History 

  • History Department Newsletter

    History Newsletter
    Flipbook 2011-2012

    Read about recent faculty, student, and alumni news.

  • Allan Lichtman's 2012 Obama Prediction Still Causing Buzz

    Scholar’s 2012
    Obama Prediction
    Still Causing Buzz

    News outlets are highlighting Allan Lichtman’s
    13 keys system and its prediction
    that Obama will win in 2012.

  • Nuclear Studies Institute

    Nuclear Studies
    Institute 2011

    Allen Pietrobon shares his experience of the
    Nuclear studies Institute 2011 Japan trip.

  • Breitman and Lichtman distinguished professors

    Two History
    Faculty Honored

    Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman are
    chosen as AU Distinguished Professors.

  • Initiative for Russian Culture inaugural event at the Library of Congress


    IRC Event
    Draws Multitudes

    Initiative for Russian Culture inaugural event
    at the Library of Congress attracts
    students, policy makers, and ambassadors.

American University's Department of History encourages interdisciplinary study, individually designed programs, and close contact between faculty and students. Our outstanding faculty is dedicated to teaching, scholarship, and helping students use the matchless resources of Washington, D.C.

Faculty News

Allan Lichtman aids Rival City Council factions in Chicago, IL reach an agreement on a new ward map.

Anton Fedyashin was featured on MSNBC to comment on the widespread government sanctioned protests in Moscow, Russia.

April Shelford chaired a panel, "France and Guyana in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," at the annual meeting of the Western Society for French History in Portland, OR, on 11 November. On 18 November, she presented a paper, "Civilizing Colonial Knowledge," at the colloquium "L'acclimatation métropolitaine des savoirs sur le lointain," held at Université Paris-Diderot 7.

Adrea Lawrence (SETH & affiliated faculty of History) published Lessons from an Indian Day School: Negotiating Colonization in Northern New Mexico, 1902-1907 (University of Kansas).

Pamela Henson was recently awarded the Joseph H. Hazen Education Prize by The History of Science Society.

Katharina Vester's paper, "Regime Change," was recently awarded the Belasco Prize for Scholarly Excellence from the Association for the Study of Food and Society.

Daniel Kerr recently published his new book entitled Derelict Paradise: Homelessness and Urban Development in Cleveland, Ohio. The book, published by University of Massachusetts Press, seeks to answer the question, "Who benefits from homelessness?" as it takes readers on a sweeping tour of Cleveland's history from the late nineteenth-century through the early twenty-first century.

Laura Beers was featured on WTTG-Fox 5 as an in-studio guest to discuss the rioting in London. In addition, she was quoted in the Washington Post’s article (July 14, 2011), “Phone-hacking scandal highlights the differences in British, U.S. media.”

Richard Breitman’s new book Hitler's Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence, and the Cold War, co-authored with Norman Goda, was published by the National Archives. More than 400 newspapers nationally and internationally covered the story.

Eileen Findlay continues her appointment as Clendenen Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender History.

Kathy Franz was named the Goldman Sachs Fellow at the National Museum of American History for 2011-2012. Her new book Major Problems in American Popular Culture, co-edited with Susan Smulyan, was published this year. Her first book, Tinkering,: Consumers Reinvent the Early Automobile has appeared in paperback.

Max Paul Friedman published "Fracas in Caracas: Latin American Diplomatic Resistance to United States Intervention in Guatemala in 1954" in Diplomacy & Statecraft (December 2010).

Mary Frances Giandrea was elected treasurer of the Haskins Society, an international historical society for the study of the early and central Middle Ages.

Kate Haulman published her first book, The Politics of Fashion in Eighteenth-Century America (University of North Carolina Press).

Alan Kraut was elected Vice President of the Organization of American Historians and also appointed to a two-year term as a Non-Resident Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. Chairman of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum in New York Harbor, he was quoted in the New York Times editorial “Untold Stories of How Everyone Got Here” (June 16, 2011).

Peter Kuznick’s article “Japan's Nuclear History in Perspective: Eisenhower and Atoms for War and Peace" appeared in the April 2011 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In August, he led his annual Nuclear Studies Institute study tour to Japan where he taught “Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Beyond.”

Allan Lichtman and Richard Breitman are completing their new book FDR and the Jews, to be published by Harvard University Press.

Eric Lohr was awarded a National Council for Eurasian and East European Research fellowship for Spring 2012 for his book project Russian Citizenship: From Empire to Soviet Union. He published “1915 and the War Pogrom Paradigm in the Russian Empire,” in Anti-Jewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History. 

Eric Lohr and Anton Fedyashin have been appointed director and associate director of a new "AU Initiative on Russian Culture." They will be organizing film screenings, lectures, student exchanges, exhibitions and lectures at AU, the Russian Embassy, and other venues in Washington over the next three years, as well as offering new courses in the history of Russian literature and film.

Pamela Nadell was elected chair of the Department of History. In March, she lectured at the Jewish Museum in Prague, Czech Republic on “Women Who Would be Rabbis: The Battle for Women's Ordination” and in February she addressed the 2011 Council of American Jewish Museums conference on “Building History: The National Museum of American Jewish History.”



Graduate Student Updates

Lisa Maguire and Nguyet Nguyen received Robyn Rafferty Mathias awards to support their graduate research. Lisa Maguire received funds to support her research travel to Paris, France. Nguyet Nguyen received funds to support her research travel to Hao Noi, Vietnam.

Loren Miller, Borislav Chernov, and Louie Milojevic received Fall 2011 Graduate Student Mellon Research awards. Loren Miller received her Mellon Research Award for her project entitled "Glamorous G.I. Girls: Constructing Servicewomen's Identities During World War II." Borislav Chernnov also received a Mellon Research award for his dissertation titled, "The Future Depends on Brest-Litovsk": War, Peace, and Revolution in central and Eastern Europe, 1917-1918.

Jordan Grant was featured in a New York Time's blog article entitled "Embattled Intellectual Historians Make a Stand."

Four history students received funding from the College of Arts and Sciences to attend upcoming conferences. Allen Pietrobon will attend the 13th Annual Conference of Defence Associations; Allen Mikaelian will attend the American Historical Association Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL; Jordan Grant will attend the 4th Annual U.S. Intellectual History Conference; and Rodney Coeller will attend the Peace History Conference.

Louie Milojevic received a one-semester, $22,500 fellowship from New York University’s Center for the United States and the Cold War to research U.S. relations with Yugoslavia.

Erica Munkwitz presented "Aside vs. Astride: Women’s Equestrian Sports and the Creation of Feminine Identities in Britain, 1880-1935" at the 2011 Mid-Atlantic Conference of British Studies (MACBS).

Nguyet Nguyen received the Best Professional Presentation Prize at the College of Arts and Sciences annual Robyn Mathias Research Conference.

David Onkst presented "future research themes" in labor history and the U.S. Space Program at the NASA History Division's "1961/1981: Key Moments in Human Spaceflight Symposium" in April at NASA’s DC headquarters.

Terumi Rafferty-Osaki presented "I am an American, I am Japanese!: Manhood and Baseball During Incarceration" at the 18th Annual NINE Spring Training Conference in Tempe, Arizona. In July C-SPAN taped a session of his summer General Education course “Social Forces that Shaped America" for broadcast in its "Lectures in History” series in the fall.

Jason Zeledon presented “This Barbarous Coast Called Barbary, the Weakness of Their Garrisons, and the Effeminacy of Their People’: American Attitudes toward the Barbary Pirates, 1796-1805” at the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

See more at History News

Slavery by Another Name

Mary Ellen Curtin in Slavery by Another Name

History professor Mary Ellen Curtin weighs in on unfree labor in new PBS documentary.

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CHASA American Studies in the World Conference - March 10, 2012

Join the AU American Studies Program for the 2012 meeting of the Chesapeake American Studies Association. The conference is free, but registration is required. Click here to download the event flyer for more information.

Register Now


Death of Professor Emerita Valerie French

Valerie French, associate professor emeritus of history, passed away suddenly on December 8 at her home in Washington, DC. She will be deeply missed by everyone who knew her during her many years of service at American University. Please see also memo from Robert L. Beisner, professor emeritus.

Memo from Robert L. Beisner


History PhD Student's Dissertation Adventure

Aaron Bell

Aaron Bell traveled across state and national borders researching the US involvement in El Salvador’s civil war.

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World War I in the Middle East

Apply to participate in “World War I in the Middle East,” a National Endowment for the Humanities seminar. The Seminar will be held this summer at American University.

Learn More


Nuclear Studies Institute, a Life Changing Experience

Jonathan Muniz writes an account about his experience attending the History Department's Summer 2011 Nuclear Studies Institute in Japan.

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Students Attend Nuclear Studies Trip

Seminole State College of Florida students share their experience attending AU's Nuclear Studies Institute trip to Japan.

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Study in a City Where People Make History

2010-2011 Newsletter features public history students, Alan Kraut, Allen Mikaelian,Pamela Nadell, Vincent Intondi, Laura Beers, and more.

2010-2011 Newsletter


Women's History

Study women's history at American University.

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Robert Griffith Education Fund for Public History

The Robert Griffith Education Fund for Public History at American University has been set up in memory of Dr. Griffith. The fund will be used to help American University History students pursue their studies at AU. You can make a gift to the fund online through AU Giving (via the College of Arts division).

Robert Griffith