[{"id":669,"date":"2026-03-31T12:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/?p=669"},"modified":"2026-03-31T12:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:01:13","slug":"au-doctoral-student-and-smithsonian-archivist-publishes-new-book-on-native-american-anthropologists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/2026\/03\/31\/au-doctoral-student-and-smithsonian-archivist-publishes-new-book-on-native-american-anthropologists\/","title":{"rendered":"AU Doctoral Student and Smithsonian Archivist Publishes New Book on Native American Anthropologists"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nathan Sowry first began his doctoral studies in AU\u2019s History Department in Fall 2015, working under the tutelage of Profs. Dan Kerr, Kate Haulman, and Malgorzata Rymsza-Pawlowska. Just one decade later\u2014a quick turnaround time in this field\u2014the fascinating results of his research have been published in a new book: Turning the Power: Indian Boarding Schools, Native American Anthropologists, and the Race to Preserve Indigenous Cultures<\/em> (University of Nebraska Press, 2025). In this intriguing study, Sowry examines the lives of some ten little-known Native American figures who were forced into the assimilationist boarding school system of early twentieth-century America, only to emerge later as key informants for some of the first anthropological treatments of their Indigenous cultures. \u201cAll of them faced racism and abuse in Indian boarding schools that taught them to abandon their cultures,\u201d Sowry said. \u201cThen later all of them to varying degrees of success attempted to embrace and popularize the beauty of their cultures but were written out of the literature. I wanted to do what I could to tell their stories, which haven\u2019t been told before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Nathan Sowry, who completed his doctoral degree in history at AU, now works as a reference archivist at the National Museum of the American Indian. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Like many students, Sowry viewed AU as an attractive place to pursue his studies due to its stellar faculty and close proximity to many of the nation\u2019s premier museums and archives. Sowry has long enjoyed working in the world of museums and archives, first at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art on the National Mall and now in the archives of the National Museum of the American Indian in Suitland, Maryland. As a reference archivist, Sowry works mostly behind the scenes helping to identify, preserve, and facilitate access to objects in the collection. \u201cI thought that archives would involve working in a dusty basement full of cobwebs everywhere, and that\u2019s sort of what I was hoping it would be,\u201d he says. \u201cBut my job is much more public-facing than I thought it would be, and I\u2019ve really come to enjoy that aspect of the work.\u201d In addition to working with researchers who visit the archives, Sowry also helps Native American visitors who come to the facility to interact with the cultural belongings of their ancestors. \u201cI thought I was an introvert and wanted to hide from everyone, but the public liaison part of my job has turned out to be really rewarding.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sowry\u2019s own research has provided new and valuable perspectives on the lives of Native American intermediaries in the early twentieth century who found themselves caught between two worlds. One particularly intriguing profile that Sowry analyzes in Turning the Power<\/em> focuses on Florence and Louis Shotridge, a Tlingit couple from Alaska. \u201cI think Florence represents a really unique case because there were so few female Native anthropologists,\u201d he says, \u201cand there were so few opportunities that existed for Native peoples off of reservations.\u201d In order to advocate for their community and preserve what remained of their culture, Florence and her husband made the difficult decision to dress up in Plains Indian clothing during public engagement sessions in Pennsylvania and Los Angeles\u2014not what Alaska Natives wore, but rather what the general public expected \u201creal Indians\u201d to wear. \u201cIt\u2019s almost bittersweet to get their perspectives on how they had to portray Native peoples just to get an audience and be able to get out there and talk about their culture, for better or worse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nathan Sowry first began his doctoral studies in AU\u2019s History Department in Fall 2015, working under the tutelage of Profs. Dan Kerr, Kate Haulman, and Malgorzata Rymsza-Pawlowska. Just one decade later\u2014a quick turnaround time in this field\u2014the fascinating results of his research have been published in a new book: Turning the Power: Indian Boarding Schools, Native […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":664,"date":"2026-03-19T12:47:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/?p=664"},"modified":"2026-03-19T12:50:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:50:42","slug":"au-history-professor-undertakes-environmental-history-research-near-cologne-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/2026\/03\/19\/au-history-professor-undertakes-environmental-history-research-near-cologne-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"AU History Professor Undertakes Environmental History Research Near Cologne, Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Editor’s Note: In this fascinating post, AU History Professor Andrew Demshuk discusses his recent experiences conducting research on the environmental history of so-called “lost cities” in Germany.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Prof. Demshuk visits the Hambach Brown Coal Pit Mine (450 meters deep!) west of Cologne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This academic year I am enjoying a twelve-month fellowship from the Heinrich-Hertz-Foundation, which fosters scholarship in the humanities that is related to the German state of North-Rhine-Westphalia. It is exciting to be in Cologne: an ancient and fascinating city! My research actually concerns an area just west of Cologne, where enormous craters (as deep as 450 meters) are getting carved out by dinosaur-sized machines so that the industrial economy has access to brown coal. This has been going on for decades, in particular to fuel a chemical industry that has polluted some of the streams, notably a little creek called the Duffesbach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a \u201czombie creek,\u201d as we might call it, because since the 1960s it has been canalized and hidden, even though it was the only waterway to go through Cologne\u2019s city walls and power medieval mills in the old town before going into the Rhine. Bicycling along the former route of the creek was somewhat depressing. There is just cement in the city. Then in the first suburbs, you start to see a biologically dead canal here and there, until it ends at a chemical plant. The village next to that chemical plant\u2014called Knapsack\u2014disappeared in the early 1970s. It was torn down and evacuated, because the pollution was so bad. I had the chance in recent years to talk to many of the industrial workers and last surviving residents who knew what that place was like. The former village cemetery is still hidden behind some warehouses on old village land, because no one wanted to pay to move the graves. It\u2019s a peaceful and somewhat surreal \u201clost place.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

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Prof. Demshuk\u2019s bike \u2018Siegfried von Weidenhausen\u2019 on a street in the center of the vanished village of Knapsack near Cologne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Knapsack turned into a case study that I compared with a village south of Leipzig in East Germany that was also slated for destruction because of the same industries. Why did the West German village get destroyed? Why did the East German one survive? What does this tell us about the relationship between citizens and the state in each place? Between the local, the national, and the global? I\u2019m honored that the Journal of Modern History <\/em>wants to move ahead with my article. Most recently, I have been commuting by train up to the state archive in Duisburg to see troves of files. I\u2019ve also visited county archives, city archives, and materials people have stowed in their attics. The history I am writing about the creation of these coal pits, the devastation of villages, the attempts to recultivate brave new landscapes, the fraught memory cultures, and evolving protest movements against coal devastation are all juxtaposed against the story in former East Germany south of Leipzig: a devastated cultural landscape I know intimately well after twenty years of research there on various projects, and where the same dirty fuel was excavated with the same technologies from a moonscape of coal pits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, simultaneous to this enormous environmental history project on the politics of coal pits in East and West Germany, I\u2019m also writing a new history of the 1989 Revolution and \u201cWende\u201d transformations of the 1990s from the perspective of Leipzig\u2014the \u201ccapital\u201d of the Peaceful Revolution before the Fall of the Wall\u2014with emphases on environmental movements and the restoration of devastated urban spaces. This story of urban patriotism and revolution needs to get completed this year so that it can come out with an academic press in time for 2029\u2014the 40th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of the revolution\u2014and 80 years after the founding of East Germany. After experiencing the outbreak of revolutions in Tbilisi in Fall 2024 and watching the rise and fall of revolutions elsewhere against tyranny, the historical context, progression, and outcome of 1989 looms large, as does the historical \u201cuses\u201d of it, often by those who spin 1989 and the 1990s as something of a tragedy today, rather than an overcoming of repression. To that end, a great deal of my research is exploring the 1990s and 2000s. The time is ripe to study these decades, because the witnesses are retiring, even dying out, and their materials are seldom going into archives, even though especially in post-communist states this was the era I which the \u201cworld we live in now\u201d was being made.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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The cover of Prof. Demshuk’s most recent book, The Filthiest Village in Europe: Grassroots Ecology and the Collapse of East Germany<\/em> (Cornell University Press, 2026). <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This was an experience I also appreciated when I researched my book The Filthiest Village in Europe: Grassroots Ecology and the Collapse of East Germany,<\/em> which just came out with Cornell University Press! As an outsider exploring these eras and having a chance to interact with witnesses who have never been questioned before, I was able to gather unique materials for that project that broke down stereotypes to show how East Germans and West Germany creatively worked together to build a better world after 1989. Ordinary people in often obscure retirement places often have remarkable materials, and I feel deeply grateful for this time to immerse. Right now I\u2019m off to Berlin for two days to meet colleagues and enter the home of a retired architect who has 86 binders of photos, blueprints, and photos about a failed project to create the ecological urban garden of tomorrow in immediate post-1989 Leipzig. He was a West German. His partners were East German. The story narrates much about what was possible but also sometimes risky in the 1990s, based on the ambitions and sometimes frailties of complicated human beings. History gets messy at the biographical level. But it really comes to life too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: In this fascinating post, AU History Professor Andrew Demshuk discusses his recent experiences conducting research on the environmental history of so-called “lost cities” in Germany. This academic year I am enjoying a twelve-month fellowship from the Heinrich-Hertz-Foundation, which fosters scholarship in the humanities that is related to the German state of North-Rhine-Westphalia. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":658,"date":"2026-03-10T12:42:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/?p=658"},"modified":"2026-03-10T12:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:46:16","slug":"student-run-historical-journal-making-an-impact-at-au","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/2026\/03\/10\/student-run-historical-journal-making-an-impact-at-au\/","title":{"rendered":"Student-Run Historical Journal Making An Impact at AU"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The cover of the Fall 2025 issue of Khaldun<\/em>, which features five fascinating articles researched and written by AU undergraduate students.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Lovers of history will be delighted to learn about a new scholarly journal run almost entirely by a dedicated group of AU undergraduate students: The Khaldun Journal of Historical Studies<\/a><\/em>. Originally founded by AU history major Riley Wells in 2024 as the William H. Carney Historical Review<\/em>, the journal has since been renamed after Ibn Khaldun, a prominent 14th<\/sup>-century Arab and Muslim scholar and philosopher. According to AU junior Sri Vellakkat, who currently serves as editor-in-chief of Khaldun<\/em>, \u201che represents a global-minded perspective that is appropriate for a global-minded school, and it is important to pay homage to those who came before us, especially those who have not been truly acknowledged in popular culture.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

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Sri Vellakkat, a junior SIS major, currently serves as editor-in-chief of Khaldun<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Though grounded in history, Khaldun<\/em> boasts a diverse editorial staff with a wide range of intellectual interests, as is evident from the fact that Vellakkat himself is an SIS major who studies American foreign policy and national security. \u201cCAS and SIS should be interconnected much more than they are,\u201d Vellakkat says, \u201csince there is so much overlap with history that people in both disciplines need to be aware of. Not only that, but they work together in brilliant ways.\u201d Apart from Vellakkat, many of the journal\u2019s lead editors are history majors, such as Martha Garcia, who currently serves as business editor. \u201cI\u2019ve always been a really curious person,\u201d Garcia says, \u201cand I like to get out of my sphere of knowledge to get new perspectives on topics I hadn\u2019t thought about before. Just being in a space with other people who enjoy history, regardless of their background, is really nice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Martha Garcia, a senior history major, currently serves as business editor of Khaldun<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The editors of Khaldun<\/em> welcome submissions<\/a><\/strong> from any AU student with a passion for history\u2014March 22 is the deadline for Spring 2026 submissions. Each submission undergoes a rigorous process of review, led by a lead editor and a small group of 3-4 staff members. The editor-in-chief assigns each group a submission to review, along with a preferred timeline. \u201cEach member of the group will then read the submission and discuss what sort of suggestions, comments, and edits we want to send back to the author,\u201d says Garcia. \u201cThis process eventually enables us to determine which articles we want to move forward with.\u201d The number of submissions has begun to grow in recent months, which Vellakkat sees as a promising sign of the journal\u2019s visibility. \u201cThis upcoming issue will be the first in which we will publish articles by students that none of the editors know personally,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n

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The journal pays tribute to Ibn Khaldun, a prominent 14th<\/sup>-century Arab and Muslim scholar and philosopher.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Most of the editorial work of producing the journal is done asynchronously, which allows for greater flexibility with everyone\u2019s busy schedules. Vellakkat estimates that he typically spends about 1-2 hours on the journal per week, but this can spike dramatically during the production crunch, reaching anywhere between 10-20 hours. Among the many tasks that have to be handled by Khaldun<\/em>\u2019s editorial staff are page layout and graphics, copyediting, and communication with the printer in downtown D.C. When all is said and done, about 125 copies of the print journal are distributed for free throughout campus. Issues are also available in electronic format on the journal\u2019s website<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the many students who bring each issue of Khaldun<\/em> to fruition, Prof. Anton Fedyashin in the History Department serves as faculty advisor. \u201cDr. Fedyashin has been incredible to work with and always has time to meet with me and answer my questions,\u201d Vellakkat says. As faculty advisor, Dr. Fedyashin has been a sounding board about strategic decisions at the journal. \u201cI meet with Sri regularly and a lot of the staff have either been or are currently in my classes,\u201d Fedyashin says. \u201cBut the students do everything by themselves, and the journal is entirely their achievement. The latest issue is so beautifully done that we have been handing out copies to prospective AU students and their parents during New Eagle events\u2014that\u2019s how proud the Department is of the students\u2019 accomplishment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lovers of history will be delighted to learn about a new scholarly journal run almost entirely by a dedicated group of AU undergraduate students: The Khaldun Journal of Historical Studies. Originally founded by AU history major Riley Wells in 2024 as the William H. Carney Historical Review, the journal has since been renamed after Ibn Khaldun, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":653,"date":"2026-03-02T15:51:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T20:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/?p=653"},"modified":"2026-03-02T15:52:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T20:52:29","slug":"au-history-major-teaches-high-school-students-how-to-talk-about-the-holocaust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/2026\/03\/02\/au-history-major-teaches-high-school-students-how-to-talk-about-the-holocaust\/","title":{"rendered":"AU History Major Teaches High School Students How to Talk About the Holocaust"},"content":{"rendered":"

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AU history major and graduating senior Annalise Vezina talks to Rose-Helene Spreiregen, a Holocaust survivor. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Having grown up in the Washington, D.C. area surrounded by many of the world\u2019s premier museums, AU graduating senior Annalise Vezina always knew that she wanted to study history one day. \u201cI went into college already knowing that I wanted to major in history,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are just so many things to learn about, and the deeper you go you realize there is even more to learn.\u201d Fluent in French, Vezina developed a passion for European history and the history of the Holocaust, which eventually led to a fascinating internship at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. \u201cThere are so few Holocaust survivors nowadays,\u201d Vezina says. \u201cYou get to know them in a different way than you would just listening to testimony and writing papers about it.\u201d Since June 2024, Vezina has worked as an intern for both the museum\u2019s Youth and Community Programs and its Social Team. In this dual capacity, she leads weekend classes for high school students while also helping to create content for the museum\u2019s social media platforms, among other responsibilities. <\/p>\n\n\n

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As part of the “Bringing the Lessons Home” program at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Vezina teaches high school students how to give a two-hour tour of the museum’s Permanent Exhibition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One of her favorite programs is called \u201cBringing the Lessons Home,\u201d in which she teaches high school students how to give a two-hour tour of the museum\u2019s Permanent Exhibition, the same program she went through in ninth grade. \u201cYou can\u2019t just inundate them with information, which can be very depressing,\u201d Vezina says. \u201cYou have to be able to make a personal connection with them and find a way to get to the emotion of the topic at hand. Otherwise you will lose your audience.\u201d The more she learns about the Holocaust, the harder it is to fit everything she wants to say into a two-hour tour. \u201cEvery year my tour of the Permanent Exhibition gets longer and longer because I learn more stories and contextualizing details that I want to tell. Then suddenly my tour was three hours long!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vezina\u2019s duties with the Social Team include researching and writing content for the Museum\u2019s social media accounts, such as Instagram and Facebook. \u201cI love this type of work because it is very historically grounded and every piece of content goes through multiple rounds of review,\u201d she says. The impact of her work can feel very different depending on the audience. With the museum\u2019s social media accounts, Vezina\u2019s work can reach a global audience. \u201cThe museum has about three million followers across all platforms,\u201d she says, \u201cso three million people or more will read whatever you\u2019re posting.\u201d In the classroom, however, Vezina works with approximately fifty high school students, spending five hours per day once a week over the course of fourteen weeks. Though her audience is smaller, the impact is more personal. \u201cYou can see the reactions of the students firsthand and watch them grow.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

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One of the many exhibits at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that Vezina integrates into her tours.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having grown up in the Washington, D.C. area surrounded by many of the world\u2019s premier museums, AU graduating senior Annalise Vezina always knew that she wanted to study history one day. \u201cI went into college already knowing that I wanted to major in history,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are just so many things to learn about, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":643,"date":"2026-02-20T14:30:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T19:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/?p=643"},"modified":"2026-02-20T14:58:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T19:58:45","slug":"au-history-professor-awarded-guggenheim-fellowship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/2026\/02\/20\/au-history-professor-awarded-guggenheim-fellowship\/","title":{"rendered":"AU History Professor Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Laura Beers, a professor of modern British history in AU\u2019s History Department, was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2025, one of many prestigious awards that her work has garnered in recent years. The Guggenheim Fellowship, which is highly selective, is intended to provide accomplished mid-career professionals with the financial support and freedom to work on projects that are meaningful to them. This is certainly the case with Prof. Beers, who is using her time as a Guggenheim fellow to work on her next book on the politics of assisted reproduction and surrogacy since the birth of the world\u2019s first in-vitro fertilization (IVF) baby in Oldham, Britain in July 1978. Prof. Beers has written about her own personal experience with IVF and is widely sought out in media circles as an expert commentator on public debates about assisted reproductive technology, abortion, and perceptions of womanhood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visibility of these issues and importance of Prof. Beers\u2019 research on the history of public debates over IVF procedures has only grown in recent years. In 2023, it was estimated that twelve million children had been born via IVF worldwide, with nearly two percent of all live births in the United States the result of IVF and other artificial reproductive technologies. IVF is particularly common here in Washington, DC, where 1 in 15 babies born are conceived via IVF. Yet, as Beers notes, \u201cpolicymakers have failed to come to terms with the ethical and social implications of assisted reproduction. The prominence of debates over IVF funding and the status of unborn embryos in recent years underscores the ongoing uncertainty about what role technologies like IVF, surrogacy, egg freezing and genetic testing should play in 21st<\/sup> century society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Prof. Beers\u2019 Guggenheim Fellowship joins a long list of honors and recognitions that has been garnered by her groundbreaking work. Her latest book, Orwell\u2019s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century<\/em> (WW Norton), won the 45th<\/sup> Los Angeles Times<\/em> Book Prize for Biography and was also named as one of the New Yorker\u2019s<\/em> \u201cBest Books of 2024.\u201d It was inspired in part by Prof. Beers\u2019 own experience in the classroom with AU undergraduate students in her course HIST 235: \u201cThe West in Crisis, 1900\u20131945,\u201d where Orwell\u2019s texts and ideas constituted a major portion of intellectual debate and discussion. Orwell\u2019s Ghosts<\/em> is Prof. Beers\u2019 third book, which follows up on the success of Red Ellen: The Life of Ellen Wilkinson, Socialist, Feminist, Internationalist<\/em> (Harvard University Press, 2016), which received the Stansky Award for best book published in field of modern British history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laura Beers, a professor of modern British history in AU\u2019s History Department, was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2025, one of many prestigious awards that her work has garnered in recent years. The Guggenheim Fellowship, which is highly selective, is intended to provide accomplished mid-career professionals with the financial support and freedom to work on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":629,"date":"2026-02-13T12:19:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/?p=629"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:23:09","slug":"public-history-student-curates-exhibits-about-aus-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/2026\/02\/13\/public-history-student-curates-exhibits-about-aus-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Public History Student Curates Exhibits about AU’s Past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sophia Moody, a second-year student in the Public History MA program at AU, has curated three fascinating exhibits during her time as an Outreach Fellow for the University Library\u2019s Archives and Special Collections. Visitors to the first floor of Bender Library can take in 100 Years of Undergrad<\/em>, which documents various aspects of AU student life during the first year of undergraduate classes in 1925\u201326. During the course of her research, Moody discovered that the first graduating class of undergrads a century ago consisted of just six students, who paid two hundred dollars a year for tuition. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Second-year Public History MA student Sophia Moody in front of her 100 Years of Undergrad<\/em> exhibit in Bender Library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The exhibit she assembled for display includes precious mementos of their era, including an \u201cInstructor\u2019s Class Card,\u201d an admissions application, and the original \u201cMarshal\u2019s Mace\u201d used in the graduation ceremonies. Besides these fascinating artifacts, during the course of her research Moody also discovered a series of letters which revealed that AU\u2019s chancellor had initially opposed admitting African-American students to the new undergraduate program. Through this research, she had to learn \u201chow to present difficult aspects of an institution\u2019s history,\u201d Moody said. \u201cI believe it is essential to present history in its full complexity\u2014even when it reflects uncomfortable truths about an institution\u2019s past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibit also reveals what some members of the Class of 1926 did after graduation: Claude Hunter became an engineer with the Maryland State Roads Commission, Dorothea McDowell became the Executive Director of the YWCA in Syria and Lebanon, and Dorothy Quincy Smith became an avid world traveler. \u201cI have truly enjoyed working as an Outreach Fellow,\u201d Moody said. \u201cI believe that I have learned a great deal about how to research and design an exhibit. I am passionate about making history accessible to the public and have learned much about how to use thematic design to bring an era or narrative to life for the visitor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Replicas of an AU “Instructor’s Class Card” from January 1926.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Those who spend time in the Spring Valley Building can also catch Moody\u2019s second exhibit, Reading During a Revolution: A Look at 18th<\/sup> Century Literature<\/em>, which was developed around the theme of the nation\u2019s 250-year anniversary. By examining the books held in AU\u2019s archives that were originally published between 1770 to 1780, Moody provides an analytical snapshot of American reading tastes two and a half centuries ago. \u201cMy first exhibit used an array of textual documents presented in a traditional case,\u201d Moody said, \u201cbut my next exhibit was solely focused on books, and I had to learn how to properly display these artifacts so as not to damage the covers.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Most recently, Moody has also curated a digitally forward exhibit, Broadcasting Live<\/em>, which details the long history of student-run radio and television at AU. By exploring the various student-run radio and television stations on campus, Moody\u2019s third exhibit will soon be displayed in Bender Library to highlight the dedication of past students to pursuing campus-based broadcasting media as an extracurricular activity or as a step towards a future career. The exhibit was built around audio-visual material. Therefore, Moody was \u201cchallenged to present the materials in yet another format and ultimately decided to display clips from the students\u2019 original television shows in the 1980s.\u201d She is now beginning research for a new exhibit on AU\u2019s archives in conjunction with the university\u2019s events for the nation\u2019s 250th<\/sup> anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking ahead, Moody has recently started an internship with the National Museum of American History, where she assists several curators in the Office of Curatorial Affairs with updating their collection records in the database. Having made the most of these invaluable opportunities to put her public history studies into practice, Moody hopes to work in museums in the D.C. area after graduation. \u201cI had never independently created an exhibit before,\u201d she said, \u201cbut after completing my first exhibit I was so proud and excited that I knew for certain that I had chosen the right career for me. I am very grateful to AU for the opportunities to learn how to design and curate exhibits and am devoted to continuing to promote the university\u2019s archives throughout the remainder of my fellowship.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sophia Moody, a second-year student in the Public History MA program at AU, has curated three fascinating exhibits during her time as an Outreach Fellow for the University Library\u2019s Archives and Special Collections. Visitors to the first floor of Bender Library can take in 100 Years of Undergrad, which documents various aspects of AU student life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":614,"date":"2023-01-06T16:00:54","date_gmt":"2023-01-06T21:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/?p=614"},"modified":"2023-01-06T16:04:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T21:04:38","slug":"au-alum-keeps-memory-of-holocaust-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/2023\/01\/06\/au-alum-keeps-memory-of-holocaust-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"AU Alum Keeps Memory of Holocaust Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Eisen is frequently invited to give public speeches about the Holocaust and her own experiences growing up as the child of a Holocaust survivor.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

The first time Anna Salton Eisen ever heard her father speak about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp was in an AU history class. In the early 1980s, Eisen took a course taught by retired professor Richard Breitman on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. \u201cThat was the beginning of a personal journey of discovery that has continued to the present day,\u201d Eisen said. When she told Prof. Breitman her father was a Holocaust survivor, Breitman invited him to come and speak to the class. \u201cI had never heard my father speak about the Holocaust before,\u201d she said. \u201cIt always seemed like something forbidden to talk about in my childhood. But I think he was waiting to be asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After she graduated from AU in 1984 with a degree in public communications and a minor in history, Eisen moved to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and quickly became a pioneer in the field of Holocaust public education. In the nearly four decades since taking Prof. Breitman\u2019s course, Eisen has found her voice as the child of a Holocaust survivor. \u201cThere aren\u2019t many Holocaust survivors left anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cSo we in the second generation, as the children of survivors, are trying to figure out what our responsibility is to educate and inform the public.\u201d In 2002, Eisen helped her father write The 23rd\u00a0<\/sup>Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir<\/em><\/a> (2002), which has just been reissued in a 20th<\/sup> anniversary edition. She is currently producing a documentary, In My Father\u2019s Words<\/em><\/a>, which also draws from her most recent book, Pillar of Salt: A Daughter\u2019s Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust<\/em><\/a>, released in May 2022.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Eisen was invited to the White House to attend a Hanukkah celebration in December 2022.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Working to maintain awareness of the experiences of Holocaust survivors forces Eisen to confront a disturbing set of challenges. In the course of public speaking engagements at schools, commemorative events, and in the media, Eisen often has to endure personal threats to both her own safety and that of her family and friends. In January 2022, an Islamist terrorist took hostage four members of the Congregation Beth Israel, which Eisen helped found. Though the crisis was resolved without injury to the hostages, it serves as a constant reminder of anti-Semitism and its devastating consequences. \u201cThis used to be history, but now it is current events,\u201d she said. With the re-emergence of anti-Semitist beliefs into popular media discourse, peddled by a small number of influential celebrities and other social media influencers, Eisen\u2019s work is even more urgent than before. \u201cI don\u2019t know if what we\u2019re doing is working or not,\u201d she says, \u201cbut bullying not confronted becomes empowered.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first time Anna Salton Eisen ever heard her father speak about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp was in an AU history class. In the early 1980s, Eisen took a course taught by retired professor Richard Breitman on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. \u201cThat was the beginning of a personal journey of discovery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":609,"date":"2022-04-09T09:39:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-09T13:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/?p=609"},"modified":"2022-04-09T09:43:09","modified_gmt":"2022-04-09T13:43:09","slug":"from-doctors-to-farmers-prize-winning-paper-explores-lives-of-jewish-refugees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/2022\/04\/09\/from-doctors-to-farmers-prize-winning-paper-explores-lives-of-jewish-refugees\/","title":{"rendered":"From Doctors to Farmers: Prize-Winning Paper Explores Lives of Jewish Refugees"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
AU graduate student Andrew Sperling, whose paper on Jewish refugees in the American South won the Mark and Ruth Luckens International Prize in Jewish Thought and Culture.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

On March 24, 2022, AU graduate student Andrew Sperling gave a much anticipated talk to a rapt virtual audience at the University of Kentucky. The talk was based upon a paper that Sperling completed in Prof. Kate Haulman\u2019s research seminar the previous year: \u201c\u2018Living on a Sort of Island\u2019: Jewish Refugee Farmers in the American South.\u201d It follows the unique experiences of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria who came to the United States during the rise of the Nazis in the run-up to World War II. But there was a catch: these particular refugees, who had once made their living as doctors, lawyers, and businessmen in dense European cities, would now be settled in rural communities and taught to farm the land.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Refugee farmers working at Hyde Farmlands in Burkeville, Virginia. Eva Loew Family Papers (RG-185), Virginia Holocaust Museum, Richmond, Virginia.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Drawing upon a wide range of diaries, memoirs, and other correspondence, Sperling analyzed their struggle to adapt to these new circumstances and their determination to succeed in an unfamiliar occupation. \u201cSo much of the scholarly literature on Jewish refugees has focused on government policy,\u201d Sperling said. \u201cBut we know less about the actual lived experiences of these refugees once they get into the country. I wanted to find personal testimonies and highlight the human drama behind government policy.\u201d In recognition of his groundbreaking work, the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Kentucky honored Sperling by awarding his paper its annual Mark and Ruth Luckens International Prize in Jewish Thought and Culture. The award, given to \u201cthe best unpublished original essay\u201d written by a graduate student or recent Ph.D., comes with a $500 prize and opportunity to give a keynote talk on his research.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Helen, Walter, Manfred, and David Loeb at Van Eeden, in Burgaw, North Carolina. Manfred and Ann Loeb Collection (P0029), University of North Carolina Wilson Library, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Sperling is now starting to undertake research for his dissertation under the tutelage of Prof. Pamela Nadell, who serves as his advisor. \u201cI really wanted to work with Prof. Nadell,\u201d Sperling said. \u201cShe is one of the best scholars in American Jewish history, and the program felt like a good fit for me.\u201d Living in Washington, D.C. is also invaluable, with easy access to institutions such as the Holocaust Museum. For his dissertation, Sperling is researching American Jewish responses to anti-Semitism espoused by extremist groups such as the KKK and American Nazi Party during the middle decades of the twentieth century. \u201cSo much has been written about antisemitism,\u201d he says, \u201cbut there is much less research about the extremist angle. I want to assess Jewish perceptions of these groups.\u201d Once he completes his Ph.D. at AU, Sperling hopes to pursue a career in academia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On March 24, 2022, AU graduate student Andrew Sperling gave a much anticipated talk to a rapt virtual audience at the University of Kentucky. The talk was based upon a paper that Sperling completed in Prof. Kate Haulman\u2019s research seminar the previous year: \u201c\u2018Living on a Sort of Island\u2019: Jewish Refugee Farmers in the American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":606,"date":"2022-02-13T14:29:47","date_gmt":"2022-02-13T19:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/?p=606"},"modified":"2022-02-13T16:08:25","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T21:08:25","slug":"au-history-alum-wins-prestigious-book-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/2022\/02\/13\/au-history-alum-wins-prestigious-book-award\/","title":{"rendered":"AU History Alum Wins Prestigious Book Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last month the Jewish Book Council announced the winners of their National Jewish Book Awards. Among the winning books was AU alum Wendy Lower\u2019s The Ravine: A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed<\/em> (Mariner Books, 2021), which was awarded the top prize in the category of Holocaust Studies. Dr. Lower received her Ph.D. from the AU History Department in 1999 while studying under Richard Breitman and is now John K. Roth Professor of History and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. In Spring 2021, AU\u2019s Jewish Studies Program and the Center for Israel Studies brought Dr. Lower to AU (virtually, of course!) to give a talk on her book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month the Jewish Book Council announced the winners of their National Jewish Book Awards. Among the winning books was AU alum Wendy Lower\u2019s The Ravine: A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed (Mariner Books, 2021), which was awarded the top prize in the category of Holocaust Studies. Dr. Lower received her Ph.D. from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":600,"date":"2022-01-07T15:37:09","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T20:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/?p=600"},"modified":"2022-01-07T15:53:28","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T20:53:28","slug":"the-untold-history-of-the-equal-rights-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/2022\/01\/07\/the-untold-history-of-the-equal-rights-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Untold History of the Equal Rights Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
AU History alum Rebecca DeWolf<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Before she earned her Ph.D. in history, AU alum Rebecca DeWolf poured her time and energy into politics. Prior to pursuing on a master\u2019s degree in early modern European History at George Washington University, DeWolf worked on several political campaigns, including then Senator Hillary Clinton\u2019s re-election bid to the Senate in 2005\u20136. But it was a desire to gain a better understanding of the origins and development of major political issues that inspired her to pursue a Ph.D. at AU.<\/p>\n

In her first year as a graduate student, DeWolf discovered her passion for research and teaching. \u201cI had the great luck of being a teaching and research assistant for Dr. Allan Lichtman,\u201d she said. \u201cHe taught me great techniques in how to teach history and how to give great lectures.\u201d Outside of the classroom, DeWolf was able to gain valuable research experience by accompanying Prof. Lichtman to the manuscript room in the Library of Congress. \u201cWhat he showed me was how to do archival work from a historian\u2019s point of view,\u201d DeWolf recalls. \u201cHe showed me how to go through massive amounts of collections and how to take notes, organize them, and develop an analysis. It was because of him that I came to the ERA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
DeWolf and her dissertation advisor Allan Lichtman during her AU graduation in May 2014.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

The ERA is the Equal Rights Amendment. First introduced to Congress in 1923, the ERA was intended to eliminate legal distinctions between men and women in many areas of daily life, including employment, divorce, property rights, and other matters. DeWolf first became interested in the history of ERA political debates when Dr. Lichtman asked her to give a guest lecture on the topic to his undergraduate students. She was surprised to learn that many students did not seem to be aware of the implications of the amendment or its relevance to their daily lives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
DeWolf’s book on the history of the Equal Rights Amendment was published by University of Nebraska Press in 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

As a result, she decided to write a dissertation on the complex history of political opposition and support for the ERA. She then revised her dissertation in a book, Gendered Citizenship: The Original Conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment, 1920\u20131963<\/em><\/a>, which was published in 2021 by University of Nebraska Press. It has already been met with rave reviews, with DeWolf in high demand for media interviews. \u201cMedia depictions of the ERA debate often portray it as if it was some sort of catfight among women,\u201d DeWolf said. \u201cBut the political coalitions were once much more diverse on both sides than they are now, and the role of men is all too often written out of the narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeWolf hopes that her book will educate people of all political persuasions about the nuanced history of the ERA and its prospects for the future. \u201cI didn\u2019t write this book to necessarily push people to support the ERA,\u201d she said, \u201cbut rather to help people understand the political and gendered implications of their arguments, why people think the way that they do, and why things played out the way they did.\u201d In addition to her research on the ERA, DeWolf is also active as a public media figure, maintaining an online blog (Out of the Tower<\/em><\/a>) and frequently offering her perspective on current political issues related to women\u2019s rights. She still resides in the Washington, D.C. area and is currently formulating a second research project on Elsie Hill, a leading suffragist in the twentieth century who played a vital role in the drafting of the ERA in 1921.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before she earned her Ph.D. in history, AU alum Rebecca DeWolf poured her time and energy into politics. Prior to pursuing on a master\u2019s degree in early modern European History at George Washington University, DeWolf worked on several political campaigns, including then Senator Hillary Clinton\u2019s re-election bid to the Senate in 2005\u20136. But it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/auhistorydept\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]