Awards

Nu-Anh Tran sheds new light on the RVN in recent book, Disunion

Professor Nu-Anh Tran’s recent book, Disunion: Anticommunist Nationalism and the Making of the Republic of Vietnam, examines factionalism among anticommunists and the political culture of authoritarianism and democracy during the presidency of Ngô Đình Diệm in the Republic of Vietnam. The RVN has typically been portrayed as a French creation and later the United States “puppet,” but Tran demonstrates that distinct anti-French resistance in South Vietnam made it a heir to a revolutionary tradition, but was ultimately plagued with disunity and authoritarianism for much of its brief existence.

Professor Nu-Anh Tran spoke about her book on the New Books Network Podcast, “New Books in Southeast Asian Studies.”

Her book earned an Honorable Mention for the Sharon Harris Book Award.

Nu-Anh Tran, assistant professor of history, UConn

Melanie Newport Wins Sharon Harris Book Award for This Is My Jail

Prof. Melanie Newport won the Sharon Harris Book Award for, This Is My Jail: Local Politics and the Rise of Mass Incarcerationan analysis of Chicago and Cook County jails in the late 20th century that served as models around the nation for criminal justice reform. The Sharon Harris Book Award “recognizes scholarly depth and intellectual acuity and highlights the importance of humanities scholarship.”

The University of Pennsylvania Press called This Is My Jail, a “sweeping history of urban incarceration,” that centers jails as “critical sites of urban inequality that sustain the racist actions of the police and judges and exacerbate the harms wrought by housing discrimination, segregated schools, and inaccessible health care.”

Prof. Newport talked about her book on the recent podcast, “This Is My Jail: A Conversation with Melanie D. Newport.”

Melanie Newport, Assistant Professor of History, University of Connecticut

Brendan Kane Receives Erasmus + ICM Award

UConn History Professor, Brendan Kane and University College Dublin Professor, Marc Caball haBrendan Kane, Associate Professor of History and Associate Director of the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticutve been awarded funding through Erasmus + International Credit Mobility (a global scholarship and exchange program financed by the European Union and administered in Ireland by the Higher Education Authority) for their proposal entitled, “Digital Early Modern Ireland.” According to a post by University College Dublin, Brendan Kane and Marc Caball will each spend time at each other’s respective institutions to both develop and implement a digital strategy “for early modern Irish research centered on Léamh.org (a digital humanities project enabling engagement with early modern texts in the Irish language).” 

Brendan Kane is a co-director of the digital humanities project Léamh.org and director of the Democracy and Dialogues Initiative at the UConn Human Rights Institute.

Manisha Sinha Honored with Pennington Award

Manisha Sinha, professor of historyProfessor Manisha Sinha is a 2021 awardee of the James C. Pennington Award, which will be formerly bestowed upon her during the 2022 award ceremony, taking place on June 1, 2022.  The James C. Pennington Award, awarded by Heidelberg University’s Heidelberg Center for American Studies and Faculty of Theology, remembers James Pennington, a formerly enslaved pastor from the United States who received an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University, the first known person of African descent to earn one from a European institution. Sinha, a scholar of abolition, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, receives this award alongside Dr. Carol Anderson, a historian of 20th century Black freedom struggles.

The award ceremony will be marked by a discussion with the two fellows on “The Unfinished Work of Reconstruction: The Long and Ongoing Civil Rights Struggle in the United States.” The ceremony will be live tweeted from the Heidelberg Center for American Studies account. More information is available on the Heidelberg University website. Congratulations!

 

2022 Graduate Prize Day Winners

On April 29, the History Department closed out the semester with a celebration of our graduate students. We congratulate you!

Hugh M. Hamill Graduate Fellowship in Latin American History

Catalina Vásquez-Marchant 

Daniela Itzel Domínguez Tavares

Graduate Student Teaching Excellence Award

Marc Reyes

 Harry J. Marks Fellowship

Anna Kittredge

Bruce M. & Sondra Astor Stave Prize in Recent American History

Britney Murphy

Albert E. & Wilda E. Van Dusen Award

Lincoln Hirn

Thomas G. Paterson Graduate Fellowship in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations

Grace Easterly

Sandra Rux Award 

Rachel Hendrick

2022 Undergraduate Prize Day Winners

On April 29, the History Department celebrated the outstanding achievements of our students. We congratulate you!

Undergraduate History Excellence Award

Lisette Donewald

Tyler Joseph Sciortino

Maddalena and Joseph Perrella Scholarship Fund

Tyler Joseph Sciortino 

Allen M. Ward Prize in Ancient History

Hannah Kallin 

Karl Z. Trybus Undergraduate Award for Exceptional Work in Modern European History

Luca Di Cicco

Roger N. Buckley Award

Silas Cianci

Heather A. Parker Excellence in Historical Writing Award

Katherine King

Connecticut Celebration 350th Scholarship 

Sydney Gray

Sandra Rux Award

Brendon Dukett