Program Highlight
The Colonial History Concentration takes advantage of our special relationship with Historic St. Mary's City, the first capital of Maryland and a colonial archeological site, research facility, and museum.
SMP Spotlight
Kathleen Frana, "Agency Through Imagery: The Life of Marie de Medici," 2007.
In a creative analysis of the 1622 biographical cycle of paintings by Peter Paul Ruebans, Frana shows the influence of Marie herself in constructing this heroic account of her life story.
Department News
Dr. Ken Cohen and his Colonial America Research Seminar (HIST415) students compared their readings on religious architecture in the Chesapeake to a local example when they held class discussion at nearby St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, built in 1767.
Tom Barrett was the guest lecturer at the Will F. Jenkins Day celebration in Gloucester, VA. Jenkins, from Gloucester, was a path-breaking science fiction writer. One of Tom's recent projects has been to recover Jenkins' significance to 20th C US fiction. Through Tom's initiative, the Virginia state government passed a resolution declaring June 27th Will F. Jenkins Day in the commonwealth.
Adriana Brodsky participated in a symposium "Returning to Babel: Jewish Latin American Experiences and Representations" that was held at the Harris Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (April 19-20, 2009). She presented a paper entitled "Educating Argentine Jews: Sephardim and Their Schools, 1920-1960."
Adriana Brodsky and her "History of the Jewish People in the Modern World" students met with Argentine Ambassador to the United States Hector Timerman on April 21, 2009. The Ambassador discussed with the group the experiences of his father, famous Jewish journalist Jacobo Timerman, a "disappeared" and tortured prisoner of the Argentine dictatorship of the 1970s. Hector Timerman helped gather support for his father's liberation then and has since fought for justice and the defense of human rights.
On April 18, Ken Cohen's American Revolution class visited old city Philadelphia. They toured Elfreth's Alley (an intact row of townhouses that were occupied by artisans in the eighteenth century), the National Constitution Center, and Independence Hall.
Three history majors presented papers at the Phi Alpha Theta East Regional Conference at Millersville University in Millersville, Pennsylvania on April 11. The students and their topics were: Bonnie McCubbin, "Mystery Unearthed: Cokesbury College," Caitlin Christine Plitt, "Qi Baishi and Wu Changshuo: Artists Divided in the Age of Reformism," and Flynn Knight Collins, "The Legacy of Bobby Hutton: Symbolic Rhetoric in the Black Panther Party." Linda Jones Hall, faculty sponsor of the St. Mary's College chapter, chaired the session on Early Modern European History.
Tom Barrett gave a paper, "Go East Young Man: The Ruritanian Theme in American Culture," at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference in New Orleans on April 11.
Gail Savage has been appointed a book review co-editor for the Journal of British Studies, the official publication of the North American Conference on British Studies. She also gave a paper at the 2009 British Scholar Annual Conference on February 19. The title of the paper was "Oslo or Reno? Competing Models of Modernity in Early Twentieth Century Divorce Law Reform."
Sophie Latham has been accepted into the Masters in Environmental Law and Policy program at the Vermont Law School.
Amy Griffin has been accepted into the University of Maryland graduate program in public planning.
Ken Cohen presented a paper at the Sixth Biennial Conference of the Society of Early Americanists in Bermuda on March 7. The paper was titled, "'The Entreaties and Perswasions of My Acquaintance': Wagers as Vehicles for Networking in Early America."
The History Club visited Washington, D.C. on February 21. Members toured the new visitors' center of the Capitol building and the newly renovated National Museum of American History.
Charles Musgrove presented a paper entitled "Planes, Parties, and Protests: The National Celebration of Chiang Kaishek's 50th Birthday, October 1936" at the Southeastern Conference of Asian Studies at Emory University, January 16.
Tom Barrett co-authored a House Joint Resolution that was passed by the Senate of the Virginia General Assembly and signed by the governor designating June 27, 2009 as Will F. Jenkins Day in Virginia.
Adriana Brodsky's Gender in Latin American History class visited the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington on December 11 to view an exhibition and hear a talk on "Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo: Grandmothers of the Children Who Were Abducted as a Method of Political Repression and Never Restored to Their Legitimate Families." The students met one of the grandmothers and also the Argentine Ambassador to the United States.
