History - Kent State University...used by the West to define territory, establish sovereignty, and even determine ethnicity. After reading that book, I History began planning to finish

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HistoryDepartment of

Welcome from the ChairAs I look out from my office window in Bowman Hall I’m reminded of a scene from Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing, where, happening upon an old man in a burned out church, the main character is reminded how the passing of time is like tracing a line in the sand—you know where it began but the future remains undetermined.

Sounds like a simple lesson, but the point is that the finger drawing the line is in fact in control as to the direction of the future and that it is not fate or anything else that determines where we end up, but the sum total of the choices we make up to the point at which the finger is placed in the sand.

This is the lesson we teach

to our students each

semester, that the history

they are studying and

trying to understand (and

relate back us their level

of understanding) is the

sum total of decisions and

actions made by people at

all levels within a historical

time frame.

History teaches us

that we choose our

place in the sand.

Kent State UniversitySpring 2015 Newsletter

2Kent State UniversitySpring 2015 Newsletter

Other changes are afoot which will allow the department to be more nimble in its course offerings and open to students outside the major, while at the same time providing more intensive studies for our majors. Curricular changes will mean adding new courses and removing those that we no longer have the faculty to support to streamline and modernize our program.

Changes will continue as well with the graduate program in an effort to train and graduate more highly skilled and employable Master’s students and PhDs. As a department we are committed to assisting our PhD students with completing their studies by providing time off while on appointment and supplementing that time with a generous research stipend. The hope is to reduce time to degree and with the practical experience of teaching their own survey courses and even working to develop online courses, allow them to enter the workplace sooner and better trained. Other changes are in the works as we continue to modify specific areas of the program to better recruit, train, and direct graduate students.

The history department has been implementing a variety of changes over the last several years to better direct the future of historical studies at Kent State University. Significant changes have been made and will continue to be made to our undergraduate program, including modifying the Historian’s Craft course to focus more on methodology, and requiring a capstone Senior Seminar course where the students utilize the skills learned in their studies to write a primary source seminar quality research paper.

The faculty also continues to direct their futures with impressive research and teaching agendas. With all the news about the decline of the humanities and the increasing (it seems) irrelevance of historical studies, the faculty work hard to make their research speak not only about the past, but also to the present and even the future. And, looking through teaching evaluations and exit survey responses by our graduates, through their teaching, mentoring, and advising our faculty, including our outstanding adjuncts, are directing the future of historical study here at KSU. As you read through this newsletter to catch up on what your favorite faculty member is up to, also take note of the various activities our graduates are up to, giving credence to the validity of studying the humanities and the increasing relevance of history.

The KSU history department finger in the sand is in full control of where it is going, ensuring its continued growth and success.H

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Ken Bindas Professor & Chair


Table of Contents

Welcome from the Chair

Awards & Scholarships (Undergraduate)

New Faculty Members

NATO Center Activities

Professor Returns to Zimbabwe (Dr. Timothy Scarnecchia)

The Printed World: A Showcase of Rare Books

Department Celebrates 100 Years 2013 Homecoming Reunion

Faculty News

Graduate Student News

Completed Theses & Dissertations

Alumni News

Contact Information


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Awards & ScholarshipsHenry N. Whitney ScholarshipEach spring, the Department of History awards the Henry N. Whitney Scholarship, which honors a long-standing former chair of the department. The scholarship recognizes an outstanding junior history major and provides a scholarship to be used for the student’s senior year. Matthew Turkalj was the 2014 winner.

Gold Pen AwardThe department also offers a Gold Pen Award for Excellence in Writing in History each spring to recognize the author of the most distinguished history paper written during the preceding calendar year. The winner receives a gold pen, suitably engraved. The 2014 winner was Philip Shackelford, whose winning essay, written in the Senior Seminar, was titled “Signals Intelligence and the Balance of Power.”

Thomas H. Smith ScholarshipIn Fall 2014, the department awarded the first two Thomas H. Smith Scholarships, honoring the first Kent State UniversityHistory Ph.D. History majors in good academic standing are eligible.

The inaugural recipients of the scholarship were Reid Fleeson and Andrew Ohl. Congratulations to Reid and Andrew!

Upcoming AwardsSeveral awards are also in the works. In Spring 2015, we will be awarding the inaugural Richard G. Hollow Scholarship to a history major in good academic standing with an interest in the economic history of the United States or in the intersection of economics and American history. Finally, travel scholarships to help offset the cost of participation in KSU’s study abroad program in Florence, Italy, or Würzburg, Germany, are also available.

Andrew Ohl, inaugural recipient of Thomas H. Smith Scholarship

Reid Fleeson, inaugural recipient of Thomas H. Smith Scholarship

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New Faculty MembersWelcome, Mindy Farmer!The Department of History is delighted to welcome Dr. Mindy Farmer, director of the May 4 Visitors Center, to campus. In addition to her duties at the Visitors Center, Mindy will also teach one history course per year, helping to augment our current public history offerings. Mindy comes to Kent State from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, where she served for five years as the institution’s founding education specialist. Even before arriving on campus, Mindy pushed the Nixon Library to pursue a nonpartisan historical version of May 4 by reworking its exhibit panel on Kent State to unequivocally assign blame for the shootings to the National Guard.

Mindy, who holds a bachelor’s degree in history and social studies and a Master’s in history from Western Kentucky University and a doctorate from The Ohio State University, was attracted to the directorship of the May 4 Visitors Center because of the opportunity the job provided to work in both the public history realm and the classroom, in her mind the best possible career combination. A firm believer that “museums matter,” Mindy is determined to ensure that the May 4 Visitors Center takes the lead in shaping both public memory of May 4 and an understanding of its larger meaning for American society. In using the events of May 4 as a teaching tool, Mindy plans to pursue a variety of activities, including partnering with other archives and museums to host conferences and virtual lectures, creating a student-soldier oral history program to better understand the experience of young veterans on campus; and working with local school districts to create teacher workshops and increase the number of students who visit the center.

In addition to overseeing and expanding the work of the May 4 Visitors Center, Mindy is also very excited to have the chance to teach here at Kent State. In the spring 2015 semester she will be offering a course titled Public History Battlegrounds that will explore contested sites and episodes in both a physical and a metaphorical sense. Future courses she might like to offer include one on the Nixon Era that makes use of the constantly expanding documentary record and another on Curating Controversy that explores the public history presentation of events from Kent State through Watergate.

Dr. Mindy Farmer, Director, May 4 Visitor’s Center

A native of Kentucky, Mindy currently lives in Akron. Although she says she’s enjoying the chance to get acclimated to northeastern Ohio, we know that as winter approaches, she’s bound to think longingly of the weather in Long Beach, where she lived while on staff at the Nixon Library.


New Faculty MembersWelcome, Shane Strate!The following is an interview with new Assitant Professor, Dr. Shane Strate.

How did you become interested in the history of Southeast Asia, and Thailand, in particular?When I was nineteen, I applied to become a missionary for the Mormon Church and was assigned to Bangkok Thailand. I spent the next two years learning to speak, read and write Thai and developed a familiarity with the people and culture. I didn’t have the time to study history, but understood that Thais were very proud that their country had ‘never been colonized.’ After returning to college I learned that this grand narrative of perpetual independence had been created to promote the monarchy and disguise the legacy of western intervention. This contradiction made Thailand even more interesting to me. Here was a country that didn’t fit within the binary model of ‘colonized’ vs. ‘independent’.

At Wisconsin, you studied with Thongchai Winichakul, an innovative scholar whose interdisciplinary approaches to history include analyzing geographical discourse and assessing how nations cope with past traumas. In what ways did his earlier scholarship shape your conceptualization of the dissertation?I first read Thongchai’s book, Siam Mapped, when I was a MA candidate writing on the 1940 Franco-Thai border conflict and trying to understand the anti-colonial rhetoric embedded within Thai nationalism. It was my first experience with post-colonial theory, and I was fascinated by the idea that the true legacy of western imperialism was the triumph of its intellectual tradition. As Europeans pressed into Southeast Asia, their modern geography replaced traditional conceptions of space based on cosmology. The map became a new technology used by the West to define territory, establish sovereignty, and even determine ethnicity. After reading that book, I began planning to finish my graduate work at Wisconsin.

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Dr. Shane Strate, Assistant Professor


New Faculty Members

Tell us a bit about your research experience in Southeast Asia; did you have any outrageous or amusing experiences along the way to completing that dissertation research?Research in Thailand is not like working at the Library of Congress. I remember working in the Thai National Assembly library, and requesting that the librarian make copies for me. “Oh, we don’t have a photocopier here,” she informed me. “Just take this book down the street to the internet café. They’ll copy it for you.”

So I took this priceless volume of National Assembly proceedings and walked out of the library. As I headed toward the street to get a motorcycle taxi, I had to pass through a military security checkpoint. I knew that they would see the books in my hands and assume I was trying to steal them. And, of course, as I passed through I heard a voice shout out, ‘Stop! Wait right there!” I turned around to see a soldier running towards me and began practicing the Thai phrases that would help me explain this misunderstanding. “If you’re leaving the library you can’t take that with you,” the soldier barked. And ignoring the books, he grabbed the plastic visitor’s badge clipped to my shirt, turned around, and walked back to his station.

What courses—undergraduate and graduate—would you like to develop here at Kent State in order to expand our offerings in Asian history?My hope is to provide our undergrads with a strong background in Asian history by offering surveys on Southeast Asia, India, China, and Japan. Since my real interest is identity studies, I also plan to develop courses on Gandhi and the Indian nationalist movement and a graduate seminar on post-colonial theory.

One final question: any truth to the song lyric “One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble”?I can only say that several months in Bangkok during the 1990s would give a person sinus infections. Thankfully, the air quality has improved since then.

My forthcoming monograph The Lost Territories, is built on Thongchai’s theory of the ‘geo-body’ as an imagined construct that can sustain injury. Twentieth century Thai nationalists used modern maps to communicate their discourse of National Humiliation. They argued that Thailand lagged behind the West because imperialists had stolen the nation’s territory and slowed its progress towards modernity.


NATO & EU Studies Center Activities

2014 Model NATO CompetitionThe NATO and EU Studies Center once again brought 8 undergraduate students to Washington DC February 13-17 for the national Model NATO competition. The KSU team represented NATO member states Hungary and Slovenia in 2014. The first day in DC is spent visiting the Embassies for briefings by the political and military officers in each Embassy. This year, however, Washington, DC, woke to a foot of snow the morning of the Embassy visits, so it looked as if we would not be able to attend the briefings. Thanks to the generous offer of the Hungarian political and military director at the Hungarian Embassy, Mr. Ferenc Kalmar, and thanks to Sarah Zabic’s quick organizing of transport in a city where even the taxis were not available, the Kent State team managed to meet with Mr. Kalmar. One of our team members, Aubdulhameed Abdulaziz, who was already living in DC as part of the political science department’s WPNI program, did manage to make it on his own for a personal consultation with the Political Counselor at the Slovenian Embassy, Petra Langerholc. KSU will once again represent Slovenia in the 2015 competition in mid-February, so we will hopefully all be able to benefit from Ms. Langerholc’s briefing as we have in the past.

History major Andrew Ohl, who participated on last year’s team, had the following to say about his participation:

“Model NATO has been a great experience for me. As a member of Model NATO you receive the opportunity to meet so many new people from around the country (and the globe for that matter). … Being in such a stimulating city for politics is an opportunity I would recommend to everyone. The entire venture expanded both my confidence in myself and my knowledge of the world around me.”

The 2014 KSU Model NATO team outside the Hungarian Embassy in Washington DC: (left to right) Ashley Markle, Sarah Zabic, James Hock, Sebastian Roldan, Alexis Carson, Audra Parish, Andrew Ohl, and Philip Shackelford

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NATO & EU Studies Center Activities

Conference with Dr. Gregory MooreThe NATO and EU Studies Center also co-hosted a conference with History Department Alumni Dr. Gregory Moore, who is the Chair of the History Department and Director of the Intelligence Studies program at Notre Dame College. The conference centered around Dr. Moore’s recent collaborative project “The Human Aspects of the Operational Environment.” Other topics included a discussion of Ukraine, featuring Chris Quillen of Advance Technical Intelligence Center in Beavercreek, Ohio, and Sean Kay, from Ohio Wesleyan University.

We also had an interesting panel on lessons learned (or not learned) from Iraq and Afghanistan, featuring Sadat Mir of the National Defense Intelligence College and KSU recent Ph.D from the Political Science Department, Dr. Asegul Keskin Zeren. Professors Andrew Barnes, Steve Hook, and Joshua Statcher from the political science department, and John Hatzadony from Notre Dame College served as moderators and commentators. The NATO Center’s founder, emeritus university professor Dr. Larry Kaplan, gave the closing remarks.

Dr. Scarnecchia also participated on a working group of academics covering Sub-Saharan Africa for a conference titled “Flexible Frameworks, Beyond Borders: Understanding Regional Dynamics to Enhance Cooperative Security,” 15-17 May 2014 in Bertinoro, Italy.

Philip Shackelford, who is now an MA student in history, says that “it was a good introduction to work at the committee level using parliamentary procedures, which has helped prepared me to work with the KSU Graduate Student Senate.”

Students interested in participating in this year’s Model NATO national competition, please contact Dr. Scarnecchia ([email protected]) for more information and meeting times.

The KSU Model NATO team after three days of intensive competition: (left to right) front row- Aubdulhameed Abdulaziz, James Hock; second row- Philip Shackelford, Audra Parish, Alexis Carson, Ashley Markle; third row- Andrew Ohl, Sebastian Roldan, Michael Marefka, and Dr. Scarnecchia, faculty advisor (not pictured- Jessica Miller)


Professor Returns to Harare, Zimbabwe

Dr. Timothy ScarnecchiaIn October-November 2013, Associate Professor Timothy Scarnecchia had the opportunity to spend a month in Harare, Zimbabwe, thanks to the support of a College of Arts and Sciences Innovative Research Seed Grant, which provides three years of funding to carryout a new research project. In Tim’s case, he was returning to Harare to revisit the one hundred or so households and individuals he interviewed during the research for his dissertation some twenty years ago.

Many Zimbabweans have been through some very tough times in the intervening years, so the chance to go back and work on survey and urban history project with new and old colleagues at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) has been a real honor for Tim and also one that presents some interesting methodological challenges. He plans to return in May 2015 for the second phase of the project.

While in Harare, Tim had a chance to lecture on Zimbabwean history to University of Zimbabwe second- and third-year economic history students. The students seemed to enjoy listening to someone with an American English accent lecture on Zimbabwean history (or else they were being really polite about it) and Tim thoroughly enjoyed the chance to lecture on his research in front of Zimbabwean students.

Tim also met with first-year university students as part of a project to link them with first-year students in the Destination Kent course he taught at KSU with the assistance of Jamie Oriti of the CAS advising staff. They set up a Facebook page where the two groups of students could interact about their first-year experiences, and find out that even though they live some eighty-one hundred miles apart, their experiences are pretty universal. After one of their meetings on the UZ campus, they posed for a group photo in the courtyard of the Social Science Faculty buildings.

Dr. Scarnecchia lectures to third-year economic history students in a University of Zimbabwe class room

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Professor Returns to Harare, Zimbabwe

Even with the political and economic crises Zimbabwe has experienced since 2000, the capital city continues to move forward. As in so many African cities, the individual and collective drive to survive and prosper, and to carve out a better life for future generations, creates solutions to urban problems that on paper—or from an American civil society perspective—often seem insurmountable. That type of ethos and drive is not easy to capture in academic work, but it is certainly one of the consistent forces of urban life and history that needs emphasized. Tim’s hope is that by returning to the households and individuals interviewed twenty years ago, we can find ways to relate these qualitative experiences within a larger urban history. He feels very fortunate to have the continued support of KSU’s College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of History for this new research.

Tim meets with first year University of Zimbabwe students

Group photo in courtyard of the Social Science Faculty buildings


(left to right): Amy Vartenuk, John Potwora, Professor Crawford, Paul Boyle, Traci Hoffman

“Subduction Zones: The Clash of Civilizations in the South Pacific” by John Potwora

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The Printed WorldA Showcase of Rare BooksFrom the late fifteenth century to early nineteenth century, Europeans sent expeditions oversea and overland to the four corners of the globe. The end results of these expeditions varied. Some gave rise to new patterns of trade. Others resulted in European conquest and colonization, while other expeditions were failures.

How did Europeans describe and make sense of their explorations and encounters in Africa, Asia and the Americas in printed travel accounts? What role did travel writing play in facilitating or justifying European efforts to explore and exploit peoples and places in distance lands?

Last Spring semester, four undergraduate majors in the Department of History set out to explore these questions by studying the printed travel accounts from early modern Europe in the Special Collections Library at Kent State University. Under the direction of Assistant Professor Matthew Crawford and Cara Gilgenbach, the Director of the Special Collections Library, Paul Boyle, Traci Hoffman, John Potwora, and Amy Vartenuk designed and developed a showcase of a selection of early modern European travel accounts from the Special Collections Library. The showcase took place on May 9, 2014. In addition to a one-time exhibit of the books, the undergraduate curators each gave a presentation on their subsection of the showcase to an audience of nearly fifty people.


Celebrates 100 Years!

2013 Homecoming ReunionOn October 4, 2013, members of the Department of History – past and present – gathered in Bowman Hall to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Department. Attendees included alumni and emeriti faculty as well as current students and faculty. The keynote speaker of the event was Dr. Leonne Hudson, Associate Professor in the Department of History, who gave a stimulating lecture entitled “The Reaction of Black Americans to Lincoln’s Death.” After this lecture, a panel of current undergraduate and graduate students – Jill Winters, history major and President of the History Club, Jonathan Lower, M.A. candidate, and Denise Jenison, Ph.D. candidate – spoke about their reasons for studying history and their experiences with the Department.

Other attendees experienced a personalized tour of the new May 4th Visitors center led by two graduate students in the Department of History’s Public History Program, Bill Casale and Stephanie Vincent. The afternoon’s activities concluded with an “open mic” session in which alumni and emeriti faculty shared their stories and reminiscences of their time in the Department of History. Overall, the event was a success and wonderful experience for all those that attended. In addition, we are proud to report that among the various departments celebrating their anniversaries last Fall, the Department of History had the best attendance by alumni! It was great to have everyone back in Bowman Hall again and we hope to see you again soon!



Mary Ann HeissDr. Heiss presented “Swimming against the Tide: British and American Imperial Thinking and UN Support for Decolonization, 1945-1963” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, in Lexington, KY, in June 2014, a paper drawn from her ongoing second monograph project, provisionally titled From Interest to Involvement: The United States, Great Britain, and the UN Role in Non-Self-Governing Territories, 1945-1963. She continues to serve on the Board of Directors of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute and on the Institute’s Committee on Research, Scholarship, and Education, whose Grants Subcommittee she chairs, and to edit the series “New Studies in U.S. Foreign Relations” for the Kent State University Press. Her term as president of the Ohio Academy of History concluded in April.

Leonne M. HudsonDr. Hudson delivered invited lectures at Walsh University, Kent State University, and Lourdes University during the 2013-2014 academic year. His term on the editorial board of the Kent State University Press ended in 2013. In April 2014, he received the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teacher Award. He published three book reviews and continues to work on his monograph on Abraham Lincoln.

John JamesonDr. Jameson continues to explore collaborations with the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the National Park Service, the latter celebrating its centennial in 2016.

Faculty News

Kevin AdamsDr. Adams has spent much of the past year working on Civil War History and chipping away at the research for his second book project. He presented early versions of his current research at the annual meeting of the Western History Association in Tucson, and at an invited talk at the University of Montana. Next year will see him share more of his research at the Society for Military History’s annual meeting, lead a plenary session on Reconstruction at the Southern Historical Association annual meeting, and enjoy the publication of a historiographical essay he completed on Presidential Reconstruction

Kenneth J. BindasDr. Bindas’s manuscript, A Secular Awakening: The Apotheosis of Modernity, 1929-1941, was completed during his sabbatical last spring and is currently under review. His work with David Hassler on the documentary May 4th Voices, which aired on Western Reserve Media 45/49 PBS, was awarded the Oral History Association’s 2014 prize for the best Oral History in a Nonprint Format.

Leslie HeaphyDr. Heaphy published “Baseball Before 1920” in A Companion to American Sport History, Steven Reiss, editor; an essay on teaching genocide with Lee Fox in Peace Psychology; and a book review in the Journal of Southern History. She delivered public presentations at a variety of locales, including the MLB All Star Fanfest in Minneapolis, MN; the Chester Public Library, Chester, NJ; and numerous venues throughout northeast Ohio. In October 2013, she received the Kent State University Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching Award; in July 2014, she received the Bob Davids Award from the Society of American Baseball Research.


Julio PinoDr. Pino’s article, “A Day in the Mind of the Malê: Ecopoesy of Muslim Slaves and Free Persons in Nineteenth-Century Salvador, Brazil,” has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Islamic History and Civilization.

Rebecca PuljuDr. Pulju finished an article and a book chapter last year. The book chapter will appear in a collection on international marriage crises, and the article, on empowering and disciplining women consumers, in the French journal Le Mouvement Social. She was also happy to have the chance to comment on a panel at French Historical Studies, which was held in Montréal in April. The Bibliothèque Nationale de Québec is right near campus, so she was able to do some research while there for the conference and returned again in August for a subsequent research trip.

James SeelyeDr. Seelye’s edited primary source collection The Great American Mosaic: An Exploration of Diversity in Primary Documents – American Indian Volume was published by Greenwood Publishing Group/ABC-CLIO in September 2014 and his article “Baptist Missionary Activities in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula: Rev. Abel Bingham,” is scheduled to appear in the Baptist History and Heritage Journal this fall. He presented three papers during the fall 2014 semester: “Native American Lessons from Jamestown: Was It Genocide?” at the 1619: The Making of America Conference, in Norfolk, VA, in September; “Missionary Ethnographers: The Example of Bishop Frederic Baraga in the Nineteenth Century Great Lakes,” at the American Society for Ethnohistory 60th Annual Conference, in Indianapolis, IN, in October; and “American Indian Lessons from Jamestown: Was it Genocide?” at the 40th Annual Great Lakes History Conference, in Grand Rapids, MI, also in October.

Hongshan LiIn the past year, Dr. Li published a book chapter, “A Cultural Gateway: Macao on the Map of Sino-American Relations,” in To the Orient, Zhang Shuguang, editor; and two book reviews, one in History: Reviews of New Books and the other in the Journal of American History. He received a number of internal and external grants to support his research in China. Through competition, he won the Short-Term Expert Research Grant, $1,200, from the East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, to cover all his expenses while researching in Shanghai in summer 2014. As an invited international scholar, he was a recipient of the Special Research Project Grant, $2,500, from the Macao University of Science and Technology, Macao, China, 2014. The grant was provided for him to conduct research on the role played by Macao in the making of U.S.-China cultural relations. His research project, “Building A Black Bridge: China’s Interaction with African-American Activists in the Cold War,” was awarded a Research Travel Grant, $2,500, by the University Research Council, Kent State University to support research in Hong Kong, Wuhan, and Beijing in summer 2014. As a result of this support, he was able to present three research papers at national and international conferences and deliver an invited lecture. “Bridging the Cultures in the Cold War: African-American Activists and U.S.-China Cultural Relations,” was read at the American Historical Association Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., in January 2014. “A Cultural Gateway: Macao on the Map of Sino-American Relations,” was given at the Symposium: Macao on the World Map held at the Macao University of Science and Technology, Macao, China, May 2014. “Building a Black Bridge: China’s Interactions with Afro-American Activists in the Cold War,” was presented at the Symposium on Chinese History in a Global World held in East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, in June 2014. Finally, the invited lecture “The Hidden Helping Hand: The U.S. State Department’s Assistance to Students Returning to China, 1949-1955,” was delivered at the Department of History, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, in June 2014.

Faculty News


Lindsay StarkeyDuring the past year, Dr. Starkey presented three papers at professional conferences: “Gangrene or Cancer? The Decay of the Body of the Church in John Calvin’s Exegesis of 2 Timothy 2:17” at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in October 2013; “Sixteenth-Century European Conceptions of Water: Sea Voyages and the Disordering of the Universe” at The Renaissance Society of America Meeting, in New York, in March 2014; and “Characterizations of Water’s Failure to Flood the Earth in Sixteenth-Century Natural Philosophical Texts” at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference in New Orleans, in October 2014.

Richard Steigmann-GallRichard Steigmann-Gall took a break from his “Germany Study Abroad” class last Spring, but is happy to be resuming it again this May, during the Summer Intersession. He’ll be taking a class of undergraduates to Frankfurt, Erfurt, Dresden and Berlin, to talk about the country’s contentious and dramatic past, as well as the challenges it faces today. Steigmann-Gall expanded his study abroad teaching last September by giving an invited lecture to the Kent State University Florence Program. Some sixty students - some of them from other study abroad programs in Florence - game to hear him give a lecture on his book, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity. His visit, hosted by program director Fabrizio Ricciardelli, gave him a chance to discuss the Italian language edition of the book as well. On the publication front, Steigmann-Gall’s contribution to Jane Caplan’s volume, The Short Oxford History of Nazi Germany, was translated into Turkish as Hitler Almanyası by the Istanbul publishing house, İnkılap Kitabevi.

Elizabeth Smith-PryorDr. Smith-Pryor is researching and writing an article related to the Civil Rights/Black Power Era tentatively titled “‘Equal Opportunity is Not Enough’: The Urban League’s New Thrust, Black Power, White Foundations, and the Cleveland Street Academy Program, 1968-1975.” Her project explores how the Urban League, an African American social service agency and civil rights organization, tried to remain relevant in the urban North in the immediate post-Civil Rights era through its street academy program (SAP). In Cleveland, three local foundations as well as the federal government funded the SAP. Over the course of 2014, she has conducted research in the papers of the Cleveland branch of the Urban League at the Western Reserve Historical Society. She has also received special permission from the foundations to examine the pertinent files in the Western Reserve Historical Society. She continues to serve as a scholarly advisor to the Brooklyn Historical Society’s project “Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations: Mixed-Heritage Families in Brooklyn.” In June 2014, she attended an advisory committee meeting at the BHS and agreed to write a short article for inclusion in their educational materials. This project is a public programming series and oral history project, which examines mixed-heritage people and families, cultural hybridity, race, ethnicity, and identity. Currently in the planning phase, Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the New York State Council for the Humanities. The project will result in a multi-faceted interpretive website expected to be completed in 2015. For more information on the project check out: http://www.brooklynhistory.org/exhibitions/crossing_borders.html#pf.

Faculty News


Isolde ThyrêtTwo research trips to Russia highlighted Dr. Thyrêt’s professional activities during the last academic year. In September 2013 and in June 2014, she conducted research in Russian archives and libraries in Moscow and Tver, a provincial capital about one hundred miles to the northwest of Moscow. During the September trip she also presented a paper in Moscow at a conference sponsored by the Russian Academy of Sciences. The high point of Dr. Thyrêt’s June trip was a visit to the Nilovo-Stolobenskaia Hermitage in western Russia, the site of the shrine of an important early modern Russian Orthodox saint, who is the subject of her present book project. There, as the first American scholar invited to visit the hermitage, she examined local architecture, icons, and historical artifacts and consulted with the abbot and other monks about the cult of their patron saint. Dr. Thyrêt also published two articles last year. Her first article examines the interaction between paganism and Christianity in medieval Russia and was published in German in a collection of articles on the conversion of northern Europe in the Middle Ages. The second article analyzes the rivalry between two early modern Russian towns as revealed in a comparison of the hagiography of each town’s patron saint and the respective chronicle literature. This article was published in an international collection of essays centered on the theme of medieval saints and local identity.

Faculty News


New Fall 2014 Doctoral Students: (left to right) Stephanie Jannenga, Dan Farrell, Stephanie Vincent, Nick Mays, and Jacob House


Mathew BrundageMathew is nearing completion of his dissertation, “‘Where We Would Extend the Moral Power of Our Civilization’: American Cultural and Political Foreign Relations with China, 1842-1856.”

Jobadiah ChristiansenJobadiah is writing a thesis titled “Crucifix of Memory: Community and Identity in Greenville, Pennsylvania.” He participated in an archaeological field season in June, 2014 at Umm el-Jimal in Jordan with Calvin College and delivered “Lime Kilns in the Prehistoric through Byzantine Levant: Developing a Research Program of Ancient Lime Connections” at the Annual ASOR (American Schools of Oriental Research) Meeting in November 2014

Michele Curran CornellAfter passing her doctoral candidacy exams in October 2013 and her dissertation prospectus defense in April 2014, Michele has spent the past months developing and teaching her first courses: U.S. Formative Period (online) and U.S. Modern. This spring she will be teaching Modern World History. She reviewed Leslie C. Bell, Hard to Get: 20-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom, for the Oral History Journal and has another review forthcoming. She has conducted dissertation research at Gettysburg College, the Military History Institute at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Bowling Green State University. Her research has been supported by the General and Mrs. Matthew Ridgway Military History Grant.

Denise JenisonDenise presented papers drawn from her dissertation work at three different conferences: the Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference in March 2014, where she won the Best Panel Presentation prize; the Reference Cultures and Imagined Empires in Western History conference held at Utrecht University, Netherlands, in July 2014; and the Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, in November 2014.

Max MoneganMax is a social studies teacher at Bio-Med Science Academy in Rootstown as well as coach for the Literacy Design Collaborative. In November, he presented “Increasing Motivation in Social Media and Historical Empathy” at the National Council for the Social Studies Annual Meeting in Boston.


Heather Scarlett Heather’s thesis research focuses on Civil War reenactors and how they are thought of in regards to education within the framework of public history and museums. It is unique in the fact that it will be a partially filmed documentary to go along with the written chapters. She is a member of the board of trustees for the Portage County Historical Society where she helps with multi-media content on the website and with various other projects.

Philip ShackelfordAfter receiving his B.A. in history from Kent State in May 2014, Philip commenced graduate study in the department. His Senior Seminar paper, “Signals Intelligence and a Balance of Power: The Argument for Electronic Espionage during the Early Cold War,” received an Honorable Mention from the Annual Cold War Essay Contest sponsored by the John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis at the Virginia Military Institute and the Kent State University History Department’s Gold Pen Award. In March, he was awarded “Best Paper” for his presentation of his Senior Seminar paper at the 2014 Ohio Regional Phi Alpha Theta Conference at Ohio Northern University. During the summer of 2013, Philip completed an internship with the Rock & Roll Hall Library & Archives. He is serving as president of Kent State’s chapter of Phi Alpha Theta for the 2014-2015 academic year.

Cyrus MooreSince starting the graduate program here at KSU, Cyrus has studied the Ohio National Guard from the Civil War up to the Spanish-American War, which will be the subject of his Master’s thesis. His research has included many original documents including Ohio Adjutant General’s Reports and soldiers’ memoirs.

Mallory Neal Mallory attended the New York State Association of European Historians (NYSAEH) conference during the fall semester. In her capacity as editorial assistant on Civil War History this semester, she attended the Southern Historical Association conference in November, acting as social media manager (tweeting the panels, attending the reception, etc.). Her dissertation research explores the relationship between motherhood, loyalty, and citizenship during World War II in France.

Leon PerkowskiLeon is working full-time as the head of Air War College Distance Learning, which provides Air War College’s senior developmental education in an online format to more than 7,000 rising DoD leaders worldwide, and also serves as a member of the Air University’s faculty senate. Leon is working on the final two chapters of his dissertation and will present a paper drawn from his research, “Military Resistance to Nixon’s Troop Reduction in South Korea, 1969-1971,” at the Society for Military History conference in April. He and his wife miss autumn in Kent.



Robert W. Sidwell Robert’s dissertation work is well under way. Over the summer he conducted research at the Virginia Historical Society (from which he received a Mellon Fellowship) and the University of Virginia. In addition to publishing a book review on H-CivWar , he presented a number of papers: “On-the-Job Training: General Robert E. Lee’s Personal Staff, 1861-1862,” at the Phi Alpha Theta History Research Symposium at Kent State University in March 2014; “Forging an Effective Team: General Robert E. Lee’s Selection of His Personal Staff,” at the Ohio Academy of History Conference at The Ohio State University in April 2014; and “The Battle of Cheat Mountain,” at the Zanesville Civil War Round Table, Zanesville, Ohio, in September 2014. He also has a future speaking engagement at the Cuyahoga Falls Civil War Round Table this coming June.

Whitney Stalnaker Whitney began her Master’s work in August with a concentration in public history. She plans to focus her research on the Holocaust, with particular emphasis on the representation of Anne Frank’s diary. While pursuing her B.A. work at Glenville State College in West Virginia, she coordinated the Anne Frank Project, an educational program for secondary students aimed at enriching their knowledge of the Holocaust and Anne Frank’s story through museum exhibits, music, and theatrical production. Currently, she is pursuing participation in the study abroad exchange program to Wurzburg, Germany, for the fall 2015 semester.


Stephanie Vincent, Recipient of University Fellowship, 2014: (left to right) President Beverly Warren, Stephanie Vincent, Provost Todd Diacon

Stephanie VincentSince successfully defending her dissertation prospectus, Stephanie has conducted research in Syracuse, NY, Columbus, OH, and Newell, WV. She has published book reviews in Pennsylvania History and the Oral History Review, served as a manuscript referee for Enterprise and Society, and presented at the From Burned Over to Rusted Out regional conference at the University of Rochester. In addition to serving as a guest lecturer on May 4th for a summer 2014 Gilder-Lehrman Institute for teachers, she was selected as winner of a 2014-2015 Kent State University Fellowship.


M.A. Theses Completed, 2013-2014

Ph.D. Dissertations Completed, 2013-2014

Lauren Cengel“Making Meaning and Connections: A Study of the Interpretation and Education Practices for the Medieval Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art”

Jesse Curtis“Awakening the Nation: Mississippi Senator John C. Stennis, the White Countermovement, and the Rise of Colorblind Conservatism, 1947-1964”

Patrick Finnen“Strange Times: The Language of Illness and Malaise in Interwar France”

Michael Goodnough“The Campus at Carnival: The Students for a Democratic Society’s Heteroglossic Challenge of Unitary Language Authority at Three Ohio Universities, 1967-1970”

Edward Koltonski“Written in Blood: Negotiating Public Reaction and Professional Objectivity in the Media to the Wayside Murder in Youngstown, Ohio, 1876-1877”

Jonathan Lower“The Romance of Lead Belly: Race, Identity, and Authenticity in American Blues Music”

Nicholas Mays“Northern Redemption: Martin Luther King, the United Pastors Association, and the Civil Rights Struggle in Cleveland, Ohio”

Kim Carey“Straddling the Color Line: Social and Political Power of African American Elites in Charleston, New Orleans, and Cleveland, 1880-1920”

Gregory Jones“They Fought the War Together: Southeastern Ohio’s Soldiers and Their Families During the Civil War”

Melissa Steinmetz“National Insecurity in the Nuclear Age: Cold War Manhood and the Gendered Discourse of U.S. Survival, 1945-1960”

Timothy Wintour“The Buck Starts Here: The Federal Reserve and Monetary Politics from World War to Cold War, 1941-1951”


Lauren (Cengel) Casale (M.A. 2014)

Lauren has been working as a Museum Educator at the Western Reserve Historical Society since April, where she designs and implements educational programs for elementary-school-age children and senior adults onsite and at outreach locations. She also assists in the implementation of public programming that the WRHS offers. In October, she began working part time at the new Cleveland office of Cowan’s Auctions, where she assists in bringing in consignments, researching and cataloging items, and preparing the showroom for auctions.

Jason Csehi (B.A. 2005, M.A. 2009)

Jason is working as an adjunct instructor at both KSU, Ashtabula and Stark State College while continuing to pursue a law degree at the Cleveland Marshall College of Law, where he is the Legal Research and Writing Grammar Tutor, a member of the Constitutional Law Moot Court Team, and chapter president of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. From time to time, he gives presentations at conferences and hosts workshops for students to improve their writing. He also volunteers at the Kent Campus Writing Center.

Jesse Curtis (M.A. 2014)

Jesse has just begun doctoral study at Temple University. He is also working on publishing part of his M.A. thesis.

Michael Deck (B.A. 2012)

Michael was commissioned as an officer in the United States Air Force upon graduation. He attended Undergraduate Pilot Training in Columbus, MS, for a year and a half and graduated in October 2013 and then attended Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training at Fairchild AFB, Washington during the winter. He earned his first choice assignment to fly the KC-10A Extender at Travis AFB, CA (near San Francisco), where he currently resides. Mike has been to many countries all over the world, especially in the Pacific region, and is currently a pilot deployed to SW Asia.

Alumni News

Robert Barbato (B.A. 2013)

Robert has been employed as a sales specialist at Lowe’s since graduation while learning Italian, studying up on Medieval Italy, and saving money to eventually further his educational career.

Todd Bauknecht (B.A. 2012)

Todd is a German and history (freshman World History) teacher at Norwalk Catholic Schools. He recently returned from a trip to Germany with the Friendship Connection.

Colleen Benoit (M.A. 2011)

Colleen worked for six months after graduation as the History Associate for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. For the past three years, she was worked as an Archivist for History Associates, Inc. in Washington, D.C. There she managed several archival processing contracts for the National Park Service and is currently implementing an archival program for a Fortune 500 company. In August, she passed the Certified Archivist exam and was promoted to a supervisory role. She also plays an active part in coordinating History Associates’ professional development activities.

Ilya Braverman (M.A. 2012)

Ilya spent a year in his hometown of Milwaukee, WI, working for a community non-profit organization. In December 2013, he relocated to Washington, DC, having accepted a position at J Street, a political advocacy organization that works to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a member of the development operations team, he supports multiple fundraising staff around the country that raise money for direct-lobbying as well as for J Street endorsed congressional and senatorial candidates in an effort to change the conversation on Israel and the conflict in the United States.


Michelle Italia-Walker (B.A. 2012)

Michelle recently began the Master of Library and Information Science program here at Kent State University with a specialization in Museum Studies and is currently a Student Employee in the Network and Telecommunication Services group that is part of the Information Services group. She has remained active in the history field, currently consulting with the Mogadore Historical Society on a complete makeover of its historic house and train depot. Michelle is consulting with them on preservation of their objects, as well as, installing new exhibits. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees at the Portage County Historical Society and Museum as well as head of the Society’s archives. During her final semester at KSU, she began working on a documentary as a historical researcher with the School of Journalism. Titled “Séances and Slot Machines: The Story of Brady Lake Park,” it was released this summer to the Western Reserve Public Media and has aired several times. Before applying to the MLIS program, she spent a season working at Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens. Michelle and her husband have just finished building a new house in Brimfield Twp. They are thrilled to be putting down roots here in the Kent area. A transplant from Pittsburgh, Michelle has fallen in love with Kent and enjoys being a part of not only the KSU family but also the local community.

Gregory Jones (Ph.D. 2013)

Gregory has been teaching in the History and Humanities Department at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, PA.

Alumni News

Kurt Eberly (Ph.D. 2011)

Kurt continues to teach at Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach, VA. His primary teaching assignments are Western Civ. I and World Civ. I, with an occasional U.S. to 1877 thrown in. He and his wife have two boys who keep them very busy.

Kristen Egan (B.A. 2013)

Kristen moved to Montana after graduation to attend the University of Montana’s Master of Education program. While establishing residency, she is working at Profiles International, a logistics company, as an Accounts Receivable Representative. She continues to serve in the Army National Guard.

Patrick Finnen (M.A. 2014)

Patrick is currently teaching part time at the University of Akron while researching doctoral programs.

Monika Flaschka (M.A. 2004, Ph.D. 2009)

Monika is in her second year as a visiting assistant professor of history at Ohio University. Her History of Women in Modern Europe won The Ohio University History Association best class award for 2013-2014.

Steven Haynes (Ph.D. 2012)

Steven won the Ohio Academy of History’s 2014 Outstanding Dissertation Award for “Alternative Vision: The United States, Latin America, and the League of Nations during the Republican Ascendancy.” He was recently awarded tenure at Dodge City Community College.


Caitlin (Dillehay) McCallum (B.A. 2013)

Caitlin is in the third semester of the Master of Library and Information Science Program here at Kent State University. A Graduate Student Assistant at the Special Collections and Archives in the Main Library, she previously held a position as a Graduate Student Assistant at the Architecture Library on campus.

Lindsey (Calderwood) McLaughlin (B.A. 2006, M.A. 2011)

Lindsey is currently employed as a full-time social studies instructor at Bio-Med Science Academy in Rootstown, Ohio, a highly ranked 4-year STEM+M High School located on the camps of Northeast Ohio Medical University. She is also an adjunct faculty member at KSU, Stark, where she teaches a course in social studies methods each spring, something she enjoys very much.

Drew Merchant (B.A. 2013)

Drew completed the Kent State Police Academy in May 2014 and is working full time at Kent Village Apartments while pursuing his career in law enforcement.

So Mizoguchi (M.A. 2010)

So is currently a third-year doctoral student in history at Michigan State University. After graduating from Kent State University, he spent a year at Rikkyo University, Tokyo, and from 2011-2012, Rikkyo University funded his work as a visiting graduate researcher at University of Maryland College Park. He has published two articles, “Nixon-Kissinger Diplomacy and South Asia 1969-71: Revisiting ‘Tilt Policy,’” in St. Paul’s Review of Law and Politics and “Schooling for Democracy: Michigan State University and Cold War Education in American-Occupied Okinawa in the 1950s,” in the Virginia Review of Asian Studies.

Alumni News

Miriam Kahn (Ph.D. 2011)

Miriam in 2013 nominated a nineteen-building farm for the National Register of Historic Places. The research is complete and the nomination was successful, placing the Bulen House and Farm on the National Register of Historic Places in February 2014 as entry 14000028. Miriam’s second publication is “Moving Types,” which is currently in press. This short publication contains twelve vignettes on the history of printing, printers, and printing companies in Ohio from 1790 through the present. It will be available in late December 2014. In October 2014, Miriam was the keynote speaker for the Columbus Jewish Book Fair One Book, One Community Project. Her lecture, “Uncovering our Sacred Past—An Introduction to the Cairo Genizah,” provided historical and archaeological background for Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole’s book Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza.

Edward Koltonski (B.A. 2011, M.A. 2013)

Edward is enrolled in the School of Library and Information Science where he is concentrating on academic reference librarianship and instruction. He currently works for Campus Libraries at Main Reference and the Map Library. After graduating, he hopes to find employment at a university library that will, among all the other responsibilities of reference work, allow him to work as a subject reference librarian for history.

Chad Lower (Ph.D. 2009)

Chad began a full-time history instructor position at Brazosport College in Lake Jackson, TX, in August 2014.

Jonathan Lower (B.A. 2012, M.A. 2014)

Jonathan is currently working on his doctorate at Buffalo and teaching early U.S. history.


Matthew Phillips (M.A. 2005, Ph.D. 2011)

Matthew has been busy teaching here on campus and at Notre Dame College since completing his dissertation. In addition to teaching a variety of introductory level courses, he has also developed such upper-division courses as The 1910s: A World of War and Revolution and The Imperial History of North America, 1400s-Present. He has published a book review on H-Empire and three entries in the forthcoming EUSI (Encyclopedia of U.S. Intelligence), edited by Greg Moore: “Zimmermann Note,” “Committee of Secret Correspondence,” and “Committee of Foreign Affairs.” Currently, he’s in the thick of research on an off-shoot from one of his dissertation chapters, looking at the onset of the U.S. occupation of Haiti from the perspective of varying worldviews, including Woodrow Wilson’s; the rural, Vodou-based population; and the Francophone Haitian elite, which was involved in state activities including diplomacy at Versailles in 1919 and in the resulting League of Nations. Ultimately, he hopes to use this as a case study illustrating the assimilative imperialism of the ideals behind Versailles: the nation-state system; financial capitalism; and other key tenets of liberal internationalism.

Dionna Richardson (LaRue) (B.A. 2007, M.A. 2011)

Dionna is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Akron, currently writing a dissertation on colonized women in the British and French colonial Caribbean and planning to graduate in the spring of 2016. She teaches world history, humanities, the history of India, and Latin American history at UA and at Notre Dame College in South Euclid. She also co-founded an association at UA for history graduate students (a sort of support association), and finally, she created and will continue to run a summer study abroad program in cooperation with the history department at the Université du Maine in Le Mans, France.

Alumni News

Caleb Myatt (B.A. 2013)

Caleb is in his first semester as a Master’s student in history at George Mason University.

Louie Myers (B.A. 2014)

Louie is attending the University of Idaho College of Law.

John Norris (M.A. 2012)

John is in his fourteenth year teaching United States History and AP American Government and Politics at Walsh Jesuit High School, where he currently serves as Social Studies Department Chair. He is also entering his tenth year as the Head Varsity Basketball Coach for the Men’s program at WJHS. He and his wife, fellow KSU alum Teresa (Witherspoon), have been married for three years and reside in Cuyahoga Falls.

John Penca (B.A. 2013)

John has been continuously employed since graduation, and for the last year has been with Enterprise Rent a Car, where he is on track for his first promotion in the coming months. He and his wife bought their first home in March and are expecting their first child in May.

Jordan Phillips (B.A. 2012)

Jordan is pursuing Master’s work in Kent State University’s School of Public Health with a concentration in environmental health sciences.


Timothy Wintour (Ph.D. 2013)

Timothy has continued to work as an adjunct instructor here in the department. He recently attended the conference The UN and the Post-War Global Order: Bretton Woods in Perspective at the Roosevelt Study Center in Middelburg in the Netherlands, where he presented “‘New Lanes in Uncharted Seas’: The Federal Reserve and the Political Economy of Bretton Woods” and served as a discussant. Current plans are to produce an edited conference volume with the aim of publishing in time for December 2015, the seventieth anniversary of the deadline for nations to adopt the Bretton Woods Agreements. Tim is currently working on revising his conference paper for that volume.

Alumni News

John Walker (Ph.D. 2009)

John published Bracketing the Enemy: Forward Observers in World War II in August 2013 with the University of Oklahoma Press. He and his wife Alice are enjoying their three grandchildren, including two who arrived after he finished his degree. As he reports, “Life is good!”

Emily Wicks (M.A. 2012)

Emily completed an MLIS degree at KSU specializing in Museum Studies and Archival Management after earning her history Master’s. She worked for several months at the ACLU of Ohio as a History Associate and since October 2013, has worked at the University of Connecticut’s Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry as Program Assistant.


Visit the Department’s Webpagehttp://www.kent.edu/cas/historyOur webpage has a great deal of helpful information.

Prospective students and current students can find information on degree requirements and how to apply to our graduate programs.

Profiles of our faculty and graduate students are also available on the webpage.

To have your story featured in our next Departmental Newsletter, please send us your updates and photos to [email protected].

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