Professor Sinha appeared on the podcast to discuss her recent book The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic.
Author: Bobadilla, Rachel
Katharine Beene Successfully Defends Dissertation
On August 8th, Katharine Beene successfully defended her dissertation, “Women’s Acquisition and Transmission of Knowledge in Early Modern Ireland, 1600-1750”.
From the abstract:
This dissertation expands understandings of scientific and political advancement in Ireland from 1600-1750 by examining the often-overlooked informal learning networks of early modern Irish women, focusing on their correspondence and kinship relationships. It reveals how these women were not merely passive recipients, but active contributors to the formation and distribution of foundational knowledge in fields like medicine, science, mathematics, and politics across Western Europe. Early modern Ireland’s experience as a colony offers valuable insights into how colonial systems shape the transmission of knowledge. This dissertation argues that despite the limitations imposed by formal colonial controls on access to education, women’s informal networks played a unique role in the transfer of knowledge… Investigating women in Ireland knowledge acquisition in a kingdom-colony context provides a methodological approach to investigate informal networks and the circulation of knowledge among marginalized communities.
Congratulations to Katharine Beene on this impressive achievement!
Alexis Dudden featured on BBC discussing Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Professor Alexis Dudden appeared on BBC World News to share insight into how the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago have affected politics in Japan and elsewhere, as well as wars since.
An Eoraip: Gaelic Ireland in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Brendan Kane and Patrick Wadden, Editors
Medieval and early modern Irish scholars thought of themselves as Europeans. As an expression of territorial association, this belief reflects both their familiarity with the geographical traditions of Antiquity and the integration of their society into economic, cultural, and political networks that spanned the continent. But it was also an articulation of a perceived cultural affinity often denied in modern scholarship. The chapters in this volume examine the many and various ways that Gaelic Ireland was integrated into the broader, European world, focusing on literature and learning; real-world politics, economics, and travel; and questions of identity.
Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age
Sylvia R. Frey, Author, with foreword by Manisha Sinha
Princeton University Press, 2025
Abstract:
The American Revolution brought about violent and unpredictable social changes throughout the new nation, particularly in the South. Sylvia Frey reveals how slave resistance gave rise to a Black liberation movement that was central to the revolutionary struggle in the southern colonies, and how Black resistance persisted after the war as a struggle for cultural power that manifested itself in the establishment of separate Black churches with distinctive ritual patterns and moral values. She examines how white Southerners responded to Black resistance amid their own fight for independence from the British, and how they reacted to new movements by African Americans in the postwar period. With an incisive foreword by Manisha Sinha, Water from the Rock shows how the upheavals of war created opportunities for a quiet revolution that laid the foundations for the modern civil rights movement in America.
UConn History faculty, and grads attend annual SHAFR Conference
Congratulations to those presenting and representing the department at the 2025 Annual SHAFR Conference!
Frank Costigiola
Bradley Simpson
Grace Easterly
Gabrielle Westcott
Luke Reynolds to deliver Siborne Lecture on June 19th
Luke Reynolds has been invited to deliver the annual Siborne Lecture at the National Army Museum in London on June 19th. This lecture is part of the National Army Museum’s Waterloo Week (16 – 22 June) held to mark the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.
Fiona Vernal work supporting oral history in CT featured in UConn Today article
In collaboration with Connecticut Humanities and the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, Fiona Vernal has made an online platform TheirStory accessible to CT organizations and residents to support the creation of oral history collections. Vernal began working with TheirStory creator Zack Ellis in 2022 working on a project on West Indian, African American, and Puerto Rican migrations to Hartford. The article also details the other CT organization and communities that have benefitted from this collaboration.
Ireland and the Renaissance court: Political culture from the cúirteanna to Whitehall, 1450-1640
Edited by David Edwards and Brendan Kane
Manchester University Press, 2024
Description
Ireland and the Renaissance court is an interdisciplinary collection of essays exploring Irish and English courts, courtiers and politics in the early modern period, c. 1450-1650. Chapters are contributed by both established and emergent scholars working in the fields of history, literary studies, and philology. They focus on Gaelic cúirteanna, the indigenous centres of aristocratic life throughout the medieval period; on the regnal court of the emergent British empire based in London at Whitehall; and on Irish participation in the wider world of European elite life and letters. Collectively, they expand the chronological limits of ‘early modern’ Ireland to include the fifteenth century and recreate its multi-lingual character through exploration of its English, Irish and Latin archives. This volume is an innovative effort at moving beyond binary approaches to English-Irish history by demonstrating points of contact as well as contention.