In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, UConn has launched a new initiative, called The Pandemic Journaling Project, that allows people to document their experiences for personal use and for posterity. The multi-disciplinary journaling project is led by Sarah Willen, Associate Professor of Anthropology at UConn and Director of the Research Program on Global Health and Human Rights at UConn’s Human Rights Institute, along side Katherine Mason, Assistant Professor at Brown University, but was sparked by an email from Richard Brown, a historian and Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UConn. Open to anyone 18 or older, the project hopes to include an array of participants, including those from communities hit hardest by the pandemic. Upon collection, the responses will be submitted to a digital data repository and made available for researchers right away. For more information, click here.
“UConn to Offer Collaborative Minor in Digital Public History”
On June 1st, UConn Today featured the exciting news of a new minor to be offered by the University – Digital Public History! Featuring collaboration between the Department of History and the Department of Digital Media and Design, students who declare the minor will take five transdisciplinary courses: “Introduction to Digital Humanities, Topics in Public History, Collaborating with Cultural Organizations, an experiential Digital Public History Internship with a local library, archive, museum, or other cultural organization, and a project-based capstone course, the Digital Public History Practicum, co-taught by faculty from both History and DMD.”
The funding for this minor comes from a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) $35,000 planning grant awarded to two UConn faculty, Associate Professors Fiona Vernal (left) and Tom Scheinfeldt (right). Students interested in the minor can begin taking classes in Fall 2020. To read the article, click here.
Jenifer Gaitán (HIST Stamford) Awarded SURF Grant
The Office of Undergraduate Research has announced the selection of 50 undergraduate students to receive SURF Awards in support of their summer undergraduate research projects.
Jenifer Gaitán, a senior honors History major / Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies minor will research a project titled “Voces: First–Generation Latinx Students Discuss Their Support Networks.” Jenifer’s faculty mentor is Dr. Laura Bunyan, Sociology.
This research project is in support of Jenifer’s University Scholar project by the same name. Her faculty advisor committee members are: Laura Bunyan, Sociology (Chair); Ingrid Semaan, Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and Joel Blatt, History.
Project Summary: In the last decade, the number of Latinx students who have enrolled in college has increased by over 80%. Many of these students are first-generation college students, who as a whole make up approximately one-third of all college students. Despite being the largest ethnic minority group in the U.S., Latinx students are understudied. Those who are the first in their families face unique challenges while often balancing familial, work, and academic responsibilities with limited institutional support. Through in-person interviews, this project explores the systems of support first-generation Latinx students utilize through the completion of their undergraduate educations.
Jenifer is also the President of Husky Outreach for Minority Education (HOME). She is a first-generation college student and proud daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants.
Prof. McElya Contributes to WashPo on Mourning & COVID-19
Professor Micki McElya‘s latest op-ed adds a powerful voice to the pages of the Washington Post. Building off of her recently published book, The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery, which was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, McElya asks why there is no collective mourning for those Americans lost to Covid-19. She answers, “The reason is as simple as it is terrible: We share no understanding of these staggering losses as ours, as belonging to all Americans, as national.” McElya argues that a sense “national kinship” is lost as the pandemic’s victims are “disproportionately urban, people of color, immigrants, the undocumented, the incarcerated, the elderly in nursing homes and state care facilities, the poor, the uninsured, the chronically ill, service workers and delivery people.”
To read more of this timely op-ed, please click here. Or, find it in this Sunday’s print edition!
Ph.D. Candidate Stauffer Receives O’Donnell Grant and NPIHP
Ph.D. Candidate Lauren Stauffer received two announcements this spring that will help further her research on NATO. First, the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs awarded Stauffer the O’Donnell Grant for research at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and at the Scowcroft Institute Archives. Both collections are housed at Texas A&M University.
Second, the Woodrow Wilson Center accepted Stauffer into the Center’s Nuclear Proliferation International History Project’s (NPIHP) 2020 Nuclear History Boot Camp. The Boot Camp selects a handful of international participants from disciplines such as history, political science, and international affairs, to travel to Rome. The participants gather at the University of Roma Tre at a former ACE High NATO communications relay site in the village of Allumiere, Italy, for ten days of research and discussion.
Sopcak-Joseph Ph.D. (’19) Wins McNeil Center Dissertation Prize
A hearty congratulations to UConn History Ph.D. (’19) alum, Amy Sopcak-Joseph, for receiving the Zuckerman Dissertation Prize in American Studies from the McNeil Center for Early American History at the University of Pennsylvania. The Zuckerman prize is awarded to “the best dissertation connecting American history (in any period) with literature and/or art… evaluated for the seriousness and originality with which the dissertation engages relationships among history, art and/or literature, the significance of the treatment to scholarship in the field, and the overall quality of the writing.” Sopcak-Joseph’s dissertation, titled “Fashioning American Women: Godey’s Lady’s Book, Female Consumers, and Periodical Publishing in the Nineteenth Century,” wonderfully explored the production, dissemination, content, and reception of an exceptionally popular antebellum American periodical called Godey’s Lady’s Book.
Well done, Amy!
Efforts to Document the Pandemic Featured in UConn Today
In comparison to the little documentation of the 1918 flu pandemic’s impact on Storrs, the University is ensuring that the experience of COVID-19 will be remembered. Through an initiative launched by the University Archives & Special Collections (ASC) in the UConn Library, stories from the UConn community – students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, and other affiliated community members – are being collected by the ASC, preserved for posterity, and then made accessible for research and study in what will be known as the UConn COVID-19 Collection. Three classes this semester took part in the initiative, including two courses taught by History professors. Helen M. Rozwadowski, a professor of history and maritime studies at Avery Point and Sylvia Schafer, an associate professor of history at Storrs altered their writing assignments to offer students the opportunity to reflect on the effects of the pandemic.
To read about more about the teaching experiences of Professor Rozwadowski and OSchafer, or the initiative launched by the ASC, click here.
Luisa Arrieta Receives UConn Digital Humanities Fellowship
We are pleased to announce that Ph.D. Candidate Luisa Arrieta has received the UConn Greenhouse Studios Diversity Fellowship in Digital Humanities for 2020-2022. Arrieta is one of two doctoral students to receive the Fellowship, which aims “to enhance the academic and professional experience of students from historically underrepresented groups by providing two years of hands-on experience in digital humanities research and method with Greenhouse Studios in lieu of regular teaching assistant duties.” This opportunity will enable Arrieta to further her research interests that relate to cultural nationalism and citizenship, museums and visual narratives, African diaspora, popular culture, and human rights in the Americas.
Ph.D. David Evans Earns Human Rights Institute Fellowship
Congratulations to Ph.D. Candidate David Evans for receiving a Dissertation Research Fellowship from the UConn Human Rights Institute! Evans is one of two recipients for 2020 who will receive $5,000 to support their primary research. His research interests include human rights, particularly as it relates to the right to adequate food, humanitarianism and foreign aid, and US foreign relations.
Danielle Dumaine and Nathan Braccio Recognized by Aetna Awards
The 2020 Aetna Graduate Critical Writing Award recognized the work of two newly minted History Ph.D.s. Danielle Dumaine received 2nd place and Nathan Braccio received an honorable mention. The award is sponsored by the Aetna Chair of Writing and recognizes excellent critical nonfiction composed by a graduate student. Winners are awarded cash prizes and publicly recognized at the annual Aetna Celebration of Student Writing.