Month: April 2019

PhD Student Kathryn Angelica Wins Munson Scholarship

The Department is pleased to share that first year doctoral student Kathryn Angelica received a fellowship from the Frank C. Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies at Mystic Seaport to take classes and conduct research this summer. The courses, of which Angelica will choose two, include: “America Goes to Sea,” Maritime History Survey Course, “American Maritime History Seminar,” or an independent research course using materials from the G. W. Blunt White Library. The Cora Mallory Munson Scholarship covers tuition and room/board for the summer. 

PhD Nicole Breault Receives AHA Research Grant

The Department is very pleased to share that Nicole Breault, a third year PhD student, has won a 2019 American Historical Associaton (AHA) Littleton-Griswold Research Grant. The grant supports research in US legal history and in the broader field of law and society. Nicole will be utilizing the funds to further her dissertation project, “The Night Watch of Early Boston: Law and Governance in Eighteenth-Century British America.”

For more information, please click here.

Congratulations Amy Sopcak-Joseph!

Amy Sopcak-JosephThe Department is very pleased to announce that Amy Sopcak-Joseph will begin this fall as an Assistant Professor of History in the Department of Global Cultures at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, PA!

Amy’s dissertation, titled “Fashioning American Women: Godey’s Lady’s Book, Female Consumers, and Periodical Publishing in the Nineteenth Century,” explores the production, dissemination, content, and reception of Godey’s Lady’s Book, an exceptionally popular antebellum American periodical. The final drafting of her dissertation has occurred at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute (UCHI) where Amy has served as a fellow for the 2018-2019 school year.

Amy also has a forthcoming article in Book History that received the Graduate Student Essay award by the journal’s editors.  The essay, “Reconstructing and Gendering the Distribution Networks of Godey’s Lady’s Book in the Nineteenth Century,” will appear in the 2019 volume of the journal, which will be published in November.

Congrats, Amy!

UCHI 2019 Fellowship Recipients: Professors Nu-Anh Tran & Emma Amador

The History Department is pleased to share that Professors Nu-Anh Tran and Emma Amador are two of the recipients of the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute’s (UCHI) 2019-2020 Faculty Fellowship Awards. The UCHI Fellowship provides scholars with the year-long opportunity to research, write, and collaborate on work “that extends and celebrates humanities scholarship.”

Nu-Anh Tran is an Assistant Professor of History who specializes in Vietnamese history, Southeast Asian history, and nationalism. Emma Amador is an Assistant Professor of History and Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies with a joint appointment between the History Department and El Instituto.

Undergrad alum Regan Miner named part-time Executive Director at NHS

Miner NHS Guided Tour

Regan Miner, UConn History Major and class of 2013, was named part-time Executive Director at the Norwich Historical Society (NHS). Miner, a Norwich native, previously served as a consultant to the NHS during which she amassed over $120,000 in grant funding over the span of six months to restore the 18th Century Daniel Lathrop Schoolhouse, now home to the Norwich Heritage andRegional Visitors’ Center, to create the “Discover Norwich” exhibit, and to organize the Walk Norwich Self guided trails. 

With a Master’s degree in public history from Central Connecticut State University, Miner also serves as part-time associate director at the New London County Historical Society. In 2016, she received the 40 under 40 Award and the Connecticut Governor’s Conference on Tourism Rising Star Award. In 2018, she added the Mimi Findlay Award for Young Preservationists to her list of accomplishments.

Prof. Amii Omara-Otunnu to receive South African highest honor

Our Department is extremely happy and proud to announce that Dr. Amii Omara-Otunnu, Associate Professor of African History, will be receiving one of South Africa’s highest honors for his contributions in the fight against apartheid. On April 25th, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will present Professor Omara-Otunnu with the Silver Order of the Companions of OR Tambo, one of the National Orders, which the government describes as “the highest awards that South Africa bestows on citizens and members of the international community who have contributed meaningfully towards making the country a free, democratic and successful nation, united in its diversity.” 

Professor Omara-Otunnu told the Black Star News, “I’ve been immensely humbled. Especially by the fact that the honor is bestowed by a national government in the continent that respects democracy, the rule of law and human rights,” and that, “The award indicates that the leadership in South Africa is conscious of the fact that Pan African solidarity in particular and international solidarity in general contributed substantially to both the success of the struggle against apartheid and progressive developments in post-apartheid South Africa.”

Micki McElya’s Clinging to Mammy Quoted in The Nation

Professor Micki McElya‘s book Clinging to Mammy: The Faithful Slave in Twentieth-Century America, published in 2007 with Harvard University Press, was quoted in a recent article by Kali Halloway. Titled “‘Loyal Slave’ Monuments Tell a Racist Lie About American History,” Halloway specifically references McElya’s research on the largest-black newspaper in DC in the 1920s.