Why study history?
Students and professors at the University of Utah describe why a history major is the most relevant degree students can get in the 21st century.
Bulgarian Ambassador presents Theo Christov at Library of Congress lecture
Ambassador of Bulgaria Elena Poptodorova introduced Professor Theo Christov at the Library of Congress where Christov delivered a lecture on “The 'Law of Nations' in America's Independence.”
Pulitzer Prize winner gives 2016 Kayser Lecture
Dr. Elizabeth "Lil" Fenn, winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in history for her book Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People, gave this year's highly anticipated Kayser Lecture on February 18, 2016. The acclaimed University of Colorado Boulder professor discussed Sakagawea's Capture and the History of the Early West.
Hot off the press!
Recent faculty books
The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Choson Korea
Jisoo Kim challenges the typical portrayal of premodern Korean society.
Before Anarchy: Hobbes and his Critics in Modern International Thought
Theo Christov explains how the 'Hobbesian state of nature' and the 'discourse of anarchy' came to be seen as virtually synonymous.
The Scientific Revolution in Global Perspective
William Burns places the Scientific Revolution--and its causes and effects--in a global context.
Military Force and Elite Power in the Formation of Modern China
Edward A. McCord explores the intersection of military force and elite power in the formative years of modern Chinese history.
Innovative Partners: The Rockefeller Foundation and Thailand
Bill Becker explores the century-long relationship between the Foundation and Thailand.
Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth of Israel's Liberal Settler State
Shira Robinson chronicles the paradoxical status of Israel's Palestinian Arab minority after 1948, as citizens of a formally liberal state and subjects of a colonial regime.
Iraq in Wartime: Soldiering, Martyrdom, and Remembrance
Dina Khoury's new book traces the normalization of war in Iraq during the last twenty-three years of Ba'thist rule.
The Last Blank Spaces: Exploring Africa and Australia
Dane Kennedy chronicles the challenge of opening the interiors of Africa and Australia to British imperial influence in the nineteenth century.
The Long, Lingering Shadow: Slavery, Race, and Law in the American Hemisphere
Robert Cottrol examines the impact of law on peoples of African descent in the Americas.
The Other Welfare: Supplemental Security Income and U.S. Social Policy
Edward Berkowitz and Larry DeWitt offer the first comprehensive history of Supplemental Security Income.
The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World
Denver Brunsman explores how naval impressment helped to make an empire.
Beyond Swat: History, Society and Economy along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier
Benjamin Hopkins and Magnus Marsden explore the culture, society and politics of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier over a broad historical span and their relevance to wider debates about the dynamics shaping this and other comparable 'frontier' spaces.
Prove It On Me: New Negroes, Sex, and Popular Culture in the 1920s
Erin Chapman explores the gender and sexual politics of this modern racial ethos and reveals the constraining and exploitative underside of the New Negro era's vaunted liberation and opportunities.
Other faculty publications
Recently published journal articles, book chapters, and media contributions.
Department of History
Now accepting applications for 2017 Normandy Short Term Abroad course!
Professor Tom Long is now accepting applications for participation in the 2017 Price of Freedom: Normandy, 1944 course. This is a short-term study abroad course in which students learn about the D-Day landings in the Second World War and each research soldiers from their hometowns who died during the campaign. During Spring Break students travel to France to visit the landing sites and present eulogies for their soldiers at the Normandy American Cemetery. More information here.
Professor David Silverman publishes book with Harvard University Press
Congratulations to Professor David Silverman whose book, Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America, was just published by Belknap Press (Harvard University Press). The book "reframes our understanding of Indians’ historical relationship with guns, arguing against the notion that they prized these weapons more for the pyrotechnic terror guns inspired than for their efficiency as tools of war." Congratulations, Professor Silverman!
Congratulations to our 2016 Undergraduate Departmental Prize Winners!
The 2016 Special Departmental Honors for Undergraduate Seniors in History are awarded to:
Peri Buch
James Fondin
Olivia Franklin
Nicholas Holy
Matthew Maresca
Michael Paganelli
William Roche
Caroline Sandri
Robert Wasserstein
Jacob Weber
Chance Williams
The Jesse Fant Evans Prize for Excellence in Contemporary History is awarded to Madeline Crispell, Robert Hansen, Emily Niekrasz, and Jennifer Sherman.
The Gardiner G. Hubbard Memorial Prize for Excellence in American History is awarded to Nicholas Holy, Matthew Maresca, and Edward Rickford.
The Thomas F. Walsh Prize for Best Essay in Irish History is awarded to Ross Berry and Caley Donovan.
The Deixler/Swain Prizes for Best Undergraduate Theses are awarded as follows:
- Honors Thesis in an American History topic - Olivia Franklin and Robert Wasserstein
- Honors Thesis in a Non-American History topic - Caroline Sandri
- Senior Thesis in an American History topic - Charlotte Prenn and Farieha Shah
Congratulations, students!
Fall 2016 Courses in History
Jisoo Kim earns GW a major grant from the Korean government
Professor Jisoo Kim's tireless efforts have resulted in GW's being awarded a major five-year Core University Grant by the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS), a division of the Ministry of Education, Republic of Korea. This grant will enable the university to establish the GW Institute for Korean Studies (GW-KIS). It will also fund conferences, workshops, lecture series, graduate fellowships, adjunct teaching, summer programs, Korean collection cataloging, staff support, and outreach. The new institute will be housed at the Elliott School. Thank you for making this incredible opportunity possible, Professor Kim!
History professors recognized at GW Faculty Honors Ceremony
Professors Denver Brunsman and Christopher Klemek were recognized at the GW Faculty Honors Ceremony on April 20. Professor Brunsman received the Bender Teaching Award while Professor Klemek received the Writing in the Disciplines Distinguished Teaching Award and the Trachtenberg Prize for Teaching Excellence. The annual Honors Ceremony recognizes a diverse group of talented GW faculty who have shown extraordinary dedication to teaching, scholarship, and the university. Congratulations to Professors Brunsman and Klemek on their outstanding achievements!
Joel Blecher Joins History Faculty
Professor Joel Blecher will be joining the department in Fall 2016 as our new specialist in the History of Early and Medieval Islam. Professor Blecher's current research focuses on the social and intellectual life of hadith commentary. His book project, In the Shade of the Hadith: Islam and the Politics of Interpretation across a Millennium, finds that the meanings of hadith (the collected sayings of the prophet Muhammed) were shaped as much by commentators’ political, cultural and regional contexts as by the fine-grained intellectual debates that developed over long periods of time. His next project, Profit and Prophecy: Islam and the Spice Trade from Venice to India, will explore how Muslim scholars and merchants in the Mamluk period (13th-15th centuries) mixed religion and business along trade and pilgrimage routes that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arabian Sea and beyond. In the fall, he will be teaching History 3801: The Formation of Islam to 1500. Welcome, Professor Blecher!
Read more about Professor Blecher's work here.
Marcy Norton receives Guggenheim Fellowship
Congratulations to Marcy Norton, who received the 2016-2017 Guggenheim Fellowship! The fellowship will support the completion of her upcoming book about the history of human-animal interactions in Western Europe and indigenous America between 1500 and 1800. Read more here.
Double faculty book launch
On January 14, the Department of History co-hosted a double book launch in honor of Professor Jisoo Kim and Theodore Christov's two new faculty books, The Emotions of Justice and Before Anarchy, respectfully. The event was cosponsored by the Elliott School of International Affairs, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Universtiy Honors Program. Congratulations, Professor Kim and Professor Christov!
Featured Department News
Caitlyn Borghi ('15) wins Gilder Lehrman Scholar Award
Caitlyn Borghi ('15) has won a Gilder Lehrman Scholar Award, which covers an all-expense paid trip to New York City to participate in a week of seminars and archival visits with leading American historians. The prestigious national award "recognizes outstanding college juniors and seniors who have demonstrated academic and extracurricular excellence in American history or American studies as well as a commitment to public service and community involvement." Congratulations!
Eric Arnesen installed as Hoffa Teamsters Professor in Modern American Labor History
On February 10, Prof. Eric Arnesen was installed as the James R. Hoffa Teamsters Professor in Modern American Labor History.
Erin Chapman receives fellowship from the Global Women's Institute
Prof. Erin Chapman received a fellowship from GW's Global Women's Institute for her book project, Making Freedom Real: Gender and Emancipation in the African American Imaginary, 1865-1965. The book will investigate the thought of five exemplary black feminists and argue that the prevailing definition of freedom in patriarchal terms functioned at odds with black feminist critique.
Dane Kennedy named head of the National History Center
Professor Dane Kennedy was appointed to a two-year term to head the National History Center. Founded in 2002 by the American Historical Association, the Center aims to reinforce the critical role that history and historical knowledge play in public decision-making and civic life. Among its many programs are its Congressional Briefings, its International Seminars on Decolonization, and its Washington History Seminar. Congratulations!
Meet the Chair
Professor Katrin Schultheiss specializes in the history of modern France, gender and women's history, and the history of medicine. She is currently finishing a book on the nineteenth century French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, whose research on hysteria and hypnosis deeply influenced the work of Sigmund Freud.
2016 Phi Alpha Theta National Conference in Orlando, Florida
Four members of the GW chapter of Phi Alpha Theta presented research at the 2016 Phi Alpha Theta National Conference in Orlando, Florida. Also in attendance were Professors Tom Long and Denver Brunsman...and a colonial-clad Mickey Mouse!
Charles Kraus co-edits volume on the Cold War
Congratulations to PhD student 
Ben Young on the Black Panthers in North Korea
Department of History
Columbian College of Arts & Sciences
Phillips Hall
801 22nd Street, NW
Suite 335
Washington, DC 20052
Phone: 202-994-6230 | Fax: 202-994-6231
history@gwu.edu
