History News and Events
STUDENT NEWS
In March 2021 our graduate students Emily Simone, Kevin Kostin, Christina Klein, Loryn Clauson, and Eric Lopinki presented at the Ohio Academy of History Conference. There was excellent turnout and participation from the audience and it was a great learning experience for all.
March 19, 2021 our Phi Alpha Theta chapter put on the UT-BG History Colloquium. We had great participation and wonderful audience. Dr. Chelsea Griffis did a superb job of direction, moderating panels and audience participation. Thanks to graduate and undergrad students, participants, attendees, and moderators including Dr. Rebecca Mancuso, Dr. Shingi Mavima, and Dr. Benjamin Greene.
November 9, 2018 the department held its annual Phi Alpha Theta Colloquium which included paper presentations from our own undergraduate and graduate history students and graduate students from a number of other regional colleges and universities.
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Undergraduate History Major Damon Blair participated in UT’s 2018 Undergraduate Summer Research and Creative Activities Program (USR&CAP) and received funding for his project “Traditional Muslim Education in The Ottoman Empire.”
Damon Blair and Dr. Kristen Geaman
During 2017-2018, 5 undergraduate History majors took part in our internship programs. In the fall Zach Connolly worked at the Toledo Police Museum and over the summer Bernadette Barror and Natalie Boettcher students worked at the Canaday Center in collections processing and Mackenzie Kaverman worked at Toledo Metroparks in summer programming. Liz Konopka worked at The Henry Ford Museum, where she created a digital project on women and World War I prints that is now on their web site: https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/expert-sets/101760/
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Liz Konopka and Dr. Debra Reid, Curator of Agriculture and the Environment at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village.
Congratulations to our 2018 History Grads!
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Drs. Padilla, Pflugrad-Jackisch, and Beatty Medina. MA students Joshua Byerly, Hunter Magrum, Jack Zamora, and Diamond Crowder
MA History student Diamond Crowder was accepted into the doctoral program at the University of Cincinnati. She was their number one pick among their applications and received not only full funding (stipend and tuition waiver), but also an Albert C Yates fellowship. Congratulations Diamond!
Undergraduate History Major Tom Smith won an Outstanding Student Award at the CAL Honors convocation for his thesis, “Adelard of Bath: Math, Magic, and Arabic Learning in the Twelfth Century.” Tom is now working on his Master’s in Philosophy here at UT.
In April 2018 we inducted 12 new members in to Phi Alpha Theta Chapter: Jessica Avery, Bernadette Barror, Jennifer Baum, Brynn Franchetti, Christina Klein, Kathleen McCarthy, Trent McHugh, Dana Pasiwk, Faith Snyder, Martha Verner, Kayla Miller, and Joshua Weed,
We also presented the following Awards:
Outstanding Undergraduate History Student: Jessica Avery
Outstanding Female History Student: Carrington Gelardi
Outstanding Male History Student: Tom Smith
Outstanding Graduate Students Masters: Joshua Byerly and Diamond Crowder
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Jessica Avery and Bernadette Barror |
Jennifer Baum |
Tom Smith |
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Dr. Chelsea Griffis and Brynn Franchetti |
Josh Byerly and Diamond Crowder |
RECENT DEPARTMENT EVENTS
Fall 2018 UT History alumnus, Dr. Dan French, Assistant Professor& Director of Distance Education and Teaching Resources at Mercy College of Ohio gave a talk on his new book, When They Hid the Fire: A History of Electricity and Invisible Energy in America, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2017.
The department also held a “Thinking about Grad School” event and our annual “fall advising” event in October.
In spring 2018 the history department also hosted a talk given by Terry Jackson from
Adrian College, “Western Contact in Japan's Capital in the Early Modern Period”? and
we invited UT professors Drs. Gabi Semaan and Dr. Samir Abu-Absi to talk about their
new book, Arab Americans In Toledo in April.
The department also enjoyed a great event organized by Dr. Bruce Way, “What do with a history degree?” Invited speakers discussed what types of jobs a History degree prepared them for and what employers are looking for from history students. Our speakers included:
Public History and Preservation: Amanda Vaughan, Executive Director, Wolcott House
National Parks Service: Jami Keegan, Park Guide, River Raisin National Battlefield Park
Library Science: Lauren White, Manuscript Librarian, Canaday Center
Business, Journalism, Government: Amy Wexler, Employer Relations Specialist, Career Services, UT
FACULTY NEWS
Awards and Grants:
In November 2018, the Southern Association for Women Historians awarded Dr. Ami Pflugrad-Jackisch the Ann Firor Scott Mid-Career Fellowship for her ongoing research project, “The
World of Westover: Mary Willing Byrd, Gender, Slavery, and the Economics of Citizenship
in Revolutionary Virginia.”
Dr. Kristen Geaman won a 2018 Outstanding Contribution to University Scholarship Award for her book Dick Grayson, Boy Wonder: Scholars and Creators on 75 Years of Robin, Nightwing and Batman (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015).
Dr. Kristen Geaman conducted archival research in the Czech Republic using her UT FIDA Award for study
abroad in Summer 2018 to further work on her on going book project, which studies
Queen Anne of Bohemia and infertility among Medieval Monarchs in Europe.
Phi Alpha Theta History honor society recognized UT’s chapter with an Honorable Mention for Best National Chapter for AY 2016. Thanks to Dr. Chelsea Griffis and our graduate students for all their hard work!
Publications
Dr. Ami Pflugrad-Jackisch’s essay “‘What Am I but an American?’: Mary Willing Byrd and Westover Plantation during
the American Revolution,” has been published in Women and the American Revolution: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World, edited by Barbara Oberg and forthcoming with the University Press of Virginia in
May 2019. https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5229
Dr. Roberto Padilla’ s essay, "Efficacy vs. Ideology: The Use of Food Therapies in Preventing and Treating Beriberi in the Japanese Army in the Meiji Era,” has been accepted for publication in the East Asian Science, Technology, and Society (EASTS) published by Duke University Press.
Dr. Charles Beatty-Medina published a book review, “Slavery’s Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons,” In Early American Literature (Spring 2018). https://muse.jhu.edu/article/687239
Dr. Kristen Geaman published an essay, “A Bastard and a Changeling? England’s Edward of Westminster
and Delayed Childbirth” in Unexpected Heirs in Early Modern Europe: Potential Kings and Queens, edited by Valerie Schutte with Palgrave Macmillan press in 2017. https://books.google.com/books/about/Unexpected_Heirs_in_Early_Modern_Europe.html?id=XzU7DwAAQBAJ
Dr. Chelsea Griffis’s article “'In the Beginning Was the Word:' Evangelical Christian Women, the Equal Rights Amendment, and Competing Definitions of Womanhood” was published in Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies (2017) https://muse.jhu.edu/article/669204/summary
Conferences/Presentations:
In October 2018, Dr. Michael Stauch presented a paper, “Community Policing and the Carceral State in Detroit,” at the Urban History Association Conference in Columbia, South Carolina. In July 2018 Dr. Charles Beatty-Medina participated in the Tepoztlán Institute for Transnational History of the Americas’ week-long conference “Black Lives/Black Deaths: Dispossession, Disappearance, and Enclosure,” in Mexico. Dr. Ami Pflugrad-Jackisch presented a paper “Mary Willing Byrd: Citizen-Taxpayer,” at the Southern Association of Women Historians (SAWH) Triennial Conference in Tuscaloosa, AL in June and Dr. Bruce Way thrilled and delighted visitors and audience members with his first person interpretation of War of 1812 Brigadier Gender William Hull at the River Raisin National Battlefield Park.
Spring 2018 was a busy semester for conference presentations. In March, Dr. Chelsea Griffis presented a paper, “Republican Politics and Rainbow Wigs: George Bush Sr., The Simpsons, and the Culture Wars of the 1990s.” at the Popular Culture Association conference in Indianapolis, in March 2018 and Dr. Roberto Padilla presented a paper, "Efficacy vs. Ideology: The Use of Food Therapies in Preventing and Treating Beriberi in the Japanese Army in the Meiji Era," at The Intersections of Colonialism and Medicine in East Asia conference held at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Michael Stauch made 2 conference presentations. He presented, “Becoming Scandalous: Organizing the Informal Economy During the War on Crime,” at the Business History Conference Meeting in Baltimore, MD in April and “The War on Crime from Below: ‘Save Our Sons and Daughters’ & the Politics of Childhood in Detroit,” at the Policy History Conference in Tempe, AZ in May.
In fall 2017 semester Dr. Ami Pflugrad-Jackisch presented a paper, “‘It was an error in judgment and not of the heart’: Mary Willing Byrd and Political Loyalty in Revolutionary Virginia,” at the Southern Historical Association’s (SHA) annual meeting in Dallas, TX and Dr. Bruce Way gave a presentation, “The Toledo War,” at the Way Public Library in Perrysburg.
Professional Service:
During the 2017-2018 academic year Dr. Ami Pflugrad-Jackisch served as co-Chair of the Program Committee for the Society for Historians of the
Early American Republic (SHEAR) Annual Meeting, which was held in Cleveland, OH in
July 2018.
Dr. Pflugrad-Jackisch with fellow program co-Chair Lorri Glover and SHEAR president Craig Thompson Friend