroad ties in 1866. For more on 19th century U.S. empire, including the role of the rail system, listen to Manu Karuka’s lecture.

and journalists Moon-Ho Jung, Nerissa S. Balce, and Brian Hioe explored this history, including its racist roots, the revolutionary struggles it engendered, and the profound consequences for people in Asia, the Pacific, and the United States today. With moderator Sigrid Schmalzer, they urged us all to understand that despite the oft-repeated goal of promoting democracy, U.S. empire has consistently produced state repression and violence.

Later in the month, the Feinberg Series hosted the inaugural Ellsberg Lecture, an event that launched the Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy. The lecture, introduced by Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, was given by Azmat Khan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for the New York Times.

Her talk, “The Human Toll of America’s Air Wars,” offered evidence that despite U.S. military and government claims that its air wars were precise, even surgical, drone attacks and bombing strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria routinely caused significant civilian casualties.

Rounding out the fall semester, the “Vietnam Era Antiwar Movement” panel discussion analyzed the impact of the most vibrant, diverse, and sustained anti-war movement in U.S. history.

THE FEINBERG SERIES The history department’s signature event series, the Feinberg Series is offered every other year, with each iteration focusing on a topic of great contemporary significance with deep historical roots. Oriented toward community and student audiences, this widely celebrated event series is made possible thanks to the generosity of Kenneth R. Feinberg ’67 and associates.

Moderated by filmmaker Judith Ehrlich, this panel of scholar activists featured Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, historians Nguyet Nguyen and Carolyn Eisenberg, and veteran and poet W. D. Ehrhart. Presenters gave special attention to the ways the anti-war movement inhibited some of President Richard Nixon’s plans to escalate the war even more.

From joining with Indigenous peoples to contest European settlement to protesting the annexation of foreign territories, African Americans have fostered a vibrant and complex Black radical tradition op posed to U.S. imperialism. In the first talk of the spring semester, “None of Us Is Free Unless All Are Free,” public intellectual Bill Fletcher Jr. sketched a long trajectory of Black anti-imperialism from the 16th century to the present and offered a critical historical analysis of this tradition, including its inherent contradictions. Organized by the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, this event was the 2023 James Baldwin Lecture, a biennial lecture created by history department alumnus Allen J. Davis ’68.

On the eve of International Women’s Day, the series hosted “Feminists against Empire,” a panel of Latin American feminists exploring the relationship between 13

In 2022, UMass launched the Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy, a project inspired by the life and legacy of Daniel Ellsberg, who passed away in June of 2023. Ellsberg was a former government official who sacrificed his career—and risked imprisonment—by giving to the press and public a 7,000-page classified history of the Vietnam War. After releasing these “Pentagon Papers,” Ellsberg devoted the remainder of his long life to principled nonviolent activism on the overlapping causes of peace, truth-telling, government accountability, First Amendment rights, nuclear disarmament, and social and environmental justice. Directed by historian Christian Appy, the Ellsberg Initiative promotes public awareness, scholarship, and activism on these crucial issues. This academic year, it began its independent programming with “The Whistleblower Project: A Series on Public Interest Truth-Telling.”

Inaugural Ellsberg lecturer Azmat Khan (L) with Christian Appy.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

Bill Fletcher Jr. with correspondence between W.E.B. Du Bois and his great-grandfather, William Stanley Braithwaite, uncovered at UMass’s Special Collections and University Archives following his lecture on Black anti-imperialism.

for K–12 educators. Facilitated by high school teacher Brian Brown and histo rian Alison Russell, the workshops supported teachers in translating the themes of the lectures—aimed primarily at an adult community audience—into lesson plans for K–12 students. At the university level, the series was dynamically integrated into more than two dozen courses across our campus and the Five Colleges, including the series’ four official courses, which together enrolled hundreds of students.

The historical issues and evidence presented by this series could not be more timely and relevant as the United States continues to assert its global power through private and public institutions of every kind. The U.S. military alone maintains more than 750 bases on foreign soil, and the country spends as much each year on its military as the next nine most heavily armed countries combined. This year’s Feinberg Series challenged audiences to consider how these priorities came to be and to imagine better alternatives for the future. —Christian Appy, Jess Johnson, and Diana Sierra Becerra, Feinberg Series co-chairs The Feinberg Series was planned and implemented by a large team of students, staff, and faculty. We thank Stefanie Austin, Richard T. Chu, Ross Caputi, Tom Kelleher, Toussaint Losier, María Portilla Moya, Maya González ’23MA, Traci Parker, Alison Russell, Sigrid Schmalzer, and the numerous others whose work made this series possible.

JASON KOTOCH

JON CRISPIN

THE ELLSBERG INITIATIVE FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY

patriarchy and U.S. imperialism. Focusing on the fatal impacts of U.S. sanctions, Cuban and Venezuelan journalists and community organizers Liz Oliva Fernández and Alejandra Laprea outlined how U.S. economic warfare greatly intensifies the reproductive labor of women and exacerbates existing inequalities in those societies. Alongside moderator Diana Sierra Becerra, they called for U.S. movements to link domestic and foreign policy and build cross-border solidarity.

Later in March, the series marked the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq with “Resisting Imperial Memory,” an international panel exploring the Iraqi experience of the invasion and occupation. This group of U.S. and Iraqi scholars, veterans, journalists, and activists (Kali Rubaii, Dave Inder Comar, Salman Khairalla, Nazli Tarzi, and Ross Caputi) discussed not just the devastating human and environmental toll of the conflict but also grassroots efforts to seek restorative justice.

The capstone event, “The Poetry of War and Resistance,” featured four distinguished, award-winning poets— Carolyn Forché, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dunya Mikhail, and Ocean Vuong—who read their works and shared the moral, political, and literary challenges of writing about war and its human consequences. With moderator and poet Ru Freeman, the panelists discussed the complex relationship between art, citizenship, and political commitment.

Accompanying the lectures was a four-part yearlong workshop series

The Power of Creativity over Concrete UMASS AMHERST RECEIVED A PIECE OF HISTORY THIS SPRING— A SEGMENT OF THE BERLIN WALL.

It was donated to the university by the family of Eric Hanson and features one of the more famous art pieces by French artist Thierry Noir: The Power of Creativity over Concrete.

Following the establishment of East and West Germany in 1949, the inter-German border remained open and allowed easy passage between the two states.

East Germany closed off the inter-German border in 1952, but travel between East and West Berlin remained possible and

quickly became the preferred way for East Germans to flee to the west. On Aug. 13, 1961, the East German government sealed off the border between East and West Berlin with a wall that spanned 29 miles through the city center and eventually surrounded all of West Berlin’s 96-mile border with East Germany.

Thierry Noir and fellow French artist Christophe-Emmanuel Bouchet began using sections of the Berlin Wall as a canvas for their graffiti art in 1983. Noir was among the first artists to create art on the wall, covering up the primarily anti-American, racist, and humorous slogans that had covered the western side of the Berlin Wall.

Others soon followed, including noted artists such as Keith Haring, Richard Hambleton, and Kiddy Citny. Ultimately, Noir painted nearly four miles of the Berlin Wall over the course of five years.

A democratic uprising in the autumn of 1989 led to the eventual “fall of the Wall” on Nov. 9, when East Germans could once again freely pass to the west. This event signaled an end not only to the rule of communism in East Germany, but also to a divided Germany and the Cold War. Remnants of the Berlin Wall, like this one, have come to symbolize courage, freedom, and —Jon Olsen democratic change. —

JOHN SOLEM

Jon Berndt Olsen is an associate professor of history and the author of Tailoring Truth: Politicizing the Past and Negotiating Memory in East Germany, 1945 ––1990. Olsen penned the interpretative text accompanying UMass’’s wall segment, which is on display near Herter Hall.

The Berlin Wall segment was unveiled in a ceremony attended by UMass’s chancellor and president and the consul general of Germany to the New England states.

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PhD student Eric Ross ’20 researches Daniel Ellsberg’s anti-nuclear weapons activism at the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

FROM THE DESK OF THE GRADUATE PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Weathering the Storm Education at all levels is just starting to recover from the many dislocations brought on by the COVID -19 pandemic. In the years before the pandemic, graduate programs were already confronting new restrictions on visas for some international students and budgetary challenges. Our graduate program was not immune to any of these forces, but we have weathered them, and we’re now beginning a new normal. Our graduate seminars and other programs are now all in person, while many of our lectures and colloquia include a Zoom component. This has allowed us to bring large and diverse audiences to UMass history events.

Given the challenges of recovering from the pandemic and ongoing tightening of the academic job market, this year we decided to limit admission to the PhD program to a small number of highly motivated students. Indeed, our “new” PhD students all completed their MAs in our department. We are concentrating our resources on our MA program, with a continued focus on public history. Shrinking our admissions a little created more of a boutique graduate program and has allowed us to more comprehensively support the current students in the program. Moreover, the success of some students in earning outside fellowships and in landing paid graduate assistantships in other campus offices, including the Graduate Employee Organization (the union), ultimately meant we were able to provide teaching assistantships in most semesters for most students. At minimum, all in-residence graduate students received tuition remission.

We’ve bolstered this support with extensive summer research and conference travel awards to two dozen students.

Having a smaller PhD program means that students work in smaller cohorts. Faculty have responded by providing even more advising and working with our students to connect them with additional scholars in their fields for special colloquia, like the China Scholars Colloquium profiled on page 20. Doctoral candidate Alison Russell and I also led a workshop supporting students in creating curricula vitae and résumés and working with graduate students on the materials they will need for both academic

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Joel Wolfe is a professor of history, the director of the department’s graduate program, and author of three books on the history of modern Brazil. He notes that the skill, diligence, and leadership of graduate program coordinator Mary Lashway are behind everything the graduate program does.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

GRADUATE HISTORY ASSOCIATION

POWER IN PERSPECTIVE

Students Organize National Conference on “(De)Constructing Power” In spring of 2023, the Graduate History Association held their 19th annual conference, “(De)Constructing Power: Historical Perspectives on Authority and Resistance.” This two-day virtual conference brought together graduate students from across North America to consider power as a tool for subjugation and liberation across intersecting political, economic, social, and historical spheres.

Jen Manion, professor of history and sexuality, women’s, and gender studies at Amherst College, delivered a keynote address on using trans methodologies in history and beyond. Then, student-run panels (supported by faculty commentary) explored how power operates across various contexts, from right here at UMass Amherst and nearby Springfield, Mass., to Korea and Ethiopia. Panelists examined the dimensions of power in public history, including in dioramic museum displays and monuments that memorialize Indigenous elimination. Additionally, graduate students led two conference workshops, including a lightning round in which all attendees were invited to present their own research. —Maya González ’23MA Maya González is a public historian specializing in Yiddish and Holocaust history. She served as a GHA officer in 2022–23.

The GHA wishes to express their gratitude for everyone who volunteered their time for the conference and other GHA programs this year.

JASON KOTOCH

and nonacademic jobs. Thanks to a partnership with the student-run Graduate History Association (GHA), established graduate students mentor incoming students. The GHA has fostered and sustained community by holding social events, professional development opportunities, and their annual conference. We have profiled their work at right, along with other examples of how graduate students are organizing themselves to build community and support each other. Also featured here and throughout this newsletter are highlights of the important scholarship and public history projects that students are producing. In short, our students and faculty have done a terrific job of working in an environment of diminishing resources.

Despite the extraordinary challenges of the academic job market, many of our students have succeeded in finding positions. Among recent PhD recipients, Brittany Frederick ’22PhD is a postdoctoral scholar at the Africana Research Center at Penn State; Camesha Scruggs ’23PhD is an assistant professor at Central Connecticut State University; Charles Weisenberger ’22PhD is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in public history at Wesleyan University; Brian Whetstone ’23PhD is a fellow at Princeton University’s Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities; Adeline Broussan ’22PhD is a researcher and counselor on gender-based and sexual violence at La Petite in Toulouse, France; and Jason Higgins ’21PhD is a digital scholarship coordinator at Virginia Tech Publishing. Landing positions even before they filed their dissertations, Tanya Pearson is faculty in women’s and gender studies at Ball State University and Andrew Grim ’23PhD is a visiting assistant professor of history at Williams College.

Our master’s alumni are similarly securing highly sought-after positions. Since September of last year, Cat White ’22MA became director of public programs at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Devon King ’22MA is now a preservation planner in Watertown, Mass., Melanie Meadors ’23MA is a children’s librarian at the Marlborough Public Library, Maya González ’23MA is a fellow at the Yiddish Book Center, Nicholas Anderson ’23MA is at the Air Force Historical Research Agency, and Carina Dreyer ’23MA is a PhD student at Harvard University’s program in Near Eastern languages and civilizations.

We will continue to maintain a smaller and more narrowly focused graduate program in the coming years. Our department is committed to providing the greatest possible support for our students during their studies and as they seek employment after graduating. —Joel Wolfe

Maya González ’23MA (L) shows incoming GHA officer Joanna Hejl (R) the conference website.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FIELD This year, graduate students conducted research in archives from Turkey to Pakistan, Texas to Springfield, and then produced original scholarship that offers in-depth, substantial contributions to the discipline of history. Completing a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation reflects not only an incredible amount of labor but also a commitment to improving our collective knowledge about history.

Congratulations to the 12 thesis and dissertation writers on this remarkable achievement!

MA THESES Sheher Bano ’23MA, “Memories of Hope and Loss: Kerhi Maa Ne Bhagat Singh Jameya” Carina Dreyer ’23MA, “Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī and His Political, Religious, and Intellectual Networks” Katlyn Durand, “‘Our Sacred Rights’: The Southern Baptist Convention and the Rhetoric of Oppression, 1845 and Present Day” Maya González ’23MA, “Imagining the ‘Day of Reckoning’: American Jewish Performance Activism during the Holocaust” Melanie Meadors ’23MA, “Cut Out of Place: The Geography and Legacy of Otto Ege’s Broken Books”

DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS Heather Brinn ’23PhD, “Freedom’s Bonds: Black Women’s Intimate Relationships in the Reconstruction South”

BACKING STUDENT SUCCESS

Graduate Awards Recognize Excellence, Invest in Student Research Thanks to generous donors, the history department supports students’ efforts to refine language skills, learn new preservation techniques, and travel for research and conference presentations.

The awards also recognize excellence in teaching and writing.

Congratulations to the awardees!

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Awards Disbursed by the History Department

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Individual Students Win Awards

Caldwell Writing Prize Melanie Meadors Edward Ofilada

History Graduate Hands-On Grant Joanna Hejl

History Graduate Travel Grant Joyce A. Berkman Endowment in Women’s History and Women’s Studies Alison Russell

Jumpstart Grant for Dissertation Research Seth Kershner Alison Russell Guanhua Tan

Marvin Ogilvie Memorial Grant for Foreign Language Studies Hee Yun Cheong

Potash Graduate Travel Grant for Latin America, Spain, or Portugal María Portilla Moya

Richard Gassan Memorial Scholarship

Andrew Grim ’23PhD, “The City Is Ours: Black Political Power and the Struggle against Police Brutality in Postwar Newark”

Yuri Gama Emily Whitted

Simon and Satenig Ermonian Graduate Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching

Camesha Scruggs ’23PhD, “‘We Poor Negro Women Have to Work’: African American Women Domestic Workers in Texas, 1900–1940”

Yuri Gama Edward Ofilada Shilpa Sharma

Gina Talley ’23PhD, “From (Un)Known to Known: Biography, Archives, and the Methods of Modern U.S. Women’s History”

Brian Whetstone ’23PhD, “From a Culture of Poverty to a Culture of Property: Preservation and Urban Crisis in the ‘City of Homes’”

Marwa Amer Anotida Chikumbu Ragini Jha

Anotida Chikumbu

Brittany Frederick ’22PhD, “The Capstone of My Education: Black Women, Student Power, and the Freedom Struggle in Higher Education”

Charles Weisenberger ’22PhD, “Beyond the South: The Telfair Family, Slavery, and the Antebellum One Percent”

Bauer-Gordon Summer Research Fellowship

Master of Arts

2023 GRADUATES

Nicholas Anderson Sheher Bano Laura Bock Nicholas DeLuca Carina Dreyer Maya González Melanie Meadors Edward Ofilada Tanya Pearson Luke Preti

Doctor of Philosophy Heather Brinn Andrew Grim Camesha Scruggs Gina Talley Brian Whetstone

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JASON KOTOCH

Organizing Graduate Workers

DESTINATION OF CHOICE

Studying Modern Chinese History at UMass Amherst The UMass/Five College Graduate Program in History has a growing strength in modern Chinese history, with both faculty and graduate students working to build an exemplary and vibrant intellectual community. In addition to three award-winning, prolifically publishing scholars—Sigrid Schmalzer and Stephen Platt on modern Chinese history, and Richard T. Chu on the Chinese diaspora—there are currently seven graduate students studying Chinese history at UMass.

Pictured here are one of the most senior, Guanhua Tan (left), and one of the most junior, Whyfu Fang (right). Tan has played a significant role in building comradery among the Chinese history graduate students. He and Shilpa Sharma (not pictured) organized the China Scholars Colloquium, an initiative to gather graduate students so they can discuss major questions in the field, share works in progress, and meet leading China scholars from outside the department. The colloquium has provided a landing pad for newer students like Fang, who are able to tap into the community as soon as they arrive.

Historians Making the Graduate Employee Organization History graduate workers made waves with fellow union members across UMass through the Graduate Employee Organization, or GEO for short. In a hard-fought contract campaign last summer, the bargaining team, including Marwa Amer, made significant gains for graduate workers, such as a wage increase and partial fee waivers. Cai Barias and Kevin Sun served as GEO’s co-chair and membership organizer, respectively. Along with other history graduate workers, they mobilized bargaining campaigns, protests, and community events. Next year, Ragini Jha will serve as GEO co-chair, while Clara Higgins and Jessica Scott join the bargaining committee for the upcoming campaign. It will take all our participation to get the contract graduate workers deserve! — Kevin Sun Kevin Sun is a master’s student studying the history of China, Asian America, and economic thought. Their thesis is a meditation on the economy as a concept and its political deployments, from its relationship to early modern European Orientalism to mass politics in Mao-era China.

In April, GEO members, including several history graduate students, protested a Board of Trustees proposal to increase tuition and on-campus housing costs.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

SHEHER BANO ’23MA

Unsilencing the Past

SAEED AHMED

In 1910, while taking a stroll around his family farm with a friend, Kishan Singh came upon his three-year-old son, Bhagat Singh, digging the soil in the fields of Banga (Lyallpur, Punjab).

When asked what he was doing, he reportedly said, “I am sowing guns, so that we will be able to fight and get rid of the British.”

ABOVE Haider Rizvi commemorates Singh in a play at the 1986 Punjab Conference in Lahore.

RIGHT Sheher Bano (C) with

her advisors, Diana Sierra Becerra (L) and Priyanka Srivastava (R).

This is one of the many stories told, and retold, about Indian revolutionary and freedom fighter Bhagat Singh. As a teen, Singh founded the renowned Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA), a significant anti-colonial agitator in the 1920s. When Singh was 23, he and his comrades were executed by the British colonial state in the Lahore Conspiracy Case following the assassination of a British official in 1931.

Titled “Memories of Hope and Loss: Kerhi Maa Ne Bhagat Singh Jameya,” (in English: “Which Mother Birthed Bhagat Singh?”), my MA thesis delves into the ways that Bhagat Singh is remembered in post-partition South Asia—specifically the Pakistani side of the province of Punjab. My research draws heavily on oral history and contemporary Punjabi poetry and prose, which I collected, transcribed, and translated during my trips to Lahore in the past two years. I used these sources to argue that Singh’s memory is invoked in contemporary Pakistan to serve a range of political purposes, especially by various groups and individuals who identify as leftists or Marxists. Activists and writers use the figure of Bhagat Singh to highlight the erasure of regional and lingual identities in Pakistan. Their remembrances underline a perceived historical injustice: the imposition of a national identity based on Urdu and Sunni Muslim-ness, which marginalized Punjabi ethno-lingual identities and revolutionary histories. These remembrances challenge Pakistani state narratives, which tend to mute histories that do not serve its interest.

Analyzing the concept of revolutionary motherhood within the literary narratives about Singh, I also demonstrate how mourning and hope coexist in the Punjabi contemporary emancipatory imagination. Such overlaps illustrate how the past is continuously in dialogue with the present, and how the promise of radical hope is woven into the story of Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom. —Sheher Bano Sheher Bano is now a doctoral student at UMass Amherst. She was awarded the 2022 History Department Travel Grant, which made her research at Punjab Archives possible. Her research interests include histories of imperialism and anti-imperialism in South Asia; politics of exclusion, erasure, and mourning; and rethinking Third World feminist methodologies.

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EXHIBIT SPOTLIGHT

SHEEP-ISH

ROBERT S. COX SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

Short Yarns on the Long History of Sheep in Hampshire County

1967

JASON KOTOCH

A pasture of sheep at the UMass campus farm, one of several images in the “Sheep-ish” micro-exhibit. This land on the western edge of campus later became athletic fields.

2023 Emily Whitted stands by a small flock of sheep grazing near Haigis Mall during a Sustainable EweMass pop-up event.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

Textile historian, PhD student, and child of sheep farmers Emily Whitted partnered with her advisor Marla Miller to explore the history of sheep in Hampshire County in “Sheep-ish,” a pop-up micro-exhibit that opened in September alongside an on-campus graze of sheep. The exhibit was the department’s contribution to Sustainable EweMass, a student-led, participatory reimagining of our campus land, how it’s used and valued, and toward what ends.

CHECK OUT THE ONLINE COMPANION TO THE MICROEXHIBIT AND LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DYNAMIC HISTORY OF SHEEP IN HAMPSHIRE COUNTY!

2023 DISTINGUISHED ANNUAL LECTURE IN HISTORY

“I Always Pick the Losing Cause” SMITH COLLEGE SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

Sara Dubow ’96MA on the Life and Work of Dorothy Kenyon

Dorothy Kenyon

Sara Dubow, professor of history at Williams College, delivered the Department of History’s Distinguished Annual Lecture. Dubow received her master’s from UMass Amherst before going on to Rutgers University for her PhD. Her first book, Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America (Oxford University Press, 2010) won the Bancroft Prize, the most prestigious award in American history.

Dubow’s lecture presented initial findings from her new book project on New York attorney and political activist Dorothy Kenyon, the ACLU, and the development of feminist jurisprudence. Although not as well-known as some of her contemporaries such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kenyon was a trailblazer in civil rights and feminist legal circles. She led the ACLU’s fight for women’s rights until her death in 1972.

Kenyon was a complicated figure whose influence on the law is still felt today, including through her creation of early legal strategies to fight sex discrimination. These strategies were later successfully deployed by Ginsburg and the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, which ran counter to Kenyon’s take that “[she] always picked the losing cause.” Dubow detailed both Kenyon’s ongoing influence and the controversies of her day, which led to a lively discussion with the audience.

The talk was held on April 20 in Herter 601 before a diverse crowd, including several of

DISTINGUISHED ANNUAL LECTURE IN HISTORY The Distinguished Annual Lecture celebrates the 1996 establishment of the University of Massachusetts Amherst/Five College Graduate Program in History and has been delivered by some of the nation’s foremost historians.

Dubow’s former faculty advisors both from her graduate work at UMass and her undergraduate career at Williams College, a former student of hers who is now faculty in the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, and even a community member whose family was close to Dorothy Kenyon herself.

—Joel Wolfe

Sara Dubow

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Doctoral students Marcus Smith (L) and Reid Ellefson-Frank (R) examine books at the Emily Dickinson Museum.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

FROM THE DESK OF THE PUBLIC HISTORY PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Practicing History in Public A Year in Review

The UMass Public History Program enjoyed an active year on campus and beyond. Another year of learning together has granted us continued energy to practice history out in the world. The program continues to reach across campus and throughout New England, adding excitement and dynamism to our work. I am most grateful to our students, faculty, visitors, and community collaborators who have made all this possible.

While much of the program’s remarkable energy is derived from our MA students in history, the Public History Program goes well beyond the MA certificate and even beyond the history department. This year, public history faculty offered several courses to both undergraduate and graduate students from many different departments on campus. These classes included Introduction to Public History, American Material Culture, Museum and Historic Site Interpretation, Writing History, and Oral History. We were thrilled to welcome students from the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, the Native American and Indigenous Studies certificate program, and from anthropology, English, and public policy into these courses.

Public history students worked on a variety of exciting projects this year, both in the classroom and beyond. In one of Professor Diana Sierra Becerra’s courses, students created zines to bring important historical narratives to new audiences. In David Glassberg’s Junior Year Writing seminar, students took virtual field trips to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado and met with Chief of Interpretation and Visitor

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Danielle Raad ’21PhD leads Marla Miller’s Material Culture class in a “close-looking” exercise at the Yale University Gallery.

Services Kristy Sholly, to Manzanar National Historic Site in California to meet with Chief of Interpretation Alisa Lynch, and to Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in Colorado to meet with Superintendent Janet Frederick and former superintendent Alexa Roberts. And undergraduate Joshua dos Reis ’23 worked as a summer tour guide at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House (PPH) following his experiences in an Introduction to Public History undergraduate course.

Students also completed several important field service projects, combining their coursework with public history practice and seeking to tell stories that have often been omitted from the historical record. In addition to projects with the Du Bois Freedom Center (profiled at right) and Wistariahurst Museum, this included our ongoing partnership with PPH. Marla Miller’s material culture seminar included a trip to PPH with the esteemed Harvard University historian Tiya Miles and students in her course, Public History and Slavery, so that both classes could discuss how objects associated with histories of enslavement are interpreted in house museum settings.

Outside the classroom, the Documenting the Early History of Black Lives in the Connecticut River Valley project (undertaken in partnership with the Pioneer Valley History Network and with leadership from 26

Department of History / 2023 Report

public history alumnae Zoë Cheek ’22MA and Cat White ’22MA) continues to uncover and share histories of enslavement and freedom in western Massachusetts.

Over the past year, the project hired undergraduate students to prepare the dataset for public use by researchers, train new volunteers, and offer a summer 2023 workshop series.

Department members further demonstrated how public history practice can confront historic injustices and omissions at this year’s Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, “Indigenous Histories in New England: Pastkeepers and Pastkeeping.” Professors Marla Miller and Alice Nash helped craft a dynamic program that aimed to “address the gaps in Indigenous voice and visibility in public views of the past.” The seminar, which attracted some 200 attendees, explored histories of pastkeeping by and within Indigenous communities, considered how historical research and interpretation can be decolonized and improved, and shared what museums and tribal nations have done to engage the public in better understanding Indigenous histories. Watch for the volume of Proceedings, planned to appear in spring 2025!

Reaching beyond the areas of expertise and projects within our program, we also learned from numerous guest speakers this year. In October, the Public History

Program was proud to sponsor “Embroidering Resistance: Memories of Survival and U.S. Empire in El Salvador” featuring Teresa Cruz Miranda, a popular educator from Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen, in conversation with Diana Sierra Becerra.

In March, our community was honored to learn from Veronica Jackson during her presentation, “A Constellation of Blackness: Design Thinking as a Black Woman, Visual Artist, and Public Historian,” and from author Rebecca Brenner Graham, who visited our community to share “Frances Perkins and Historical Memory,” a talk based on her forthcoming book.

We congratulate all the 2023 public history certificate recipients: Nicholas DeLuca ’23MA, Maya González ’23MA, Melanie Meadors ’23MA, Tanya Pearson, Camesha Scruggs ’23PhD, and Brian Whetstone ’23PhD. We are incredibly fortunate to work as public historians in this academic community and larger region, and I am looking forward to another vibrant year in the history department! —Sam Redman Sam Redman is a professor of history, director of the Public History Program, and the author of three books on U.S. social, cultural, and intellectual history. He extends his gratitude to Maya González ’23MA, whose work as public history assistant was vital to all that we accomplished this year.

INTERPRETING ELIZABETH FREEMAN Centering the Woman, Not the Myth In 1781, Elizabeth Freeman brought suit against her enslaver, Col. John Ashley, on the grounds that slavery went against the new Massachusetts state constitution.

In doing so, she became the first person in Massachusetts to win her freedom on the grounds of constitutionality.

After her emancipation, Freeman did domestic labor, served as a midwife, and became one of the most prominent Black property owners in Berkshire County.

During the 2022–23 academic year, a team of UMass public history graduate students worked with the Du Bois Freedom Center in Great Barrington, Mass., to develop text for an interpretive sign about Elizabeth Freeman. Unfortunately, most of what historians know about Freeman comes from her employers, the Sedgwick family. The narrative the Sedgwicks established is highly proprietary, claiming Freeman as a member of their family and overemphasizing their role in her life while downplaying her chosen and blood relations. We saw this project as an opportunity to join more recent scholarship centered on Freeman’s bravery, resistance, agency, and community. Freeman’s actions were remarkable; she dared to turn the apparatus of government against itself at no small risk to her personal safety. She initiated the chain of events that would lead to the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts.

In writing this script, we had to grapple with biased primary source documents and gaps in the historical record, which routinely excludes enslaved people’s perspectives. The UMass public history team was honored to work with the Freedom Center and to offer our interpretation of Elizabeth Freeman’s story. —Reid Ellefson-Frank, in cooperation with Marcus Smith, Jaehee Seol, Jamie Mastrogiacomo, and María Portilla Moya.

Reid Ellefson-Frank is a public history certificate student interested in archaeology, the politics of memory, and how public history can be an agent of social change.

FROM LEFT In fall

2022, Jaehee Seol, Marcus Smith, and Reid EllefsonFrank present their research on Freeman. In the spring, EllefsonFrank, Jamie Mastrogiacomo, and María Portilla Moya used it to write interpretive text.

PUBLIC HISTORY FELLOWS AND VISITING PRACTITIONERS, 2022–23 Dr. Charles K. Hyde Visiting Practitioners Program The 2022–23 academic year was rich with site-based learning, made possible through the Dr. Charles K. Hyde Visiting Practitioners Program, which brings working professionals into UMass graduate classes and sends graduate students into the field to learn from public historians at their workplaces. Practitioners offer students fresh insight into their work lives and a nuanced “real world” understanding of the field.

Internship Fellows Thanks to the Hyde and Barter programs, all public history students complete internships with financial support, even if the positions themselves are unpaid. Fieldwork is essential to public history training and to building skills and connections, and this vital funding makes it accessible to every student.

DR. CHARLES K. HYDE INTERNSHIP FELLOWSHIP Reid Ellefson-Frank, Center for Studying Structures of Race

VISITING PRACTITIONERS

Clara Higgins, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission

Lynne Bassett, independent curator

Stacie Klinowski, Chicopee Public Library

Shakti Castro ’17MA, oral historian

Jamie Mastrogiacomo, Historic Northampton

Clarissa Ceglio, Greenhouse Studios

Piper Prolago, Ulrich Museum of Art

Jolene Hart, People, Places, and Design Research

Marcus Smith, Black Life in Bellevue

Meghan Gelardi Holmes ’06MA, Gibson House Museum

Abby Thomsen, UMass Anthropology Collections

Veronica Jackson, Jackson Design Group Kate Kearns, Anne Lanning, and Barbara Mathews, Historic Deerfield Sharon Mehrman, artisan woodworker

Amelia Yeager, Newport Historical Society

DR. JUDITH A. BARTER INTERNSHIP FELLOWSHIP Jessica Scott, Springfield Armory National Historic Site

Gregg Mitchell ’18MA, Springfield City Library Danielle Raad ’21PhD and Pat Kane, Yale University Art Gallery Catherine Dann Roeber, Winterthur Museum Kiki Smith and Indrani de Silva, Smith College Historic Clothing Collection Khayim Reisberg, Yiddish Book Center

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DECOLONIZING AND INDIGENIZING MUSEUMS WITH AMY LONETREE

Jessica Antonia Casillas Scott (L) with Amy Lonetree (R) before the lecture on May 3.

On May 3, the Public History Program and the Department of History of Art and Architecture had the honor of cohosting author and scholar Amy Lonetree for a discussion of her groundbreaking research and career. An enrolled citizen of the Ho-Chunk Nation and a professor of history at the University of California Santa Cruz, Lonetree’s trailblazing work combines Native history and museum studies to transform historical representations of Indigenous peoples in cultural institutions by privileging Native perspectives.

An interdisciplinary audience of UMass graduate students gathered for this lively conversation. Particularly generative was Lonetree’s distinction between decolonization, a practice that attempts to interrupt and repair the ongoing violence of colonization, and Indigenization, a practice that introduces Indigenous ways of being into non-Indigenous spaces. The delineation Lonetree offered of these two methodologies clearly illustrates how each approach produces different pedagogical and experiential outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities when employed in a museum setting. Delivered with generosity and warmth, her keen insights powerfully translated both terms into practical guidance, offering vital instruction for graduate students seeking to contribute to a more ethical field of Indigenous historical representation. —Jessica Antonia Casillas Scott

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT AMY LONETREE? We encourage you to read Lonetree’s groundbreaking book, Decolonizing Museums, which explores the paths taken by three Indigenous museums in the United States as they honor Native worldviews, challenge stereotypes, grapple with colonization, and represent centuries of Native survivance.

Jessica Antonia Casillas Scott is a first-year PhD student on the public history track. Her research focuses on the integration of contemporary arts practices at historical museums and the decolonization of art museums.

TRANSFORMING ADMINISTRATION The Department of History bids a fond farewell to Amy Fleig, who became director of faculty development and programs in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts in January 2023.

Amy Fleig with her son, history major Joshua dos Reis ’23, at the HFA Senior Recognition Ceremony organized by Fleig.

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After working in the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies (CLACLS) and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Fleig was hired as the history department office manager in 2013, where she transformed the department

administration. She oversaw the addition of a new staff member to handle financial matters and, in total, managed the hiring and training of four new permanent staff and two temps. She reorganized many of our administrative procedures and our filing system and added robust electronic records to our paper files. She provided invaluable support as we hired several new faculty members, including tenure-track faculty and lecturers, and shepherded reappointment, promotion, and tenure cases through

their reviews. Faculty valued her advice, guidance, and knowledge of departmental and university policies and procedures. As a manager, Fleig fostered a cooperative esprit de corps and encouraged staff to develop their potential. Three department chairs benefited from her advice and support as she expanded her role from office manager to department administrator. We miss her, but we’re glad that she’s just a short walk away in South College. —Brian Ogilvie

Meet the New Faculty The Department of History is pleased to welcome our newest faculty members, Elizabeth Jacob, Jessica Keene, and Matthew Wormer. Their arrival signals the department’s continued commitment to the history of Africa; women’s and gender history; the history of imperialism, colonialism, and resistance; British history; and experiential learning and career preparation.

Professor Elizabeth Jacob Elizabeth Jacob is a historian of modern West Africa, with a focus on gender, family, and politics in Côte d’Ivoire.

Her current book project examines how ideas about African motherhood shape possibilities for women’s political action, and how expectations of political motherhood change over time. Other research interests include decolonization, pan-Africanism, and global feminisms.

Her research has been supported by institutions such as the American Philosophical Society, the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, the Fulbright Program, and the Stanford Humanities Center. She holds a PhD in history from Stanford University, with a PhD minor in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies and a certificate in African studies. In 2022–23, she held a postdoctoral teaching fellowship at Providence College.

Professor Jessica Keene Jessica Keene joined the history department faculty with a co-appointment as undergraduate career advisor for the College of Humanities and Fine Arts in spring 2023. In her role, Keene teaches early modern European history and religious history, as well as career development courses designed to assist history and HFA majors in acquiring the professional competencies they need to succeed in today’s evolving job market.

Keene is a specialist in early modern British gender and religious history. She is in the process of writing her first book (based on her dissertation), “Spiritual Fornication: Sexual Discourse and the Dissolution of the English Monasteries.”

Her first scholarly article was released in the Sixteenth Century Journal in March 2023. She also co-authored a public-facing piece entitled “The Tudors Are Trending” for the American Historical Association’s Perspectives on History series.

Prior to her arrival at UMass Amherst, Keene served as assistant professor of

history at Georgian Court University.

She previously taught courses in history, expository writing, and women, gender, and sexuality studies at Goucher College and Johns Hopkins University, where she worked extensively in career development at the Homewood Career Center (now the Life Design Lab) and at the medical school’s Professional Development and Career Office. Keene completed her PhD in history at Johns Hopkins in 2020.

Professor Matthew Wormer Matthew Wormer is a historian of Britain and the British Empire, with a focus on the British presence in Asia during the long 19th century. His research and teaching interests include histories of cap italism, race, and labor, commodities and consumption, and liberal economic and political thought. His current book project examines the production and sale of opium in British India to offer a new explanation for the outbreak of the First Opium War in 1839. At once a powerful medical analgesic, an addictive recreational narcotic, and an immensely profitable article of trade, opium raised fundamental questions about the relationship between use value and exchange value central to capitalist exchange. Transforming the plant known as papaver somniferum into the commodity “opium” entwined ideological debates over liberal political economy with the material properties of the poppy, making its production a site of moral contestation over economic value involving peasant cultivators, private traders, and colonial officials. Wormer’s research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the Stanford Humanities Center, and the Mabelle McLeod Lewis Memorial Fund, among others. He completed his PhD at Stanford University in 2022.

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RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

JON OLSEN

ON VACATION IN EAST GERMANY

LEFT East German tourists vacation in Göhren on the Baltic Sea in 1953.

Jon Olsen’s Newest Research Explores History of Travel in Cold War East Germany Professor Jon Berndt Olsen was on sabbatical during the fall 2022 semester.

During this time, he spent three months in Germany conducting research. Olsen worked in a variety of archives in Berlin, including the Federal Archives, the Stasi (Secret Police) Records Archive, and the archive for the City of Berlin. He also made several trips to visit archives and museums in Greifswald, Halle, Bonn, and the island of Rügen.

Olsen’s current book project, “Visa Free to Hawaii: Going on Vacation in a

ABOVE In 2022, a restored train carries vacationers from the beach into the town of Sellin, which is just up the coast from Göhren.

GERMAN FEDERAL ARCHIVES

Socialist Land,” looks at the history of East German vacation and travel culture. East Germany was the first nation to embed the right to a paid vacation in their 1949 constitution, and East Germans were the most traveled citizens of the Eastern Bloc.

Most of this travel was confined to the borders of East Germany or the neighboring states of Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Popular memory, however, tends to favor the more adventurous trips to the Black Sea, Lake Balaton in Hungary, or even the once-a-year cruises to Cuba. By far the

“The history of vacationing is not just about the destinations, but also the struggle to control one’s time off.”

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Department of History / 2023 Report

most popular destination for East German tourists was the Baltic Sea. Going on vacation for East Germans was routine, yet also quite different from similar trips that may have been taken by West Germans during those years. In East Germany, vacations were highly subsidized, and by the 1980s these subsidies were costing the East German state over 10 percent of its annual GDP! Those subsidies, however, often came with a few catches. You had little control over the timing or destination of your vacation.

Beginning in the 1960s, more and more families chose to forgo the subsidized options and instead to go camping, spend time at their garden house, or build a weekend cabin. Thus, the history of vacationing is not just about the destinations, but also the struggle to control one’s time off and to not allow the state to dictate how, where, or when one could spend one’s vacation.

FACULTY AND STAFF NEWS

Audrey Altstadt reports: During this past academic year, I revised my courses, as usual, but in this instance, I had the opportunity to enhance them with the fruit of my research. As I worked on my new book, “First In: American Diplomats Who Opened Embassies in Post-Soviet States,” I read through a mountain of material on the collapse of the USSR in the Gorbachev years and the specifics of many Soviet republics that became the “new states” in 1992.

Some of these materials became assignments in my History of the USSR course and in my writing seminar on the book’s topic itself. At the same time, I revised my lower-level class, Spies and Spying in History, with both newly declassified information on old espionage cases and readings on codes and ciphers that led to the cyber dimension of espionage in the 21st century. I am hoping to complete “First In” by the end of 2023 and use my upcoming sabbatical to start my next book on Soviet émigrés in Paris between the wars and during the Cold War. Christian Appy reports: A major focus of my year was serving as co-chair for the Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series, Confronting Empire (detailed on page 13). Another highlight was joining a UMass delegation to San Francisco in January to award an honorary degree to Daniel Ellsberg, the scholar, activist, and former government official who sacrificed his career and risked a life in prison by releasing to the press and public a classified histo ry of the Vietnam War, called the Pentagon Papers, which exposed decades of official deceit about the war’s causes and conduct.

Ellsberg’s papers are housed at the university’s Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center. This year, we launched the Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy, which I direct, to raise public awareness, scholarship, and activism on the issues central to Ellsberg’s life and legacy—peace, truth-telling, government accountability, First Amendment rights, nuclear disarmament, and social and environmental justice.

Ellsberg passed away on June 16, 2023. He remains an inspiration to millions, including many UMass faculty and students.

Anne Broadbridge taught Islamic Thought and Middle East History I in the fall. From the first class, she learned about exciting connections between Scientology and the Nation of Islam, as reported by a student who loves documentaries. From the second, she learned how many of her students speak multiple languages and regularly encounter concepts that can’t be translated. In spring, she taught the Age of the Crusades and discovered that students really want to know about ordinary people too, not just 32

Department of History / 2023 Report

the elite persons who happened to leave records. She served as director of Middle Eastern studies, and as acting chair of the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies for one semester while Professor David Mednicoff took a sabbatical. Anne attended conferences in Boston (March, St. Patrick’s Day, wearing green), Chicago (also March), and Chicago again (July). She worked independently with several excellent undergrads and two brilliant graduate students. Many of those students finished their degrees and moved on to new endeavors. Anne will begin a three-year term as chair of the history department in fall 2023, and just hopes she can live up to the examples set by her predecessors.

Richard T. Chu’s More Tomboy, More Bakla Than We Admit: Insights into Sexual and Gender Diversity in Philippine Culture, History, and Politics, an anthology Chu co-edited with Mark Blasius of CUNY, was a finalist in the 40th Annual National Book Awards of the Philippines, the country’s most prestigious book award given by the Philippine National Book Development Board and the Manila Critics Circle. The book was nominated for both the social science section and design section and received a special citation award for its contribution to LGBTQIA+ studies in the Philippines.

Chu also initiated a Memorandum of Agreement between UMass Amherst and Ateneo de Manila University, and another one between UMass Amherst and the University of the Philippines Baguio. These agreements will facilitate the exchange of faculty and students between the institutions. This summer, Chu was a visiting professor at the University of the Philippines Baguio, and taught a graduate course on Chinese diasporic history to master’s students from the Department of History and Philosophy and the social and development studies program.

During 2022–23, David Glassberg made incremental progress on four long-standing projects. “Oral History, Community Engagement, and Environmental Justice,” presented at the International Federation for Public History Conference in August 2022, was a step toward completing his “Heritage Justice in a Changing Climate” book under contract to UMass Press. “Race, Recreation, and the National Park Service: Laurance S. Rockefeller and the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, 1958–62,” presented at the National Council on Public History Annual Meeting in April 2023, summarized his book-length study underway for the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park. Graduate students in his public history courses drafted the script for an outdoor exhibit in Great Barrington, Mass., on the life of formerly enslaved Berkshire County resident Elizabeth Freeman, which contributed to the development of the town as an international tourist destination where visitors can learn about local African American history. And as co-chair of the Faculty Senate Public Engagement and Outreach Council, he helped develop a proposal for the new UMass Amherst administration to fund community-engaged research, teaching, and internships with Springfield-area grassroots activist organizations. A special thank you to everyone who contributed their reminiscences to the

retirement card he received at the graduate awards ceremony in May 2023.

In September 2023, Daniel Gordon became editor in chief of the journal Social Science and Modern Society (known also as Society). He was previously co-editor. The journal publishes articles across the social sciences, including history. Gordon also completed an article on the rise of religious indifference (that is, indifference to organized religion) in the United States and its impact on American politics. He plans to develop the article into a book on the decline of civil religion and the cultural polarization of society. In 2022–23, Gordon supervised eight undergraduate senior theses and served as the honors program director in the history department.

Jennifer Heuer reports: In November 2023, I had the privilege of participating in an interdisciplinary seminar on the artist Édouard Manet and his family in preparation for a special exhibit at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

The highlight was seeing the restoration work in progress on a portrait of Manet’s mother, pictured below. I have also become a co-editor of the journal French Historical Studies, along with my colleague Christine Haynes at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Finding out the behind-the-scenes work of academic journals has involved a steep learning curve, but has also been a wonderful way to discover some of the most exciting recent research in the field. With two French colleagues, I also coedited a special issue of the journal Annales historiques de la Révolution française on women’s rights and ideas we might call “feminism” (though the term did not exist at the time) across Europe in the age of revolutions. It was fascinating to look closely at how people and ideas moved transnationally, and to think about the role of translation in that process—especially as we were ourselves in the midst of translating articles from English to French and vice versa. I also published an article on the family of the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture, focusing on how his wife and sons, who finished their lives in southwestern France in the

early 19th century, both interacted with and challenged the French state’s racial policing.

My favorite courses to teach at UMass in 2022–23 included The French Revolution, Sex and Society in Modern Europe, and The Craft of History. The latter introduces majors to different ways of approaching history, including environmental history, oral history, material culture, gender history, social history, and public history—to name only a few of the methodologies we explored together about how best to pursue history imaginatively and responsibly in our current world.

Mary Lashway reports: This past January, I celebrated 11 years in the history department! With the departure of Amy Fleig at the end of December, I took on some tasks she would have normally handled—including helping to organize the campus visits for our Sub-Saharan African history job candidates, which, while stressful, was also very rewarding. As always, it was my pleasure to help our graduate students navigate UMass and our graduate program, give them a shoulder to lean on should they need it, and cheer them on as they accomplish their goals.

On a personal level, my younger daughter, Ava, started at UMass last fall—with a minor in history. I like to joke that she’s a third-generation legacy since both my parents and I went to UMass. My older daughter, Veronica, will be starting at UMass this fall, and I’m thrilled that both my girls will be on campus with me.

I’d like to thank Brian Ogilvie for being such a great chair to the staff over his six years in the position. He was always kind, always gracious, always listened to what we had to say. As sad as I am to see Brian move on from being chair, I am looking forward to Anne picking up the baton and to seeing what the future holds. I know we’re in good hands!

Jess Johnson reports: I was honored to serve as co-director of this year’s Feinberg Series on confronting histories of U.S. empire, alongside Christian Appy and Diana Sierra Becerra. We hope you read about it on page 13 and visit our website to view the recordings: www.umass.edu/feinberg. Other highlights included

FROM LEFT Christian Appy, Jess Johnson, Jennifer Heuer.

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FAR LEFT Marla Miller,

Richard Candee, and Alice Nash gather at the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife.

LEFT Sigrid Schmalzer lectures at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

hosting local K–12 students at UMass for a daylong exploration of history through our High School History Academy, contributing to the Documenting the Early History of Black Lives in the Connecticut River Valley project, and collaborating on numerous history department communications projects, including as co-editor of this very publication!

Marla Miller reports: I was honored this year to give the keynote address, “Monuments in Flax and Wool: The Memory Work of Heritage Textiles,” at the H. F. du Pont Winterthur Museum Conference “The Needle’s I” in October, and the Deerfield-Wellesley Symposium keynote, “Race, Place, and Entangled Homemaking: Views from Hadley, Massachusetts,” in March—the latter presenting some work from another essay, tentatively titled “Enquilted: Locating Enslaved Labor in Early American Needlework,” which I’m preparing for a museum catalog. The latter work is entwined with our program’s long-term work to expand and deepen interpretations of enslavement in the region’s museums. That effort (as it has unfolded in connection with Hadley’s Porter-Phelps-Huntington House) led to a lively conference session at the November meeting of the New England Museum Association with alumna Meghan Gelardi Holmes ’06MA and current PhD student (in the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies) and public historian Erika Slocumb. The session led to the creation of a NEMA-based Community of Practice around this work, which has met regularly since its launch in January 2023. I also had the pleasure of collaborating with my wonderful colleague, Alice Nash, to plan both the 2023 Graduate Student Forum of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts and the 2023 Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, “Indigenous Histories in New England: Pastkeepers and Pastkeeping.” Lastly, after the National Council on Public History’s long hiatus from in-person meetings, I was delighted to travel to Atlanta, where I served as the Annual Meeting’s program co-chair, and also co-convenor of the working group Uniting Public History and End-of-Life Care. Check it out at www.unitingpublichistoryandendoflifecare.wordpress.com.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

Alice Nash received a Faculty Research Grant/Healey Endowment Grant (FRG) to support her book project, Authentic by Design: An Ethnic Shapeshifter in Post-WWII Greenwich Village.

She worked with Marla Miller and others to organize the June meeting of the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, “Indigenous Histories in New England: Pastkeepers and Pastkeeping,” and they are co-editing the proceedings. At the conference, she participated in a roundtable in honor of Neal Salisbury (1940– 2022), a member of the history department at Smith College who often worked with UMass students. She also performed in her first dance recital since 1974!

Sam Redman reports: A big highlight for me was catching up with UMass public history alumni near and far at this year’s National Council on Public History Annual Meeting in Atlanta. My research sparked or contributed to a number of important conversations this year. News stories involving human remains led to coverage of my work in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and on Vice. I gave talks about my new research at the Massachusetts and Vermont historical societies in addition to two talks at the Smithsonian Institution, including the National Museum of American History. My book, Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology, was quoted in the New Yorker magazine. I look forward to another great year in this wonderful UMass history community!

Sigrid Schmalzer reports: I’ll share three highlights from the year. First, our local Science for the People chapter is going stronger than ever, thanks especially to increased energy from our student members. In addition to organizing a community workshop on science and global inequities in the fall, we held the People’s Science Fair in person on the UMass campus for the second year and welcomed K–12 students from Holyoke and Northfield among many UMass-based attendees. Meanwhile, the organization as a whole is increasingly international, with the recent formation of chapters in Southern Africa and Canada.

Second, I was able to travel to China this spring after three years of canceled trips due to the pandemic and U.S.-China political

tensions. I spent two weeks in Hong Kong, Guangxi, and Beijing seeing friends and old colleagues, exploring new possibilities for research, and giving several lectures. The future still feels so uncertain, but it made such a difference to reconnect. Finally, our graduate students are building an extraordinary intellectual community for Chinese history and have started a colloquium series that is raising the profile of our program—this is an increasingly exciting place to study modern China!

Libby Sharrow began a new appointment at the UMass Institute for Social Science Research as the director of faculty research.

Their first book, Equality Unfulfilled: How Title IX’s Policy Design Undermines Change to College Sports (with James Druckman, Northwestern University), was published with Cambridge University Press in their Studies in Gender and Politics series.

Sharrow’s research on Title IX and the politics of sex and gender was also published in Transgender Studies Quarterly, The Conversation on Gender Diversity (JHU Press), and Justice for Trans Athletes (Emerald Publishing). They organized a featured theme panel on the 50th anniversary of Title IX at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association and served as program chair for the section on sexuality and politics. They gave multiple research talks about their scholarship, including at Duke University, Tulane University, Brown University, the University of Minnesota, and the LePage Center for History in the Public Interest at Villanova University. They were selected to attend the APSA Institute for Civically Engaged Scholarship, and secured funding for collaborative research from the UCLA Williams Institute and the Women’s Sports Foundation, as well as the UMass College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

Asheesh Siddique reports: In addition to submitting the final manuscript for my first book on archives and government in the early modern British empire to Yale University Press (slated for publication in 2024), I spent much of the academic year working with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on the development of middle school curricula in early American and Atlantic history. It was a privilege to lend my expertise to the state in this way, and I’m hopeful about the impact that the revised curricula will have on public education in the commonwealth.

Garrett Washington reports: This has been a very good year as I came back from sabbatical and returned to the classroom in person for the first time since March 2020. It was extremely refreshing to see and interact with students in my two sections of our history methods course, my modern Japan General Education survey, and my intermediate traditional Japan class. Highlights from the latter included our tea ceremony demonstration with master-in-training Anthony Crusso and our class project mapping out the life of Tsuneno based on Amy Stanley’s award-winning study, Stranger in the Shogun’s City. I also served as committee chair for our successful search for a tenure track Africanist,

which concluded this spring. We are glad to welcome not one but two new stellar colleagues to our department this fall. That responsibility aligned well with my role as a fellow in the university’s STRIDE program, which focuses on recruiting to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. Research-wise, a colleague and I completed the first of two planned articles on the entrepreneur Hirooka Asako (1849–1919), whose acquisition and management of the Uruno Coal Mine do not fit well into current narratives about Japanese social and economic history, particularly as they relate to women and gender.

Joel Wolfe reports: I had a productive year on several fronts.

I completed the manuscript for a book on Brazil for the Polity Histories series. My contribution, Brazil, analyzes the country’s history from the arrival of the Portuguese court in the early 19th century to the present—and I do mean present. As I was working on the page proofs, Polity’s editorial director asked that I write an afterword on the January 8, 2023, pro-Bolsonaro riots in Brasília (following Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat), and Lula’s response to them. Only a few months later, the book was out—that a spring 2023 book includes material on early 2023 still amazes me.

Having published three books on modern Brazil, I am now shifting my focus to political economy in the broader hemisphere and sport and society in the United States. I published a piece from my 1920s Western Hemisphere project in a wonderful collection produced from a conference commemorating the centennial of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. My essay contextualizes the strike by connecting it to worker and Left uprisings in Buenos Aires, New York, Oakland, Seattle, and São Paulo. I am also writing another book, “The American Game: Gridiron Football and the Nation,” which I began after developing a new class on American football during the pandemic. I balance these projects with my work as the graduate program director, and am looking forward to taking a sabbatical in the 2024–25 academic year to complete my two book manuscripts.

Kevin Young reports: Interacting with students was the highlight of my fall semester. I taught my annual General Education course, Capitalism and Alternatives in Latin America (with the help of María Portilla Moya as TA), as well as a seminar on social movements for the STPEC program. In the research realm, I made progress on a few different projects. I published a co-edited volume called Trump and the Deeper Crisis, which situates Trumpism in the history of U.S. reactionary politics. I also finished a book on the fossil fuel industry and the climate movement that will be released in early 2024. I divided my spring 2023 research leave between western Massachusetts and Bolivia, where I conducted oral histories and archival research for a project on Bolivian peasant politics.

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JASON KOTOCH

During one of his last days at UMass, David Glassberg stopped by a tree that was the site of a major student protest during his first semester at UMass and where he periodically held class. Not much larger than a sapling in 1986, the tree now towers over Munson Hall.

Celebrating David Glassberg On the Occasion of His Retirement

P

rofessor David Glassberg grew up in Philadelphia before completing a bachelor’s at the University of Chicago (1976) and a PhD from Johns Hopkins University (1982). After a series of positions in the mid-Atlantic in the early 1980s, David came to UMass Amherst in 1986, when department chair Bob Griffith realized that our campus should join the small but growing number of universities offering formal training in public history.

Founding the Public History Program in 1986, David established the program’s core curriculum. He later developed numerous seminars including Landscape and Memory, Conservation of Nature and Culture, and History and Sustainability. He has served on some 60 graduate committees (to date!) in a range of allied departments, including anthropology, English, political science, communications, art, geological sciences, psychology, regional planning, and comparative literature. On

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Department of History / 2023 Report

top of that, he supported the undergraduate program, leading survey and upper-level courses and introducing undergraduates to public history practice.

David’s scholarship has long examined the history of popular historical and environmental consciousness in America as represented in politics, culture, and the landscape, both natural and built. He has also developed and shared deep expertise on the past and present of the National Park Service. His book-length publications include American Historical Pageantry: The Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century (1990), and Sense of History: The Place of the Past in American Life (2001).

Many shorter publications—including review essays, editorials, and newsletter and journal articles—range widely across his manifold interests, from the memory of World War I in Orange, Mass., to Ken Burns’s documentary work, to evolving meanings of the Statue of Liberty. Notably, his 1996 article “Public History and the Study of Memory” in The Public Historian won the journal’s 1996 G. Wesley Johnson Prize and was a watershed publication, widely admired for its characteristically elegant prose and sharp insights. In fact, this article has consistently appeared among the journal’s top two or three articles accessed via JSTOR every year, even to this day. His August 2014 Public Historian article “Place, Memory, and Climate Change” is also often found among the top 10.

David brought the insights and values of public history practice to campus through several administrative roles. David was department chair from 2001 to 2004 and shared his deep expertise in public engagement as a member of the Faculty Senate Public Engagement and Outreach Council, as well as the university’s 125th anniversary committee, where he directed the Oral History Project.

Off campus, through classroom-based field service projects and his own public history practice, David has led and contributed to countless projects with partners

from small local history organizations to statewide and regional programs to the National Park Service. He was a convenor of the landmark May 1996 event Interpreting the Places of Artists and Writers and Where We Live (a Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities series in environmental history), as well as a frequent co-planner of the annual Massachusetts History Conference.

David’s longtime collaborations were also notable, especially those in and around the W. E. B. Du Bois National Historic Site (recipient of the New England Museum Association Excellence Award), the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, and the Cape Cod National Seashore (recipient of the Environmental Design Research Association Great Places Award for excellence in research).

He led the first campus collaboration with the Humanities Action Lab (HAL) as well, guiding students as they contributed to the national traveling exhibition Remembering Guantánamo.

Most recently, David has applied his expertise in public and environmental history to the challenges of climate change through extensive teaching, scholarship, activism, and public history work, including spearheading our campus’s contribution to the HAL initiative, Climates of Inequality: Stories of Environmental Justice, with a community-based project focused on environmental racism in Springfield.

To say David has had a complete and fulfilling academic career is to vastly understate the case. His warmth and good humor will be missed around Herter, but we happily congratulate David as this new phase begins. We can’t wait to see what’s next. —Marla Miller Distinguished Professor of History Marla Miller was the grateful colleague of David Glassberg for 23 years. She followed David as director of the Public History Program, serving in that role from 2002–21.

A LASTING IMPACT

EMERITI NEWS

Well Wishes From Former Students

“

I am so grateful to have signed up for your Intro to Public History in the fall of 1990. It opened my eyes and set me on a trajectory that still shapes my life over 30 years later! Along the way our friendship grew, and you have been a constant source of humor and advice, riches more valuable than gold.

—Sandy Krein ’93MA

I know that I think critically because of classes with you and the confidence you had in us. That has made a lasting impact on how I think about the world around me and my part in it.

—Kristin Leahy Fontenot ’04MA I am deeply grateful for your commitment to making public history work engaging, meaningful, rigorous, and empathetic.

—Kristin Morris ’01MA You raised several generations of public historians. You taught us that humility, hospitality, and humor are central to the role. Your intelligence, insight, curiosity, and patience made us want to be scholars.

—Margo Shea ’10PhD

”

Joyce Avrech Berkman reports: Last year, I reported the forthcoming publication in the Massachusetts Review (October 2022) of my essay on the demise of Roe v. Wade. This year, my prime publication is a book-length study of Edith Stein’s autobiography, published this spring by Rowman and Littlefield. In this work, I incorporate relevant biographical and historical forces shaping Stein’s account as well as a multidisciplinary theory of autobiography as a genre that has developed over the past several decades. This publisher has invited me to contribute another volume, this time on Stein’s German refugees to the United States.

I remain deeply involved with the university's Retired Faculty Asso ciation. I am currently program chair, and our monthly events feature remarkable faculty on campus. In other professional activity, I take much pleasure in getting to know the recipients of my endowed awards in the history and women, gender, sexuality studies departments, and in occasional participation in the Five College faculty and graduate student history seminars.

Musical study, a major reason for my retirement, keeps me very busy, not only with regular piano lessons but also performing with the Piano Connection in solo and duet compositions. All these endeavors, plus a lively family and social life, are sources of keen joy for me.

Barry J. Levy now lives in Ann Arbor, Mich. He published a feature article in the New England Journal of History fall 2022 issue: “From Garrison Houses to Breed’s Hill Redoubt: Settler Colonialism, Law, and Intergenerational Trauma in the Frontier Town of Groton, Massachusetts.” The senior seminar he used to teach at UMass on the Battle of Bunker Hill helped focus his interest on the relationship between settler colonialist violence and patriotic violence that the article uncovers.

Gerry McFarland reports: This spring, I prepared a small history of the Leverett (Mass.) Library from its founding in 1891 to the present. It turns out that prior to 1916, the library was located in various homes of private citizens. Fine. But in an era before houses had numbered addresses, where was “Mrs. Frary’s house on Montague Road” or the “Bourne place on Rattlesnake Gutter,” when no one with those family names has lived in those places for many decades? It took some fun historical detective work, but I finally managed to pin those and other ancient locations down.

Ronald Story reports: In 2022–23, I completed a draft book-length manuscript on George Biddle, a left-liberal muralist, lithographer, and painter of the interwar period. A portion of the manuscript was featured in George Biddle: The Art of American Social Conscience, the lavishly illustrated catalog that accompanied an important Biddle exhibit at the Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia.

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STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS

Undergraduate Students Hannah Bension studied the British politics of imperial decline at Oxford University as part of the UMass Oxford Summer Seminar program. In her free time, she traveled through London, the south of France, Monaco, and Amsterdam.

Andrew Bielecki

Andrew Bielecki prepared to write a thesis on Islamic eschatology. In 2022–23, Bielecki delved into the study of Islamic history with courses including Islamic Thought in History and Age of the Crusades. He began his thesis under the guidance of Professor Anne Broadbridge in the fall. In summer 2023, he attended the Oxford Summer Seminar at Keble College, where he studied international law and art history. In between classes, Bielecki went on dozens of Tesco runs, attempted to learn some Scottish Gàidhlig, and tried to verify the existence of the Loch Ness monster.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

Ben Branco researched Native and colonial relations in New England during the 17th century. The resulting paper, titled “After the Mayflower,” was written for a class with Professor Asheesh Siddique.

It was primarily focused on how the deterioration of the relationship between the two sides ultimately culminated in King Philip’s War and its aftermath.

Troy Brown researched the history of racism in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He wrote a paper detailing how discrimination in the park gradually turned it into a white space where African Americans did not feel welcome. At the end of his junior year, Brown completed his language requirement by taking a fourth-level Spanish course. While difficult, it gave Brown the unique opportunity to deepen his bond with his Puerto Rican grandfather, who is fluent in Spanish and supported him throughout.

Patrick Collins ’23 researched renewable energy policies at the Consensus Building Institute. After graduating from UMass Amherst with a BA in political science and a minor in history, Collins spent the summer as an intern with the nonprofit group assisting research of policies on renewable energy siting as well as how they interact with local stakeholders in different contexts. Now, Collins is pursuing a master’s degree in public policy from Brandeis University.

Mia Galvam interned at Power in Place.

While there, she assisted on a registration campaign targeted at college students and researched the American suffrage movement for a digital timeline project.

Her biggest accomplishment at PiP was interviewing Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra of Northampton about places of meaning.

Jillian Gochinski interned at the Memorial Hall Museum as part of the exhibit design team. She assisted with the research, interpretation, and display of the museum’s collection. She plans on pursuing a master’s degree in public history after graduation.

Patience Gubisch ’23 graduated summa cum laude in May with a bachelor’s in history and minors in education and Spanish. She completed a thesis for the Commonwealth Honors College with Professor Jennifer Fronc on student-led walkouts over racially driven educational inequities in 1968. Gubisch was also co-president of the Education Club and an Education Abroad peer advisor, where she especially enjoyed sharing her experiences studying abroad in London.

This fall, she began classes for her master’s degree in secondary history education at Lesley University.

Ellie Kinsman published her first scholarly article. Titled “Wendish Crusades: An Imperial Conquest of the Baltics,” the article can be found in the third edition of Dies Legibiles, an undergraduate journal of medieval studies.

Preya Patel ’23 graduated with degrees in biology and history, merging both fields through an interdisciplinary approach. While focusing on genetics, she also delved into the history of science, which reshaped her perspective.

Acknowledging the social responsibilities of scientists, she found guidance from Professor Sigrid Schmalzer, whose classes emphasized scientists’ societal impacts. Inspired by Science for the People in her readings, she joined the western Massachusetts chapter, aiming to channel her passions into active engagement.

Patel aspires to shape genetic counseling, utilizing her combined background in science and activism to lead the field toward a people-centric trajectory.

Preya Patel '23 (center)

Lilyana Ricardo spent her spring and summer interning at the Center for Political Accountability, where she was responsible for monitoring the political contributions of various Fortune 500 corporations. She also worked as a co-manager for the cooperative student business Sweets + More, where she was responsible for the marketing committee as well as other financial and business decisions. She was inducted into the political science honor society Pi Sigma Alpha as well. Finally, last fall, she took an amazing history seminar with Robert LaRussa ’76.

Ryan Richards was an international market research assistant at the Massachusetts Export Center. As part of his internship, Richards issued written reports on trade compliance, located viable international exporting markets, and discovered distributors for a client of the Export Center. Richards intends to use the skills he gained over the summer to find employment in the international business or policy research sector upon graduation this coming spring.

Joseph Shink wrote a research paper on the history of the Blackfoot Nation and Glacier National Park with a focus on their plight with the National Parks Service (NPS). The paper, titled “The Rightful Owners of Glacier NP,” argues that the Blackfoot Nation should have sole ownership over the park, considering the unjust way that the land was acquired by NPS and the agency’s long history of abuse. Shink also began his journey into the educational field as a substitute teacher in the Springfield school district. After graduation, he hopes to pursue a career in secondary education within the field of history.

Ciara L. Smith wants to learn everything as a history major. Studying history at UMass has exceeded Smith’s expectations, especially classes on imperial America with Christian Appy and medieval history with Anna Taylor.

Smith is double majoring in legal studies and minoring in anthropology. She often combines these interests, like using ideas

from Alice Nash’s Indigenous history course in an archaeology paper. After she graduates, Ciara wants to be a lawyer focusing on transgender rights. This fits her history major, she says, “because transgender discrimination has been an issue for so long and hasn’t actually progressed” as much as it should.

Jeremy Spevack ’23

Jeremy Spevack ’23 graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in history, a minor in political science, and a certificate in international relations.

In his senior year, Spevack completed an honors thesis with guidance from Professors Audrey Altstadt and Daniel Gordon. The thesis, titled “Autocrats at War,” is a comparative analysis of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran and Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine. He hopes to become a history teacher and is returning to UMass to pursue an MEd. Justin Taylor ’23 accepted a position with the law office of Farber and Lindley in Amherst.

Abigail Wing ’23 wrote an honors thesis on accessibility barriers faced by students with disabilities on UMass Amherst financial aid websites. She released two editions of the Scribe literary magazine as part of her involvement with the Humanities and Fine Arts Student Leadership Group.

Additionally, she secured a position as an associate technical writer at KVH Industries. In this role, she collaborates with a diverse cross-functional team consisting of software, mechanical, and electrical engineers, as well as user experience professionals.

FROM THE ARCHIVE TO THE CLASSROOM

I began researching Britain’s WWII experiences [in] the summer of my junior year when I attended the UMass Oxford Summer Seminar. My grandmother, who passed away in 2012, was born in London during WWII, so I took the opportunity to piece together her childhood. I then narrowed my research down to focus on educational changes through the Education Act of 1944, and how the legislative changes mirrored the outcomes of war experiences for children. The Louis S. Greenbaum History Honors Research Award allowed me to return to London a year later and conduct research at the National Archives and Imperial War Museums.

After graduating with my completed thesis, I began teaching civics in my former middle school as a long-term substitute teacher.

Teaching social studies grants me the opportunity to discuss a plethora of historical events, including WWII and children’s experiences. —Claire Gagnon ’23

39

Graduate Students Marwa Atef Mohamed Amer was the project manager of an archival project with the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY, a higher education union in New York City. During this time, Amer processed and developed a finding aid for a collection of documents related to the labor history of New York City that spanned 30 years. In December 2022, Amer transitioned into a full-time staff organizer position, where she advocates for faculty, staff, adjuncts, lab technicians, and graduate assistants/students that work at CUNY. With generous support from the UMass Amherst history department, Amer also conducted archival research for her dissertation.

Sheher Bano ’23MA wrote a thesis on Pakistani historical memory of Indian Socialist revolutionary Bhagat Singh.

Detailed on page 21, the project draws on a wide variety of primary sources ranging from oral history to poetry and prose.

Heather Brinn ’23PhD defended her dissertation on Black women’s intimate bonds in the Reconstruction South. She also published a book review in the Journal of African American History.

As the department’s internship coordinator, she supported students in finding summer internships, created career development events, and developed a mentorship program for students interested in graduate or law school. Brinn has accepted a position in Smith College’s Lazarus Center for the upcoming year.

Marisa S. Budlong conducted hours of oral history interviews with her father, who engaged in draft resistance and civil disobedience during the Vietnam War. She was also an editorial intern at the International Public History Journal, a research assistant for Professor Richard Chu, and one of the history department’s summer 2023 communications coordinators. During the school year, she TA’ed for Professor Jennifer Fronc’s U.S. Thought and Culture 1877–1999, and Professor Christian Appy’s course, American War in Vietnam.

Justin Burch and Marwa Amer presented their racial justice work at UMass Amherst at the 2023 National Conference on Race and Ethnicity.

Along with UMass colleagues Patricia “Tita” Feraud-King, Clement Boaheng, and Laura Hamcock, they presented “Promoting Racial Justice through Diverse Student Leadership at Historically White

Members of the MA cohort who began their studies in 2021 gathered together at the department's spring awards ceremony.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

Institutions” about their work with the Graduate Student Senate (GSS), which addressed racialized inequities for BIPOC/ international students in childcare, mental health, and academic studies.

Ross Caputi organized an international conference titled “Archive Iraq” on repairing collective memory to mark the 20th anniversary of the Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Caputi also co-created the eponymous open-access digital archive of Iraqi history, as well as organized and moderated a Feinberg Series event on the theme. Additionally, he taught Italian language and culture at Wheaton College in spring 2023.

Hee Yun Cheong went to conferences in Warsaw and Boston and met scholars he admires, including Tak Fujitani! He enjoyed the dissertation design class taught by Jon Olsen greatly, writing a rough draft of his dissertation prospectus with fantastic academic and emotional support.

Nick DeLuca ’23MA worked for the National Park Service as an interpretive park guide at the National Parks of Boston and served as an interpreter at the Paul Revere House. He also recorded and published his third commentary for New England Public Media, most recently on the place-name history of Faneuil Hall and its connections to the institution of slavery. DeLuca is excited to step away from graduate school and enjoy time with his infant daughter. Nick hopes to pursue a PhD in the not-so-distant future.

Carina Dreyer ’23MA wrote a thesis on Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī and the institutions of learning where he lived, worked, and taught. Thanks to the Marvin Ogilvie Memorial Award for Foreign Language Study, she spent the summer in Jordan working on her classical Arabic and started to work with manuscripts through the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library’s introductory course. This fall, she began a PhD program in Near Eastern languages and civilizations at Harvard University.

Katlyn Durand wrote and defended a master’s thesis on the Southern Baptist Convention’s utilization of the rhetoric of oppression. Titled “Our Sacred Rights,” the project focuses on 1845 and the present day. As a public historian on the oral history track, Durand incorporated oral history into her thesis. She conducted two oral history interviews with investigative journalist Robert Downen and hopes to turn this work into a larger oral history project. This fall, she is continuing at UMass as a PhD student.

Kimberly A. Enderle attended a Gold Star Family film screening, the Vietnam War Commemoration, and Big Berks. Held in Washington, D.C., the screening was for Gold Star Families and was part of a four-day Vietnam War Commemoration recognizing the 50th anniversary of the war’s end. There, she volunteered at the Military Women’s Memorial’s booth recruiting women veterans to participate in oral history interviews. This summer, she presented a paper, “Purses, Pumps, and Skirts: The U.S. Army’s Gender War in the Twentieth Century,” at the Berkshire Conference on Women, Genders, and Sexualities and was a chapter delegate at the 72nd Women’s Army Corps Veterans’ Association Convention.

Whyfu Fang devoted his year to exploring a range of courses and research topics. A first-year PhD student, Fang dove into researching George Leslie Mackay, a late-19th-century Canadian missionary in Taiwan. Fang went through Mackay’s writings and penned a paper offering a fresh historical interpretation that counters existing narratives and unfolds a revealing story of missionaries’ experiences at the time.

Caitlyn Foster began writing her master’s thesis, which examines the ways that different groups of people used religion to interact with the early Ptolemaic kings during the Hellenistic period of ancient Egypt. She hopes to offer a modern perspective on the topic, centering the

ABOVE Kim Enderle (second

from R) at the Vietnam War Commemoration in May 2023.

RIGHT Maya González ’23MA, Alison Russell, and Eric Ross speak to high school students about the historical method.

lived experience of Hellenistic people.

Foster is looking forward to her second year in the program as she pursues this project, continues her graduate studies, grades papers, and works for the Faculty Senate Office.

Yuri Gama won the Simon and Satenig Ermonian Graduate Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching. The award honors his work teaching modern Latin American history. Gama had the pleasure of participating in the seminar of the UMass Interdisciplinary Studies Institute and the Emerging Scholars Program by the Global Urban History Project. Moreover, Gama presented his most recent research at the American Historical Association 2023 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, and at Brown University’s graduate history conference in October 2022. This fall, Gama is working as the department’s internship coordinator and teaching career development.

Maya González ’23MA penned a thesis on American Jewish activism during the Holocaust. As part of this work, she visited Chicago’s Newberry Library archives and presented at the annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies. González is currently working on a related project on representations of this history in Ken Burns’ 2022 documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust.

Cheryl Harned spent an absurd number of hours thinking about objects and why people collect them. Such thinking about things isn’t new, of course, as she works to complete her dissertation about identity and collecting, but having the ability to present some of her theories at the North American Chapter on the History of Emotion Conference last summer was revelatory. Also revelatory are the objects collected by Joseph A. Skinner, as they continue to tell their stories in unexpected ways.

Tim Hastings presented a paper at the Colonial Society of Massachusetts Graduate Student Forum. The paper, “Recollecting Murder: Mythmaking, Settler Colonialism, and Exclusion in New Hampshire’s History,” examined the mythmaking surrounding the murders of two Native American men at the hands of Euro-American colonists in 1753 in New Hampshire. At the conference, he particularly enjoyed meeting other early Americanist graduate students and receiving helpful suggestions from the excellent historians who attended.

Joanna Hejl built local relationships to study preservation. While researching the Clark Tavern in Hadley, Hejl developed a relationship with the home’s current owner and made connections with local historic house enthusiasts to 41

learn more about the Valley’s community of queer preservationists. She presented a poster on her research at the American Association for State and Local History Conference in September. Hejl also received a Hands-On Grant from the department to attend a field school in Oregon, where she got an introduction to building restoration.

Clara Higgins interned at Pioneer Valley Planning Commission in the environment and land use department focusing on city planning and historic preservation. Her internship was supported by a Dr. Charles K. Hyde Public History Program Fellowship.

Sean Hough presented his dissertation research at the Gordon Memorial History Graduate Conference in Milwaukee, Wis. He taught his first course, World History since 1500, this summer through the University Without Walls program. He is also completing the first draft of his dissertation.

Seth Kershner presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History. The panel topic, “Dissent in the Ranks: American GI Activism during the Vietnam War and Beyond,” overlapped perfectly with his dissertation research.

As with all events of this kind, he found it hugely rewarding to interact with and learn from his fellow panelists.

PhD students Seth Kershner (R) and Justin Burch—part of a cohort of graduate students who study the history of U.S. empire—confer at the Inaugural Ellsberg Lecture on the human toll of the U.S. air wars in Iraq.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

Stacie Klinowski completed a term as assistant director of the UMass Amherst Writing Center. She presented about the experience at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in February. She also finished her comprehensive exams and began her dissertation research on community writing groups.

This summer, Klinowski completed an archives internship at the Chicopee Public Library. In September, she began another internship as an editorial assistant for the International Public History Journal.

Destiney Linker taught history at Bentley School in Lafayette, Calif. She is also completing her dissertation, to be defended by fall 2023. In her new role, Linker taught U.S. history and collegelevel seminars on race and racism, LGBTQ + studies, and climate change.

Melanie Meadors ’23MA combined her passions to create a hybrid career as a writer and librarian. Drawing on her enthusiasm for outreach and accessibility, as well as the research she did for her MA thesis and the field work from her internships, Meadors applied for jobs at public libraries and found a position as a children’s library assistant at the Marlbor-ough Public Library. She is also a Star Wars analyst and book reviewer for GeekMom. com, and she writes roleplaying games and books for young people.

Gaye Ozpinar passed her comprehensive examinations and defended her dissertation prospectus, “Fishing for Justice: Undocumented Mayan Workers from Guatemala in New Bedford: 1980–2010.” She published a book review in the Latin Americanist and received the Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the UMass Graduate School. In New Bedford, Ozpinar volunteered in legal clinics organized by the Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores and the Community Economic Development Center (CEDC).

She continued to volunteer for the CEDC during summer 2023. Ozpinar also received a fellowship position for the academic year 2023–24 from the Center for Justice, Law, and Societies.

María Portilla Moya TA’ed for Latin American history courses and finished her PhD coursework. She greatly enjoyed working with Professors Kevin Young and Heidi Scott and teaching and learning from UMass undergrads. Portilla Moya was awarded the Potash Graduate Travel Grant and spent the summer in Quito’s archives, seeking material for her dissertation while also preparing for her comprehensive exams.

Jessica Antonia Casillas Scott wrote and published “The Interview as Performance.” This article details the process of interviewing her mother live before an audience about her mother’s childhood during the U.S. military occupation of the Marshall Islands. It appeared in the Voices in Contemporary Art Journal in December 2022. Scott also presented papers at the GHA Conference and the Mellon Sawyer Seminar on Race and Visual Culture, and was on the program at the National Coun-cil on Public History 2023 Annual Meeting. Scott was awarded the Judith A. Barter Internship Fellowship supporting her summer 2023 internship at the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, where she developed a local arts residency.

Jaehee Seol authored a paper on radical museum practices in Mao-era China. The paper was titled “Sharing Authority with the Masses,” and Seol presented it at the Association for Asian Studies in June. Also this year, she completed her coursework and language exams, fulfilled the requirements for the public history certificate, and conducted research at the Harvard-Yenching Library and Korea University Library. Additionally, she participated actively in the Chinese Scholars Colloquium, organized

by UMass graduate students studying Chinese history.

Marcus Smith interned with Black Life in Bellevue, a field school that seeks to document the cultural landscape of this historically Black maritime community in Maryland. Smith also worked on his

Amelia Yeager (L) and Melanie Meadors MA'23 (R) tour UMass's Natural History Collections.

ABOVE Fanqi Xu (R) poses with

Steven Platt and two of his awardwinning books on the last day of the Writing History graduate seminar.

LEFT Camesha Scruggs '23PhD and Brian Whetstone '23PhD at a department celebration on the evening before they received their PhDs.

dissertation, which examines the grassroots development of museums in Black communities and the use of public history and historic preservation as activism, focusing on the community of Bellevue and the Bellevue Passage Museum.

Abby Thomsen researched UMass’s archaeological collections and built a database to deepen collaborations with Indigenous Nations. Supported by a 2023 Natural History Collections Fellowship, Thomsen’s project with Repatriation Director Julie Woods focused on designing a centralized data repository for archaeological and ethnographic data at UMass that would improve access to information by Indigenous Nations to facilitate consultation and potential future collaborations. Thomsen also attended the National Council on Public History Annual Meeting in April, where she was awarded the student travel grant for her poster “Mitakuye Owasiŋ (We Are All Related): Archaeology as an Anticolonial Tool at a Minnesota College.”

Brian Whetstone ’23PhD defended his dissertation with distinction and graduated from UMass! He taught urban history at the University of Connecticut and courses on modern Boston and cultural resource management at UMass Amherst. Additionally, Whetstone accepted a position as a fellow at the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities for the 2023–24 academic year. While there, he will work on turning his dissertation into a book manuscript.

Emily Whitted spent most of her past year with books, passing her comprehensive exams and defending her dissertation prospectus in spring 2023.

She is excited to begin research for her dissertation, which focuses on textile mending in early America.

teaching assistant for the first time and found a very important archive for his research on scientist Zhu Kezhen during a trip to Harvard libraries.

Amelia Yeager wrote about the elusive material culture of labor on local dairy farms, expanding her biographical research on laborers at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House. She also took Archaeology of Colonialism in the anthropology department, which exposed her to new methods for supplementing the archives in the study of indentured servitude and enslavement in the Atlantic world. Yeager received Hyde funding to work as a Buchanan Burnham Fellow this summer at the Newport Historical Society, where her archival research and interpretive writing contributed to the organization’s mission to share underrepresented histories.

At an international conference, Fanqi Xu presented his paper, “The History of Science and the Shift in Zhu Kezhen’s Political Thought.” He also served as a 43

CLASS NOTES

Intelligence Committee (1977–79), CNN (1980–89) and in numerous public relations, marketing, and media positions.

Marcia Synnott ’74PhD will chair a panel at the American Historical Association’s 2024 Annual Meeting in San Francisco on “Student Movements and Youth Activism: A Global Perspective.”

60s

Ralph Simmons ’62 and his partner, Happy, reside at WindsorMeade, a continuing care retirement community in Virginia. Happy is a deacon in the Presbyterian church. Ralph volunteers at the local nonprofit used Bicycle Co-op Shop, assists at the local primary school and the public summer school, and continually enjoys history books.

80s

After 35 years of practicing in the insolvency field, John Fiero ’85 is now an adjunct professor of law at the University of California San Francisco, where he teaches a bankruptcy course to secondand third-year students.

Barry Pritzker ’78, ’86MA recently retired from his position as senior director of foundation and corporate relations at Skidmore College. He plans to spend more time in New York City, see more of friends and family, continue freelance foundation fundraising, travel, read, possibly begin another book project, take care of his house, play tennis, hike, ski—in short, as he put it, “to do more or less whatever I please!”

After leaving UMass, Lorrey Bianchi ’69 had a very successful 37-year career in information technology in the financial services sector, wherein he also met his wife, Kathy (Michigan State, 1969). They have lived in Boston’s Back Bay for 42 years, during which time Bianchi completed an MBA at Boston University for his career and most of a PhD in European history (also at BU) for fun. He has amassed a very large collection of 1700 French Second Empire materials and has continued to support the university and the libraries. “Life has been very, very good,” he writes.

Jordan Rosner ’86 relocated to Santa Fe, N.M., in January 2022, taking on a new position as global markets editor with Thornburg Investment Management, where he is responsible for thought leadership marketing content: white papers, web articles, podcasts, and videos.

70s

90s

Carol (Wiik) Cooke ’73 is enjoying retirement after a fulfilling career in Washington, D.C., working for the Senate Watergate Committee (1973–74), Senate Intelligence Committee (1975–76), House

Sean Moore ’91 was awarded a Trinity Long Room Hub Visiting Research Fellowship for the Michaelmas term 2023 and a St. Andrews Scotland Fleeman Fellowship in 18th-century Scottish studies to begin his third book project, “The British Secret Service and the Scottish and Irish Book

Hugh Carter Donahue ’72 helped to organize and spoke at “Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life and Legacy of Award-Winning Biographer and Historian Stephen B. Oates” at UMass Amherst on Sept. 9, 2022 (see YouTube and C-SPAN).

He also published the book Super-Supra Information Technologies: Speed, Accuracy, and Immutability in May 2023.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

Rob Weir ’90PhD has been in demand this year to speak on topics from his two recent books, Who Knew: Roadside Revelations in Western Massachusetts (Levellers Press), and The Marx Brothers and America: Where Film, Comedy, and History Collide (McFarland).

Trades, 1660–1829: An Inquiry into the History of Intelligence.”

John Galluzzo ’93 is a grant writer for the South Shore YMCA and is currently finishing his 53rd, 54th, and 55th books, with more lined up. He is also the newly elected president of the Mass History Alliance, president of the Hanover Historical Society, and newly elected trustee for the Dyer Memorial Library in Abington. He recently stepped down as maritime heritage chair of NOAA’s Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary after 12 years.

Greg Reitman ’93 chaired the fourth annual Blue Water Film Festival, which took place this past summer from June 8 to 11 and featured 40 films in total. Founded

by Reitman in 2020, the festival celebrates water, ocean, and nature films. The festival’s purpose is to encourage attendees to think broadly about how climate change affects planet Earth and deeply about the universal concerns and actions needed to bring us into balance. Next year’s festival dates are March 21–24, 2024. For more information on the festival, visit www. bluewaterfilmfestival.org.

In 2014, Jeff Bradway ’87, ’94MA co-authored History of the Colonial Theatre, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, which was chosen by the Theatre Historical Society of America as the Outstanding Theatre Book of the Year. Also that year, he joined the board of trustees of Berkshire Music School, where he is currently serving his third term as president. In 2015, he joined the Pittsfield Historical Commission. Through lectures at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Berkshire Community College, he shares his interest in architectural history. And at Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum in Lenox, Mass., he has lectured and performed as Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Bethany Zecher Sutton ’97MA serves as a leadership and career coach for individuals advancing in leadership in colleges and universities, following 24 years in higher education roles, working in

academic administration at the University of Pennsylvania, serving as chief of staff at the American Association of Colleges and Universities, and providing executive search consulting for Academic Search. She was elected to the school board for Arlington Public Schools (Va.) for a four-year term beginning in January 2023.

00s

After two decades with Historic New England, Bethany Groff Dorau ’97, ’00MA moved half a mile down the street and now serves as executive director of the Museum of Old Newbury in Newburyport, Mass. Though at first glance it may seem a sleepy(ish) historical society turned museum, she reports that it has a deep, rich history and world-class collection and archive, and new discoveries blow her mind every day. “We are working to center this place in service to the community and have had great fun finding new ways of seeing, and growing, the collection. I had the great fortune of seeing my dear friends and mentors, Joyce Berkman and Marla Miller, among others, over the past year and traveling out to Amherst to play a small role in the reinterpretation of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House. I’m living in my ancestral home and running a small (23 souls) farm animal sanctuary, the Poore Farm Sanctuary, West Newbury, to boot. What a life! Cheers to you all.”

Mark Vezzola ’00 sends greetings from southern California! After 14 years as an attorney and tribal court judge with California Indian Legal Services, Vezzola embarked on a new professional journey in March as an attorney in the Pechanga Band of Indians’ Office of General Counsel. The band is active in both state and national politics related to preserving and expanding Indigenous rights and sovereignty, particularly in the areas of cultural resource protection, missing and murdered Indigenous women, and tribal economic develop ment, which supports social programs for band members and ensures the continued existence of their customs and traditions.

Vezzola reports that “the work is still new but quite rewarding.”

Jonathan Olly ’02 became the director of museum collections at the New Hampshire Historical Society in September 2022.

From 2016 to 2022, he served as curator at the Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages in Stony Brook, N.Y. Eric Cartier ’04 gave a featured presentation on the Louisiana Public Document Depository Program (LPDDP) at the Louisiana Library Association Annual Conference 2023 in Baton Rouge. The LPDDP is celebrating its 75th anniversary and, as the recorder of documents who manages the program, Cartier hosted a special event at the State Library of Louisiana to mark the occasion this fall.

Gregory Zapata ’08 has been an education program manager at the Boston Area Research Initiative at Northeastern University since January, following 15 years of adventures, teaching, a second degree (an MS in urban planning and community development at UMass Boston), and a triumphant return to the lucrative field of college radio.

Nominated by State Representative Carol Doherty, Katie MacDonald ’09 was honored to be recognized as a Commonwealth Heroine awardee in the State House Hall of Flags in June.

Presented by the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, the award celebrates women community leaders in Massachusetts.

10s

Diana Devereaux ’11 and Bret Devereaux '07 met at UMass and they’ve been married for eight years. This year, they welcomed their first child.

In September 2022, after working as a school librarian in Brooklyn, Vincent Hyland ’11 became a library coordinator in the New York City School Library System of New York City Public Schools. He is also the sitting president of the New York City School Librarians’ Association, a local affiliate of the New York Library Association’s Section of School Librarians.

ABOVE Aibhlin Hannigan ’17 leads a program for history majors about Old Sturbridge Village’s CommunityBased Educators program.

RIGHT Jacob Boucher ’19MA at work

at Lowell National Historical Park.

45

Bethany Groff Dorau ’97, ’00MA at the Poore Farm Sanctuary in West Newbury, Mass.

LEFT Jonathan Olly ’02 poses with Robert Frost at Plymouth State University.

BELOW University of North Carolina Press publicist Helen Kyriakoudes ’20MA at the National Council on Public History Annual Meeting.

University’s genealogical research certificate. She is currently working as an independent historian on several projects, including the interlinked stories of several German Jewish Holocaust survivors who immigrated to the United States after WWII, and the background to a street protest that took place in early 20th-century New York City.

After 10 years working in museums, Stephania Villar ’12MA switched industries and coasts! She is currently in New Jersey working in digital marketing for Penguin Random House’s children’s books division with a focus on young adult and middle-grade books. She reports, “It’s funny to see how I continue to apply public history in my work today, but I do!”

Kenneth Mick-Evans ’14 has been working as a historical interpreter and visitor services assistant at Hancock Shaker Village since 2016. He earned his MA in heritage conservation and site management at Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus, Germany, and Helwan University in Greater Cairo, Egypt, in 2019. He is also a member of the European Students’ Association for Cultural Heritage and has been working as a museum educator at Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Mass., since 2020.

Patrick McGuire ’11 is thrilled to report that he and his wife, Katherine, welcomed a baby daughter, Rose, this June. She joins her two-year-old brother, Miles. They live in Boston, where McGuire works as an addiction psychiatrist for Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Colonel Beth Behn ’04MA, ’12PhD remains on active duty with the United States Army. She is currently assigned as the chief of transportation/commandant, U.S. Army Transportation School at Fort Gregg-Adams, Va. In the summer and fall 46

Department of History / 2023 Report

of 2023, she performed duty in Europe as the deputy commander for sustainment for the Security Assistance Group-Ukraine.

During the past several years, Bette Elsden ’12MA has been exploring ways that genealogical research techniques can augment history writing and research.

While engaging with projects that have involved work in postbellum African American, post-Holocaust Jewish, and northeastern U.S. immigrant histories, Elsden acquired new and valuable skills.

In late 2022, she earned Boston

Over the past year, Daniel Chard ’16PhD continued to discuss his book, Nixon’s War at Home: The FBI, Leftist Guerrillas, and the Origins of Counterterrorism (UNC Press, 2021) in several interviews and invited lectures. In addition, he was recipient of Western Washington University’s (WWU) 2023 Ronald Kleinknecht Excellence in Teaching Award. He was recently hired as assistant professor of history at WWU and will begin his tenure-line position in January 2024.

Carlo MacDonald ’16 began graduate school at Boston University and is pursuing an MA in teaching social studies.

Selena Moon ’17MA published her first article from her research on Japanese American disability history. Her first book chapter about (in)accessibility at Manzanar National Historic Site will be published this year, and she has another chapter forthcoming in 2024 about the lack of disabled Japanese Americans in the archives. She notes that “it was wonderful to see UMass friends and professors at NCPH this spring” and hopes to see everyone next year!

Nolan Cool ’18MA published an article, “Supplanted Sovereignties: Gateways, Commerce, and Dispossession in Postrevolutionary New York,” in the Winter 2022–23 issue of the New York History journal. It was largely written during his time in Stephen Platt’s Writing History course.

Jacob Boucher ’19MA recently joined Lowell National Historical Park as a permanent park guide! He reports, “Having worked seasonally at Lowell for some years, I am very familiar with the site and continue my work as part of our digital media team. We manage the park’s social media, internal digital needs, and promotional material for events like the opening of our new exhibit, One City, Many Cultures. We are also working to improve the accessibility of our online content by editing audio descriptions into our existing video catalog. I am happy to continue my journey here in Lowell and hope to for many years!”

Shannon Emmett ’19 moved from Boston to Washington, D.C., this summer to start a new role as the senior policy analyst at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). After working at the Massachusetts State House for four years, she will now lead IWPR’s state policy and engagement strategy to advance gender equity. Her rewarding policy portfolio at IWPR includes issues such as pay equity, paid leave, reproductive justice, and childcare reform. During a time when policy action at the federal level often results in gridlock, Emmett brings state-level policy

experience and a Massachusetts perspective to the nation’s capital.

Mark Roblee ’19PhD joined the faculty of the Commonwealth Honors College at UMass teaching intellectual history and topics in religion. His recent article on reading apocalypse in the Latin Asclepius was published in Religious Studies and Theology (41.2). He also gave a talk in Warwickshire, England, about the transmission and esoteric afterlife of a spurious letter attributed to Plotinus. He sees Professor Carlin Barton now and again for tea and lively, wide-ranging conversation.

Melanie Soter ’19 works for the Massachusetts School Building Authority and is proud to be a public servant. She also recently began a master’s in public administration at Northeastern University, and in her free time plans to work with her local historical society to assist their efforts in archives and cataloging.

20s

After working as a visiting lecturer at Westfield State University in the 2022–23 school year, Michael Chrzanowski ’20 began a doctoral program in history at the University of California, Berkeley in fall 2023. He will be studying the French Revolution with Professor Carla Hesse. He misses western Massachusetts but is excited to carry his experiences from UMass Amherst into his new academic career.

Katherine “Kady” McGann ’20 was accepted into the history graduate program at Salem State University.

Sophie Nelson ’20 moved to Montana in 2021 to pursue equity work, and now builds cooperatives with the Montana Cooperative Development Center as their equity and special projects coordinator.

She uses her history degree and her concentration in historiography to collaborate with Native and reservation communities in preserving their cultural knowledge.

Because cooperatives have perpetual ownership (members join and leave while

collectively running the cooperative), they are vehicles to collect, retain, and share historical narratives. One cooperative is collecting knowledge on how to harvest and blend medicinal teas traditional to the Blackfeet Nation; another will focus on collecting and sharing knowledge of traditional and regenerative Indigenous agricultural practices.

In fall 2023, Alexa Harrington ’21MA began an intensive one-year master’s in education program at Boston College in order to teach social studies to grades K–12. She is simultaneously participating in BC’s Donovan Urban Teaching Scholars program, which is allowing her to pursue her interest in social justice, and teaching gender history as a visiting lecturer at Framingham State University this fall.

Jason A. Higgins ’21PhD recently accepted a new position as digital scholarship coordinator for Virginia Tech Publishing and assistant professor, jointly affiliated with VT University Libraries and the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. His forthcoming monograph, Prisoners after War: Veterans in the Age of Mass Incarceration, will be published in January 2024 by University of Massachusetts Press; an open-access version will be freely available to the public. Over the past two years, he has also carried out a collaborative oral history project with descendant communities whose ancestors were enslaved on the land that became Virginia Tech.

Devinne Melecki ’22PHCert published an article, “Cemeteries That Save the American Landscape,” in Smithsonian Magazine, drawing on work begun during her Hyde internship last summer.

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NEW BOOKS

Fresh Ink Joel Wolfe Brazil. Polity Books, 2023.

In this vibrant new book, Joel Wolfe tells the story of Brazil’s 200-year struggle to control its vast national territory and to fashion and maintain a functioning democracy against a backdrop of intense inequality, racial discrimination, and regional rivalries.

From independence to the abolition of slavery, from scarring military dictatorship to the presidencies of Jair Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva, Brazil weaves a rich portrait of a country fighting against the odds to overcome long-standing problems that have hindered national unity and development.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

Joyce Avrech Berkman

Edith Stein’s Life in a Jewish Family, 1891–1916: A Companion.

Lexington Books, 2023.

Edith Stein’s book, Life in a Jewish Family, 1891–1916, is a treasure trove for the study of Stein’s youth and early adulthood. In this companion text, Joyce Avrech Berkman argues that a key axis of Stein’s consciousness, values, ideas, and life choices is an unresolved philosophical and spiritual struggle to uphold traditional societal and cultural values and practices while also critiquing them. This book serves as an important guide to scholars in autobiographical studies, history, philosophy, and theology, and will attract a broader audience of readers interested in Stein’s life.

James N. Druckman and Elizabeth A. Sharrow

Laura L. Lovett, Rachel Jessica Daniel, and Kelly N. Giles, eds.

University Press, 2023.

Press of Florida, 2022.

Equality Unfulflled: How Title IX’s Policy Design Undermines Change to College Sports. Cambridge

Fifty years ago, Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, outlawing sex-based discrimination in education. But sex-based inequalities in college athletics remain the reality today.

Equality Unfulfilled explains why, drawing on surveys with student athletes, athletic administrators, college coaches, and members of the public to highlight how institutions shape attitudes toward gender equity policy. It offers novel lessons not only for those interested in college sports but for everyone seeking to understand the barriers that marginalized groups face in their quest for equality.

It’s Our Movement Now: Black Women’s Politics and the 1977 National Women’s Conference. University

This volume offers a panoramic view of Black feminist politics through the stories of a remarkable cross section of Black women who attended the 1977 National Women’s Conference. These women advocated for civil and women’s rights but also for accessibility, lesbians, sex workers, welfare recipients, laborers, and children. It’s Our Movement Now places the diversity of Black women’s experiences and their leadership at the center of the history of the women’s movement. The book’s co-editors and eight of the contributing authors are current or former UMass faculty and graduate students.

EDITOR’S CORNER

Kevin A. Young, Michael Schwartz, and Richard Lachmann, eds.

FACULTY-EDITED JOURNALS Andrew Donson, Book Review Editor, First World War Studies Daniel Gordon, Editor in Chief, Society Jennifer Heuer, Co-editor, French Historical Studies Kevin Young, Book Review Editor, Latin American Research Review

Trump and the Deeper Crisis. Emerald

Publishing Limited, 2022.

While many analysts emphasize Donald Trump’s uniqueness as president, he can also be viewed as a symptom of a deeper systemic crisis. This collection examines the roots, impacts, and future prospects of Trumpism as well as the possibilities for combatting it. Chapters analyze the role of racism and xenophobia, evangelical religion, and elite support in enabling Trump’s political ascent, demonstrating how he draws from the historic repertoire of the Right.

The authors also trace the impacts of his presidency on inequality, health, ecological destruction, and U.S. empire.

FACULTY-EDITED BOOK SERIES Richard Chu, Series Co-editor, Global Southeast Asian Diasporas, Brill Publishers Marla Miller, Series Editor, Public History in Historical Perspective, University of Massachusetts Press Sigrid Schmalzer, Series Editor, Activist Studies of Science and Technology, University of Massachusetts Press

Sample titles from the series edited by Chu, Miller and Schmalzer.

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LIVES WELL LIVED

“Bob Paynter left an indelible impact on campus and in the community. His presence in the lives of his students and colleagues will not be forgotten.” —DAVID GLASSBERG

Robert Paynter ’75MA, ’80PhD

September 22, 1949–April 30, 2023 The UMass Amherst Department of History is deeply saddened by the loss of Robert Paynter ’75MA, ’80PhD. Paynter received his master’s and PhD from the Department of Anthropology at UMass Amherst before teaching here for most of his career. He made essential contributions to the Public History Program curriculum, offering courses in historical archaeology and overseeing the summer field school in archaeology. He was a generous reader of his history department colleagues’ scholarship, and always happy to engage in deep, wide-ranging conversation about the local past.

Paynter was also a longtime valuable member of the larger western Massachusetts public history community, facilitating the repatriation of Indigenous artifacts in museum collections, serving on the board of Historic Northampton, and collabo rating with staff at historic sites across western Massachusetts.

He was a tireless advocate for turning the W. E. B. Du Bois National Historic Site into an international tourist destination, partnering with public history faculty member David Glassberg to co-write the grants that funded an interpretive plan in 2009 and an interpretive trail with seven wayside exhibits in 2014.

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Department of History / 2023 Report

“Over the past 50 years, John Bracey helped to

transform our campus and the lives of thousands of students. He will be sorely missed, but his legacy will live on through his students who continue the hard work of social justice and transformation that he so passionately fought for during his life.” —JOYE BOWMAN

John H. Bracey Jr.

July 17, 1941–February 5, 2023 John H. Bracey Jr.—Black studies pioneer, U.S. historian, and a faculty member in the UMass Amherst W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies since 1972—died in February of 2023 at age 81.

Bracey helped found one of the nation’s first doctoral programs in African American studies at UMass Amherst, where he also served as chair of the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies and as co-director of the graduate certificate in African diaspora studies. Over the past five decades, Bracey was a tireless supporter of Black student initiatives, organizations, and cultural activities on campus. He was also adjunct faculty in the history department, a valued member of our community, and a devoted mentor to many students. In recent years, Bracey was a leader in creating the UMass Black Presence initiative, UMass Amherst’s endeavor to honor and celebrate the historic contributions of its Black faculty, students, staff, and alumni by creating a permanent archive.

Our Donors The Department of History is grateful for contributions from friends and alumni. Your generous donations support essential scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and student travel for research, and the many events and initiatives that make studying history at UMass Amherst such a robust and worthwhile educational experience. We sincerely thank you. The following list includes those who made donations between July 2022 and June 2023. Gifts can be made online at: umass.edu/history/give-history.

Barbara-Seda Aghamianz Barry M. Alman Melvyn W. Altman Erin M. Anderson Thomas F. Army Jr. Rev. Virginia W.G. Army David M. Aronson Ayco Charitable Foundation Geoffrey M. Bagshaw Matthew P. Bannon Guy B. Barnett Michael B. Barrett Judith A. Barter Denis Binder Donald P. Blood Therese R. Blood Lily Bond William E. Bond Judith A. Boucher-Cameron Dean Joye L. Bowman Jeffry Alan Bradway Marcella W. Bradway Pamela E. Brooks James E. Buchanan Sylvia M. Buchanan Robert J. Burgess Edward D. Burke Marilyn J. Burke Kathryne A. Burns Hannah M. Butler Carole G. Buzun Patricia M. Campbell Malone Thomas P. Campbell Paul E. Canham Brenda D. Canter Gerald L. Canter

Russell W. Carrier Richard A. Carter Michael C. Cass Lawrence F. Chenier Jane F. Chertoff Richard L. Cocivera Emilie A. Codega Bruce E. Colton John J. Connors Jr. John S. Courtney Henry M. Curtis Jay M. Daly, MD Allen J. Davis Sara R. Devine John S Dickson Mary B. Dickson Joseph F. Dillon Jr. Fausto DiTullio Rosemary A. DiTullio Hugh Carter Donahue John J. Donahue Dana L. Dorman Michael F. Earls John Echternach Russell H. Edes Paul F. Ellis-Graham Akara Elsbach Judith Englander Norman A. Erlich Christopher T. Fang Diane S. Feinberg Kenneth R. Feinberg Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund Lee W. Formwalt Robert F. Forrant

Eric C. Forsgard Jane E. Forsgard Ilene S. Freedman Carolyn Galambos James L. Gmeiner Gerard Golden Jr. Jeffrey L. Goodwin Cheryl L. Grenning Joshua P. Grey Michael J. Grossman Estate of Stephen J. Gulo Jr. Flora M. Guzik Richard J. Guzik Beth A. Harding Julia M. Hartford William F. Hartford Harvard Outdoor Power Equipment Kristin L. Hayward-Strobel Stuart S. Heller Lawrence G. Herman Douglas J. Hersey Jennifer N. Heuer John E. Higginson Barbara Kamanitz Holland Marguerite E. Horn Charles K. Hyde John R. Hyslop Joan L. Ingalls Justin F. Jackson Ashley L. Jahrling Bannon Theodore W. Jones Estate of Robert W. Joyce Cynthia P. Kadzik Dikran M. Kaligian Stephen A. Kelley Daniel H. Kenney Eric P. Knight Janet A. Kopec Karol P. Kucinski Jeannette L. Kuske Kenneth K. Kuske Linda J. Lamont Peter T. Lamothe Lawrence J. Lane Jr. Joanne T. Laptewicz-Ryan

Robert S. LaRussa Audrey L. Larvey Bruce G. Laurie Leslie T. Laurie William M. Lavallee Andrea L. Lavender Jeremy L. Laverdiere Rachel Lavery Law Offices of Kenneth R. Feinberg David A. Lawrence Francis J. Leazes Jr. Brenda J. LeBlanc Sean T. LeBlanc Kristina M. Lentz Capano Marc J. Lerman Mike J. Levins Eric N. Lindquist David A. Long D. Mark Loveless Kathleen A. Loveless David A. Lowy Catherine E. Luther Patrick E. Lynch Carlo Antonio MacDonald Paul E. MacDonald Charles H. MacPhaul John M. Macuga Margaret Macuga Sharon G. Macuga James A. Madaio Stephanie J. Maher Mark E. Manville Amanda C. Mawn Brian F. McCabe Richard J. McCraw Jr. Kerry R. McDonough Kevin L. McDowell Dorothy McFarland Gerald W. McFarland James P. McMahon R. Michael McSweeney Barbara D. Merino-Mayper Robert D. Moran Robert D. Myers Tomoko Naito

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Our Donors Tomonori Naito Alice Nash National Philanthropic Trust Joan M. Norman Katherine Novick Stuart J. Novick Kathleen B. Nutter Thomas F. O’Brien Edward J. O’Day Jr. Brian W. Ogilvie Joel P. Okula Jonathan J. Oliver Malcolm J. O’Sullivan Lawrence W. Owens Laura E. Pagington Andrew J. Paraskos Renaldo E. Payne Richard E. Pierce Charles W. Pieterse Felicity Pool Mark A. Popovsky Janet R. Potash Dennis A. Power Andrea B. Price Barry M. Pritzker Joseph Quintero Cynthia J. Redman Maryanne Reed Kevin S. Reilly Stephen D. Reynolds Ryan D. Richards Barbara N. Ruchames Robert M. Ruchames Schwab Fund for Charitable Giving Dorothy D. Siles William H. Siles Christopher M. Small Brian H. Smith Courtney J. Smith Nancy K. Smith Stephen F. Smith Ralph L. Snow Richard W. Sprague Janet C. Stokesbury Michael J. Stone

52

Department of History / 2023 Report

KEEPING IN THE LOOP Ronald D. Story Jo-Ann T. Strangis Christoph Strobel Kenneth C. Sullivan Robert E. Sullivan Daniel F. Sweeney Kent J. Taylor Sharyn M. Taylor Lisa Y. Tendrich Frank, PhD John E. Thomas Nancy H. Thomas Allen S. Torrey United Way of Greater New Haven, Inc Katherine M. Wahl Stephen J. Walz Lt. Col. Peter J. Webber (Ret.) Robert S. Weiner Peter H. Weis Glendyne R. Wergland Matthew Whalen Lee R. Whitaker Anne C. Wing Norman S. Winnerman Joseph J. Wisboro Judith T. Wisboro Helen M. Wise John T. Wolohan Nicole Wolohan Kathleen M. Wroblewski Chia F. Wung Shira B. Yoffe Anna C. Youman Joshua S. Youman Andrew G. Zehner Nancy J. Ziemlak

Check out the history department’s YouTube channel to see and hear a sampling of our department’s public talks: youtube.com/umasshistory

This marks the 10th year of our department’s blog Past@Present, which features posts by faculty, students, emeriti, and alumni.

Follow us at: umasshistory.wordpress.com

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BE IN TOUCH! We’re always interested in hearing from friends and alumni of the history department! We would be delighted to print your news and updates in our next newsletter.

Email: communications@history.umass.edu

PAST PRESENT &FUTURE Past, Present & Future is published annually by the UMass Amherst Department of History.

EDITORIAL Tirzah Frank, co-editor Jess Johnson, co-editor Alison Russell, originating co-editor with Marisa Budlong Sarah Cornell Maya González Brian Ogilvie Sam Redman Joel Wolfe DESIGN University Marcom Group

MAKE HISTORY. MAKE YOUR GIFT TODAY. Your generosity makes a difference! It supports student scholarships so they can research and learn languages overseas, be honored for their excellent writing, or undertake summer study and internships.

Your gift could support cutting-edge historical research by both faculty and students. Or you might contribute to high-impact public programs, like our K–12 series for teachers. We invite you to give back to the next generation of students and scholars!

To give, visit umass.edu/history/give-history or send a check made out to “UMass Foundation” to: Records and Gift Processing Memorial Hall 134 Hicks Way Amherst, MA 01003-9270 Be sure to note “Department of History” on the memo line.

We appreciate your support!

NONPROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE PAID AMHERST MA PERMIT NO. 2

Department of History Herter Hall University of Massachusetts 161 Presidents Drive Amherst, MA 01003-9312 umass.edu/history

The 2022––23 Feinberg Series, Confronting Empire, examined global histories of U.S. imperialism and anti imperialism from the conquest of North America through the present day. Read about the series on page 12 and view the recordings at www.umass.edu/feinberg.

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