Congratulations to Jane Maschue (Ph.D. student), who received the distinction "Student Commendation" for the paper she presented at the recent Medieval Academy of America annual conference at Notre Dame, Indiana, 14-16 March 2024, entitled “The Mysterious Epitaph of a Spurious Wife: The Addition of Elpis to the Story of Boethius”.
Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, Dr. Jennifer Paxton was interviewed on the subjects of Druids and four-leaf clovers for House Beautiful (spoiler: we know a lot less about either than is commonly supposed) -- link here.
Congratulations to Amos Bronner (Ph.D. student), whose article "The judgement of God and the fate of a dog: the ninth-century ordeal debate and the anonymous Song of Count Timo" was recently published in the Journal of Medieval History (abstract here).
Congratulations to Ryan Carpenter (Ph.D. 2018), who was the Graduate Commencement Speaker at Shippensburg University’s winter 2023 commencement. You can view a video of the commencement here (Ryan’s speech begins at about 41:00):
https://www.ship.edu/events/commencement/
Congratulations to Atlas Tian Xu (PhD 2021) on the publication of his article. “Chinese Women and Habeas Corpus Hearings in California, 1857-1882”, in a special issue on “Transpacific Connections in the Civil War Era” in The Journal of the Civil War Era, vol. 13, no. 4 (December 2023). Free acces via this link.
Congratulations to our graduate alumna Marie D'Aguanno Ito (Ph.D. 2014) for the publication of her book, Orsanmichele: A Medieval Grain Market and Confraternity (Brill, 2023). Details are here.
Congratulations to Dr. Seth Smith for his article "Catholicism and the revisited history of the Ku Klux Klan", published in Our Sunday Visitor on 7 July 2023. The article is accessible here. In March, Dr. Smith also became Associate Editor of The Catholic Historical Review.
Hat tip to Dr. Lev Weitz, who was guest blogger for April 2023 for Harvard's Islamic Law blog. You can read Dr. Weitz's blog entries here.
Congratulations to Michelle Datiles and Jane Maschue, both Ph.D. candidates in the Department of History, who have received Dissertation/Research Grants from the Graduate Student Association (GSA) to help fund their research projects for their doctoral dissertations. The GSA received 36 applications for these grants during the present funding cycle, the largest number in the program's history, and funded 10 students: we are proud that two are from our Department!
Congratulations to two of our History majors for having their research projects published in the 2023 issue of Inventio, Catholic University's undergraduate research journal These are Anna Harvey, “The complicated role of Black journalism in the 1863 Civil War draft riots”, and Brady Baylis, “ ‘Judas!’: Bob Dylan’s misunderstood musical evolution”. Read the new issue here.
Congratulations to Mikkaela Bailey and Jane Maschue, who have received the Department of History's 2023 Excellence in Graduate Teaching Awards!
Even four-leaf clovers have a history! Dr. Jennifer Paxton offered her insight for this article in Country Living.
Robert Townsend -- Catholic University History BA 1988, MA 1990 -- served as the deputy director of the American Historical Association and is now program director for humanities, arts, and culture at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He recently gave a talk for "CUA Online" about the "Health of the Humanities". Tune in to watch here.
Congratulations to Árpád von Klimó, Ordinary Professor, who received recognition for his ten years as a member of the university at the president's annual service awards dinner on 7 February 2023. 
Congratulations to Michelle Datiles (Ph.D. student, ABD) who has been awarded a Cosmos Scholars Award by the Cosmos Club, which will fund summer research in archives in the United Kingdom for her dissertation, "Sisters of the North: Kinship, Religion, and Memory and the Women of Catholic Yorkshire, 1553-1642".
Julia Young, Associate Professor of History (left), delivering a presentation entitled "Images of Mexico's Unión Nacional Sinarquista" at the XVI International Meeting of Historians of Mexico in Austin, Texas, on November 2, 2022. With thanks for financial support to the School of Arts and Sciences of The Catholic University of America.
Congratulations to Daniel Graham (Ph.D. 2020) on the publication of his article, "Advertising Empire: Consumerism and the Spatial Imaginary of the British Empire," in the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History (Summer 2022).
Congratulations to Taylor Kniphfer (Ph.D. student, ABD) on the publication of his paper, “The Last of the duketti? Richard II, Henry of Monmouth, and the House of Lancaster”, in Fourteenth Century England XII, ed. J. S. Bothwell and J. S. Hamilton (Woodbridge, Suffolk & Rochester, NY 2022)
Joseph Mitchell (BA summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa 2021, History and Classical Civilizations) is spending the autumn of 2021 in a paid, 10-week-long internship at the Library of Congress. His placement is in the Archives, History, and Heritage Advanced internship (AHHA). He is working in the Library’s manuscripts division. He says “I’ll be working with digitized copies of George Washington’s farm reports, so I’m going to need to apply my best 18th century reading skills to get through them, I’m sure.”
Magdalene Jensen -- who graduated summa cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2021 with a B.A. in History and a minor in Data Analytics, and is now in the MSLIS degree program in Library and Information Science -- spent her summer in the prestigious and highly competitive Library of Congress Junior Fellows Summer Internship Program. Details about Maggie's passion for public history here.
Abigail Baxter (Junior History Major) interned during the summer of 2021 at LancasterHistory, the local history museum in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The museum encompasses several historical sites, including James Buchanan’s Wheatland and Thaddeus Stevens’s home and law office in downtown Lancaster. During her internship Abigail worked primarily on the Stevens and Smith site, which is still in development, doing research on who may have lived there with Stevens (family, domestic staff, or otherwise), ownership of the site, and the different households that occupied the site before or after Thaddeus Stevens’s time. Abigail says: “Overall, I learned about archival research, the process of preserving and turning a historic site into a museum, and the wide variety of roles present in the field. It was a great introduction to work in the museum world!”
Dr. Árpád von Klimó’s latest article, “A History of Hungarian Studies as Reflected in Forty-Seven Years of Scholarship: Hungarian Studies Review, 1974–2020” (co-written with Leslie Waters and Stephen Jobbitt) has just appeared in the most recent issue of Hungarian Studies Review (of which Dr. von Klimó is Associate Editor).
Congratulations to Atlas Xu, who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, "Navigating Worthiness in America: White Attorneys, Black Civil War Pensioners, and Chinese Immigrants, 1862-1930."
Congratulations to Katya Mouris, who successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, “From Reform to Reformation: The Life and Times of Abbess Caritas Pirckheimer (1467-1532)”, and to Christine Nussio, who passed her comprehensive examination with distinction for the MA in Modern European History.
Congratulations to three of our History Majors, whose articles have just appeared in print in the latest issue of Inventio, Catholic University’s multidisciplinary journal established to publish original research by undergraduates. These are: “Two Sisters, Two Forms of Patriotism: An Analysis of Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst During the First World War” by Alexandra Patterson (BA, 2020), and “There’s a Girl for Every Soldier: Gender Perspectives in World War I British Song” by Joslyn Felicijan (BA, 2020), both written for HIST 417, “World War I Narratives taught by Dr. Laura Mayhall; and “Will You Marry Me”, about theologians and the story of Rebecca and Isaac, by Ian Flanders (BA 2019), written for HIST 329A, “The History of the Family”, taught by Dr. Caroline Sherman. Link to the issue here.
Congratulations to Árpád von Klimó, who co-edited (along with Stephen Jobbitt) the new issue of Hungarian Studies Review (XLVI, 2019-20). In an editorial (pp. 1-8), the editors look into the long history of the Review. In a short contribution, Dr von Klimó also reflects on the memory and legacy of the 1919 Revolution in Hungary (pp. 62-66).
Join us for an online webinar on “The 2020 White House Race and the Impact of the Electoral College”, on Wednesday, September 30 (noon-1:00 pm EDT), brought to you by CUOnline, an initiative of the Catholic University Alumni Association. The panel of three Arts and Sciences professors includes Dr. Stephen West of the Department of History. Registration is required: to do so and for more information go here.
Congratulations to Austin Powell (Ph.D. 2020), who has just been appointed as Postdoctoral Scholar in the Classics Program at the University of California at Davis from January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2022. Dr. Powell will be working on a project with Prof. Ralph Hexter to examine a pair of Latin plays produced and performed at the University of Pavia in 1427 and 1437. And more congratulations! His article, "Jerome's Letters to Women and the Dominican Observant Reform in Quattrocento Italy", has just been accepted by Renaissance Quarterly.
Marie D’Aguanno Ito (Ph.D. 2014) presented a paper, “The Medieval Florentine Grain Market at Orsanmichele: Features of an Advanced Market System”, at a virtual conference on “Food Markets, Development and Integration (XIth-XVIIIth Centuries) hosted by the University of Lleida, Spain, 17-18 September.
Check out the review by Department of History Ph.D. student Atlas Xu of Dr. Michael Kimmage's new book, The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy, on The New Rambler.
Congratulations to Joslyn Felicijan (BA 2020), whose paper “'Back then we were heroes, today we’re murderers': Anglo-Polish Historical Memory in World War II Cinema” has been selected best paper in non-U.S. history by the 2020 Mid-Atlantic regional conference of Phi Alpha Theta.
Join Dr. L.R. Poos and two faculty colleagues for a webinar, "Perspectives on the Pandemic", on June 4th at 12 noon (DC time). This online event is to allow Catholic University alumni and parents of current students to engage with professors in discussing how history, mathematics, and politics can enable us to understand better our current pandemic. More details and information for registering here. UPDATE: A video recording of this event is now available here.
Congratulations to Dr. Katherine Jansen, whose book, Peace and Penance in Late Medieval Italy, has just been released in paperback by Princeton University Press: details here.
Congratulations to Dr. Kenneth C. Wenzer (Ph.D., Catholic University, 1992), on the publication of his article, "The USB Maine Controversy", in Federal History.
Congratulations to Rebecca McCarron, who graduated from Catholic University with a BA in History in 2017 and from the University of Oxford with an MSt in History in 2018, on the publication of her article “The politicization of girlhood: from the Gibson girl to the National Woman's Party, 1895-1920”, in the latest issue of Women’s History Review (details here).
Congratulations to Dr. Laura Mayhall, whose book, The Militant Suffrage Movement: Citizenship and Resistance in Britain, 1860-1930, has just been reissued in paperback by Oxford University Press; details here.
Maria Letizia and Kevin Fanning, two of our current undergraduate History majors, recently recorded their thoughts about our Department and their experiences of it for Odyssey Day: watch them here, followed by a presentation from Professor Árpád v. Klimó, Director of Undergraduate Studies. We’re so proud of our students!
Dr. Jennifer Paxton appeared on WJLA-TV to dispel the myths surrounding St. Patrick. You can watch her interview here.
Congratulations to Marie Ito (History PhD, 2014), who contributed a chapter on "Work and Workplaces" in the Middle Ages to the award-winning reference work, A Cultural History of Work. More information on this publication is available here.
Dr. Sam Fisher will present "Ireland and the American Revolution" in the Profs and Pints series at the Bier Baron Tavern in Washington DC on St. Patrick's Day, March 17th, at 6:00pm. Tickets are required, either at the door or (at a lower price) online ahead of time. More information is available here.
Congratulations to Ryan Carpenter (Ph.D. 2018), who has just been appointed Director of Research and Analysis with the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Ryan says "Generally speaking, my main responsibility will be to find ways to train and recruit AI talent to work in the federal government and U.S. Armed Forces. Along with other directors, we will make recommendations that will help the legislative and executive branches ensure the U.S. national security enterprise has an advantage in AI for the foreseeable future."
Dr. Laura Mayhall will appear in Episodes 1 and 2 of CNN's six-part series, "The Windsors: Inside the Royal Dynasty." Episode 1 airs on CNN at 10pm on Sunday, 16 February, and Episode 2 airs at 10pm on Sunday, 23 February. More information at these links:
https://www.cnn.com/shows/the-windsors-cnn-original-series
https://cnncreativemarketing.com/project/the-windsors/
https://cnnpressroom.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/the-windsors-key-art.jpg
Dr. Thomas Finan (Ph.D., Catholic University, 2001, and Chair, Department of History, St Louis University) presents "The Rock of Lough Key in the Medieval Era: Gaelic History and Archaeology Realized" at a colloquium sponsored jointly by the Center for Medieval and Byzantine Studies and the Department of History.
Dr. Ronald Calinger, Emeritus Professor of History, was honored recently with a guest appearance and a discussion of his book, Leonhard Euler: Mathematical Genius in the Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 2016), at his alma mater, Ohio University: you can watch a video of the event here.
Check out the new online presentation here, the "history of history" at Catholic University -- highlighting our department's past, brought to you by the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives.
Congratulations to Dr. Amanda Banacki Perry for the successful defense of her dissertation, "Diplomatic Society: Gertrude Bell and British Imperial Diplomacy in Iraq, 1917-1926," on 1 November 2019.
Congratulations to Dr. Ronald Calinger, Emeritus Professor of History, on the publication of his latest book: Ronald S. Calinger, Ekaterina Denisova, and Elena N. Polyakhova, Leonhard Euler’s Letters to a German Princess: A Milestone in the Hstory of Physics Textbooks and More (San Rafael, Calif.: Morgan and Claypool, 2019).
Dr. Jennifer Paxton will give a lecture entitled "The French Perspective on the Hundred Years War" on Tuesday 22 October at 7:00pm at the Lyceum, 200 South Washington Street, Alexandria VA. Tickets are required, and obtainable from The Alexandria Shop.
Congratulations to Dr. Lev Weitz, whose book Between Christ and Caliph: Law, Marriage, and Christian Community in Early Islam has been shortlisted for the Middle East Medievalists' Best Book Prize.
Check out these blog posts from the Library of Congress's John W. Kluge Center by Dr. Lev Weitz (who recently completed a Kluge fellowship there): "Christian Monks and Muslim Villagers in Medieval Egypt: A Library of Congress Story" and “'Game of Thrones'” and Why We Are Still “'Dreaming of the Middle Ages'”.
And congratulations also to Dr. Weitz for his latest article, "Islamic Law on the Provincial Margins: Christian Patrons and Muslim Notaries in Upper Egypt, 2nd-5th/8th-11th Centuries", in Islamic Law and Society.
Congratulations to Dr. Carol Anderson for the successful defense of her dissertation, “Sacred Histories: Remembering the Christian Past in Medieval Tuscany (1100-1500)” on 18 September 2019.
Congratulations to Ph.D. student Michelle Datiles, who has received a Hayek Fund for Scholars grant from the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. The grant will support Michelle's upcoming research trip to the United Kingdom in order to undertake archives research for her dissertation.
Congratulations to Ph.D. candidate Dallas Grubbs, who was just accepted to the German Historical Institute Medieval History seminar, which will meet this October in London. At the seminar – organized by the German Historical Institute London in co-operation with the German Historical Institute Washington and the German History Society – Dallas will present the paper “Manipulating the Merovingian Past in Late Ninth-century Lotharingia: The Case of King Dagobert II, c. 870-910 A.D.”
Check out the impressive digital humanities project, “Reckoning Time in Medieval Pisa”, created by graduate students Nicholas Brown, Daryl Jackson, and Hannah Jones with Dr. Laura Morreale in Laura’s spring 2019 course, HIST 516, “Digital Approaches to History”, at this website.
Congratulations to senior history major Susannah Marshall, winner of the 2019 John Zeender Prize for best senior thesis, for her work entitled “Religion in Service of Politics: Egyptian Propaganda from 1500-1150 BC”.
Congratulations to doctoral candidate Atlas Xu, who has been awarded an Arthur J. Quinn Memorial Fellowship by the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley, which will support his research for his dissertation, “Navigating Worthiness in America: White Attorneys, Chinese Immigrants, and Black Pensioners 1873-1910”. This new award comes on the heels of Atlas’s winning research fellowships from the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library.
Congratulations to doctoral candidate Jon Paul Heyne, who has been awarded a Charles Tuttle Wood Dissertation Grant by the Medieval Academy of America in support of research in Jerusalem next academic year for his dissertation, “The Franciscans of the Holy Land: Religion and Politics of the Mediterranean in the Age of Queen Sancia”. This new award comes on the heels of Jon Paul's winning a pre-doctoral Fulbright scholarship and a residential fellowship at the University of Notre Dame’s Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem.
Congratulations to Matthew Blanchard, who won 2d place in World History at the Phil Alpha Theta Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference, for his paper "Who is the Barbarian? The Spanish Conquest of Mexico." He was one of 7 @CatholicUHist students to present. We're proud of them all!
Read Dr. Lev Weitz's latest online article, "Creating Christian Marriage in Early Islamic Arabia", at The Ancient Jew Review.
Professor Yitzhak Hen, Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, speaking about “The Formation of Arian Identity in Ostrogothic Italy.”
Dr. Paul Sturtevant (Smithsonian Institution/The Public Medievalist) kicks off the Department's fall series, "History Matters", with his lecture "Misusing the Middle Ages: Disarming a Weaponized Past".
Check out this podcast interview with Dr. Lev Weitz for the New Books Network about his book, Between Christ and Caliph: Law, Marriage, and Christian Community in Early Islam.
Check out this guest post on "Religious Diversity in the Middle East, Past and Present" by Dr. Lev Weitz for the Penn Press Log.
Congratulations to Vanessa R. Corcoran (Ph.D. 2017), whom Georgetown University has just appointed Academic Counselor in the Office of the Dean of Georgetown College.
Congratulations to all the History majors in the Class of 2018!
Click on this link to take a trip through "The Islamic World in the Travels of Ibn Battutah", a presentation by students in Dr. Lev Weitz's HIST 309: "The Rise of Islam".
Congratulations to Dr. Jennifer Paxton for winning the Best Faculty Advisor Award from the Office of Campus Activities for her work as undergraduate advisor for the program in Medieval and Byzantine Studies.
Congratulations to senior history major Allyson Zeitler, who won the prize for best undergraduate presentation at the 2018 Catholic University Research Day for her project, “The Sanctuary Movement in Arizona: Civil Initiative and the Salvadoran Refugee Crisis, 1981-1989”.
Congratulations to Dr. Patricia Tillman for the successful defense of her dissertation, “Cardinal Mindszenty, Anti-Communism, and American Catholicism from the Early Cold War to the Reagan Era” on 17 April 2018, and Dr. Brian Boosel O.S.B. for the successful defense of his dissertation, “A Crisis of Amity in Early Modern France: Jansenism and the Friendship between Vincent de Paul and Abbé Saint-Cyran” on 20 April 2018.
Congratulations to senior history major Clare Whitton, winner of the 2018 John K. Zeender prize for her senior thesis, “The Evolution of Devotion to the Holy House of Loreto: How the Papacy Influenced the Cult of the Holy House.”
Congratulations to our 2018 inductees into Phi Alpha Theta! (pictured, from left to right: Janae Carter, Ryan Sledjeski, Samantha Reyes, Matthew Silberger, Susannah Marshall, John Glascock, and Shannen Gora; not pictured: Jillian Harrison and Catherine Langan; in background, Professor Samuel Fisher)
Congratulations to senior history major Ethan Rudman, who won third prize in American History for his paper, “A Social Darwinist Business: The Corporatization of Charity in Carnegie’s Philanthropy,” presented at the 2018 Regional Mid-Atlantic Phi Alpha Theta Conference, McDaniel College, March 24, 2018.
Professor Miri Rubin of Queen Mary, University of London, presents Professor Katherine L. Jansen's book, Peace and Penance in Late Medieval Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), at the book launch held in the May Gallery of the Mullen Library on 11 April 2018.
Ph.D. candidate Shane MacDonald gave a paper entitled, "Law and Sanctity in the Cult of Umiliana de' Cerchi" on April 14 at the Annual Sewanee Medieval Colloquium at the University of the South, Sewanee, TN.
Congratulations to senior history major Clare Whitton on delivering the following papers:
“The Holy House of Loreto: How the Papacy Influenced the Cult of the Holy House,” Longwood University 12th Annual "Meeting in the Middle" Conference, April 6-7 2018;
“The Holy House of Loreto: How the Papacy Influenced the Cult of the Holy House,” 2018 Regional Mid-Atlantic Phi Alpha Theta Conference, McDaniel College, March 24, 2018;
“Politics as Usual, Expired,” 43rd Annual Undergraduate Honors Conference of DePauw University, April 2017.
Ph.D. candidate Carol Anderson gave a paper entitled, “Becoming Roman through Hagiography: The Construction of Florence’s Ancient Papal and Imperial Ties in the Legends of Saints Minias and Zanobi" on March 3, 2018 at the Annual Meeting of The Medieval Academy of America in Atlanta, GA.
Steven Pearlstein, Pulitzer-Prize-winning business/economics columnist (The Washington Post/George Mason University) presents commentary at the book launch event for Dr. Jerry Muller’s The Tyranny of Metrics, on campus 28 March 2018
Dr. Michael Kimmage was interviewed by Romania's Știrile Pro TV television program about Russia's recent claim to possess "invincible" nuclear weapons: footage appears here.
Congratulations to Dr. Julia Young for her new article in Commonweal, "We were different: Why nativism persists among U.S. Catholics."
Congratulations to Tanner Jackson (BA History and Italian Studies, 2017), for his acceptance with full scholarship to Roger Williams University School of Law
Congratulations to Dr. Julia Young for her Washington Post article, "Republicans want to use immigration policy to make America whiter. Here’s why they’re destined to fail."
Congratulations to Ph.D. student Shane MacDonald, who has been promoted to Reference Archivist at Catholic University's American Catholic History Research Center and University Archive.
Congratulations to Ph.D. students Jon Paul Heyne and Dallas Grubbs for winning grants from the Cosmos Foundation for dissertation research.
Congratulations to our 2017-2018 seniors on completion of their senior theses!
Dr. Katherine Jansen gave a paper entitled “Constructing the Charisma of Catherine of Siena: Is Gender a Useful Category of Analysis?” at the international workshop “Charisma: Imagining Women’s Power in Medieval Europe,” part of the Macht und Herrshaft seminar at the Universität Bonn, Germany, on December 1, 2017.
Dr. Nelson Minnich published “Luther, Cajetan, and Pastor Aeternus (1516),” in Martin Luther in Rom, eds. Michael Matheus, Arnold Nesselrath, and Martin Wallraff (Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2017). He also published “Lateran V and the Call for a Crusade,” in Begegnung der Kirche in Ost und West im Spiegel der synodalen Strukturen - Festschrift für Petar Vrankic zum 70. Geburtstag (EOS Verlag, 2017).
Dr. Jennifer Paxton gave a lecture entitled “The Norman Invasion: William’s Unlikely Conquest” at the Smithsonian on November 13, 2017.
Dr. Julia Young published “A ‘Sorrowful Caravan’? Rhetoric vs. Reality in Mexico’s Debate over Immigration, 1926-1929,” in El ir y venir de los norteños. La historia de la migración mexicana a Estados Unidos (S.XIX-S.XXI), eds. Rafael Alarcón and Fernando Saúl Alanis (Mexico: El Colef, El Colmich y El Colsan), 2016.
Dr. Sam Fisher gave a paper entitled “‘What Men Would Wish Done, and What They Would Attempt to Do’: Repositioning the Whiteboys in an Era of Imperial Reform” at the American Conference for Irish Studies Mid-Atlantic Regional meeting on November 4, 2017.
Dr. Laura Mayhall presented a paper at the North American Conference on British Studies in Denver, Colorado, on November 4, 2017, entitled “‘Indecently Preposterous’: The Press in Interwar Detective Fiction.”
Dr. Nelson Minnich gave a paper entitled “Leone X e i Mendicanti” at the 45o convegno internazionale di studi: “Identità francescane agli inizi del Cinquecento” in Assisi on October 19, 2017. On November 2 he gave the Touhy Lecture on “Martin Luther and the German Princes” at John Carroll University, University Heights, Ohio.
Dr. Michael Kimmage was participant in a U.S.-Russian Bilateral Dialogue at the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow (October 30-31, 2017). He was also appointed a non-resident fellow of the German Marshall Fund, with a focus on U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Russia.
PhD student Dallas Grubbs gave a talk on October 7, 2017, at the New England Medieval Conference entitled, “Recycling the Merovingian and Carolingian Past in the Vita Dagoberti regis.”
Dr. Jennifer Davis gave two papers: “The Legacy of Law: The Frankish Capitularies in Cava dei Tirreni, Manuscript 4” on Oct. 7, 2017, at the New England Medieval Conference; and “Capitularies after the Carolingians” at the conference Legitimacy, Lordship and Government in the Post-Carolingian World at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire.
Dr. Laura Mayhall edited, wrote the introduction for, and contributed an essay to a Forum in the Journal of Women's History (Oct. 2017) in honor of Susan Groag Bell.
Dr. Thomas Cohen co-organized a two-day conference with CUA History alumnus, Jay Harrison of Hood College in honor of another CUA History alumnus, Fray Francisco Morales. Held at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington DC on Oct 13-14 2017, it was entitled, “Five Centuries of Franciscans in Mexico.”
Dr. Michael Kimmage gave three invited lectures in September 2017: “Outlines of a New Diplomacy: On the Future of U.S.-Russian Relations,” Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Monterey, CA, September 14; “U.S.-Russian Relations: Crisis without End,” University of California, Santa Barbara, September 29; “The Rise of the West circa 1963: John F. Kennedy in Berlin, William Hardy McNeill in Chicago,” University of California, Santa Barbara, September 29.
Dr. Jennifer Paxton gave a talk at the Smithsonian entitled “Mary Queen of Scots: Villain or Victim?” on September 13, 2017.
Dr. Jennifer Paxton served as a Study Leader on a Smithsonian tour of Scotland from Aug. 10 to 21, 2017
Dr. Jerry Muller published an article entitled, “‘I Am Impossible’: An Exchange between Jacob Taubes and Arthur A. Cohen,” Jewish Review of Books (Summer, 2017), pp. 42-44. He also led a week-long seminar on “The Economy and the Family” (with Amy Wax), Elm Institute, New Haven, Connecticut, July 30-August 4, 2017.
Dr. Julia Young published: “Knights and Caballeros: Cross-border Catholic Activism During Mexico’s Cristero War,” in the July 2017 issue of Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos.
Dr. Árpád von Klimó gave a talk on “Victor Orbán`s regime in historical perspective” on June 19, 2017 at the University of Vienna, Austria.
Dr. Michael Kimmage gave the lecture “The Current State of Transatlantic Relations - Germany, the United States and Russia” at the University of Leipzig on June 8th and at the University of Heidelberg on June 9, 2017.
Dr. Michael Kimmage publishes “It's Time to Take the Idea of the West Back from the Populists” in the Washington Post, June 8 2017
Dr. Nelson Minnich gave a lecture on “Late Medieval Ecclesiologies” for the conference “The 500th Anniversary of Martin Luther’s Posting of the Ninety-five Theses: Luther and the Shaping of the Catholic Tradition,” May 30-1 June 2017, which he co-organized with Michael Root. Dr. Minnich is the co-editor of the conference’s proceedings.
Dr. Lev Weitz gave a public lecture for the project, “Syriac Christian Law and Islamic Tradition in the Medieval Middle East,” at the University of Hamburg on May 31, 2017.
Dr. Katherine Jansen was as an invited commentator for the The Wiles Lectures in the History of Civilization: “Civitas: Toleration and its Limits” at Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland from 17-20 May, 2017.
Ph.D. student Joseph Funk presented a paper entitled, “Visualizations of Free Labor: Persons of African Descent on Civil War Era Stamps” to a colloquium at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in May, 2017.
Ph.D. Student Carol Anderson won the American Catholic Historical Association's Student Summer Research Grant to conduct research for her dissertation in Italy during the summer of 2017.
Congratulations to Dr. Jerry Muller, who received the Provost's Award for excellence in research for 2017.
Congratulations to Dr. Caroline Sherman, who received the Provost's Award for excellence in early career teaching for 2017.
Congratulations to Erica Fuller, whose senior thesis on "The Sylvia Likens Case and the Transformation of Media Coverage of Child Abuse in America" appeared in the May 2017 issue of History Matters.
Congratulations to Bridget Power, senior history major and member of the CUA women's basketball team, who has been named to the Landmark Conference Academic Honor Roll. She has earned Honor Roll distinction all three years she has been eligible.
Doctoral student, Atlas Tian Xu, gave a paper at the American Catholic Historical Association meeting held in Denver, Colorado at the American Historical Association annual meeting on January 6, 2017 entitled, "Evading the 'Absurdly Sanguine': William Bourke Cockran, American Catholicism, and the Cause of Anti-imperialism, 1904-8"
Congratulations to Austin Powell for winning a grant from the Cosmos Foundation to support work on his doctoral dissertation, "Charisma, Community, and Authority: Dominican Epistolary Practice in Italy, 1300-1500" supervised by Prof. K. L. Jansen.
Jennifer Davis published "The Curious Persistence of Frankish Law," in The Berlin Journal 30 (2016), pp. 52-55.
Arpad von Klimo gave a talk on the "Collapse of the Stalinist Politics of Memory in Hungary after 1956" at the workshop, "New Directions in the Scholarship on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution held at the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He participated in the panel "Religious Persecution under Communism" held at CUA. He also gave a comment on the premiere of "Keep Quiet" at the Jewish Film Festival in Philadelphia.
Dr. Jennifer Paxton gave a daylong seminar for Smithsonian Associates entitled "How the Britons Became the English, the Welsh, and the Scottish: Creating a United Kingdom."
Arpad von Klimo published a comment under the title “‘Fancy, sexy und trendy.’ Popkultur als Erinnerungspolitik: 60 Jahre Ungarn 1956.” Website “Ungarn 1956. Geschichte und Erinnerung.” Zeitgeschichte-online.
Laura Mayhall published an article entitled, “‘It's Your Face That Is Carrying You Through!’ Class, Gender, and Celebrity in Nancy Astor's 1919 Campaign for Parliament,” in the current issue of Feminist Media Histories (Fall 2016).
Nelson Minnich gave a lecture entitled, “The Quest for Peace among Christian Princes at Lateran V (1512-17),” at “Tagung: Konzil und Frieden,” at the Humboldt University Berlin, 16 September 2016. He also published an article entitled, “Teutonic Knights and Poland at the Fifth Lateran Council,” Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 46 (2014), 191-224. And finally, he organized an international conference in Rome on October 12-14 entitled: “ALLA RICERCA DI SOLUZIONI:NUOVA LUCE SUL V CONCILIO LATERANENSE, Convegno Internazionale di Studi per i 500 anni del V Concilio Lateranense.” He also gave one of the lectures, moderated the final discussion, and led a guided tour of the conciliar site in the Lateran Basilica.
Jennifer Paxton gave a lecture on 18 October to the Alexandria-Caen Sister Cities Committee in Alexandria, Virginia entitled, “William the (Lucky) Bastard: The Norman Conquest and the Original ‘October Surprise.’”
Stephen West gave a paper entitled "'Rendered Absolutely Necessary ... by the Truculence of the Southern States': Republican Memoirists Explain the Origins of Black Suffrage, 1879-1895" at the conference "Reconciliation after Civil Wars: Global Perspectives," sponsored by the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, of Virginia Tech.
Jennifer Davis gave a talk entitled "Legal Plurality" at the Transformation of the Carolingian World Workshop at Princeton University
Nelson Minnich delivered a lecture "A volte si vince, a volte si perde, sempre fedeli servitori del Papa: Il ruolo dei Domenicani al Concilio Laterano V (1512-1517)” at a conference in Rome commemorating the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Order of Preachers
Jennifer Paxton was a study leader for a Smithsonian tour of Scotland, delivering lectures on "Three Famous Scots": Bonnie Prince Charlie, Macbeth, and Mary Queen of Scots"
Lev Weitz gave a talk, "Islamic Society and Christian History: Scholarly Categories and Meideval Middle Eastern Historiography," at the workshop Recovering the Role of Christians in the History of the Middle East at Princeton University
Steve West gave a lecture on "The Road (Back) to Home Rule: Washington, DC and the Second Reconstruction, 1963-75" at the Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum
Julia Young gave a lecture entitled "The Catholic Church in Mexico in the 20th Century" for the Western History Intensive Seminar, at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State
Congratulations to Carol Anderson, PhD candidate, who has been awarded this year's Graduate Teaching Award to honor excellence in teaching
Clare Hennigan, B.A. 15, has published a revised version of her senior thesis, "The 'Last Ditch' of Oppression: Charles Sumner and Public Schools in the District of Columbia" in the Spring 2016 issue of Washington History.
Congratulations to Karen Hernandez for winning 3rd place (in the pre-1900 category) at the Phi Alpha Theta Mid-Atlantic History Conference for "Struggle in the Andes: Garcilaso de la Vega’s Defense of the Inca."
Congratulations to senior Sam Aurilia on winning the 2016 Zeender Prize for her thesis, “Contradictions and Coalitions: the Anti Rape Movement in the United States, 1968-1975.”
Congratulations to graduate students Jim Zibro, Kate Bush, Laura Hohman, and Seth Smith, who all successfully defended their Ph.D. dissertations in April 2016!
Congrats to graduate alumna Melodie Eichbauer, Ph.D.on winning a prestigious fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies.
Congratulations to Dr. Jennifer Davis for having won a membership at the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study for academic year 2016-2017. She has also won a fellowship for a semester at the American Academy in Berlin.
Congratulations to Carol Anderson on winning a grant from the Cosmos Club Foundation for work on her dissertation entitled, Sacred Histories: Remembering the Christian Past in Medieval Italian Cities (ca. 1100-1350) under the direction of Prof. Katherine L. Jansen
Congratulations to Jay Carney (Ph.D., Church History, 2010), who was awarded the annual Bethwell Ogot prize for best book in East African Studies by the African Studies Association for his study of the missionary church in Rwanda.
