Greetings from the Chair
DEAR FRIENDS OF HISTORY,
Spring always announces itself around Smith Hall in a burst of cherry blossoms in the quad. 'Tis the season when faculty members look forward to teaching one more quarter before they settle into a summer of research and writing - and course preparations. To date one of the high points of the year has been the 2016 History Lecture Series on "Excavating Seattle's Histories: Peoples, Politics, and Place." Four of our colleagues - John M. Findlay,… Read more
At the Monroe Correctional Complex, PhD Candidate Katja Schatte has been teaching world history as part of the University Beyond Bars program. With this program, students from Monroe's Correctional facility can pursue degrees in history and look toward a more secure future. According to recent studies, participants in these education programs are 43 percent less likely to reoffend. Katja Schatte's courses tackles issues ranging from criminal justice reform to the Black Lives Matter movement to… Read more
During the 2015-2016 academic year, Dr. Robin Stacey introduced an inventive course, Reacting to the Past: Religion and Politics in Medieval Europe, which is based on a program originally developed at Barnard College. As part of this curriculum, students transform themselves into historical characters and, utilizing role play and strategy, immerse themselves in historical events which may or may not turn out the way that history claims they did. Dr. Stacey's course has created such a dynamic… Read more
The History Community was saddened to hear of the passing of Doug Walker, a member of the History Advisory Board, a group of community representatives that advocates for the department in the wider community. Doug and his wife, Maggie, were great supporters of the department. They created the Walker Family Endowed Professorship in History to support the study of the U.S. Civil War and southern U.S. history. To read the Seattle Times article about Doug's passing, please follow the link… Read more
Turning from the 2015 Lecture Series' focus on the First World War, the 2016 History Lecture Series looked to the University's immediate environs: Seattle. Drs. John Findlay, Quintard Taylor, Linda Nash, and James Gregory examined Seattle's history through the lens of political, environmental, demographic, and radical history. Ranging from an introduction to the origins of Seattle's founders to an examination of Seattle's incredible growth, from its relatively homogenous early years to its… Read more
Quintard Taylor, Emeritus Professor of American History, was recently featured in an article on KPLU. Professor Taylor, who recently gave a lecture entitled "The Peopling of Seattle: Race, Migration, and Immigration" for the History Lecture Series "Excavating Seattle's Histories," specializes in African American History. KPLU's article highlights Professor Taylor's website BlackPast.org, which has become one of the leading internet resources on African… Read more
Mapping American Social Movements Through the 20th Century is a collaborative project which seeks to create maps and visualizations of America's twentieth-century social movements. The project encompasses all types of social movements including radical, labor, civil rights, environmental, and women's rights movements. By mapping all types of social movements, the project hopes to find patterns and links between different social… Read more
Graduate students Eric Johnson and Sarah Zaides have been named 2016 Fellows for the Joff Hanauer Endowment for Excellence in Western Civilization. Eric Johnson is a PhD Candidate in Russian History, specializing in the urban history of nineteenth-century Kazan. Sarah Zaides is a PhD Candidate in Russian and Jewish History, whose work focuses on nineteenth and twentieth-century Jewish refugees in the Ottoman Empire. Fellows participate in a bi-monthly seminar on issues related broadly to… Read more
If asked the question "what can you do with a Bachelor's Degree in History?" history majors will provide many different answers. Recent graduate Josie Rollins' response to this question was to go to graduate school. A former recipient of the Department of History's Sleizer Scholarship and the Magna Carta Society Prize, Josie has decided to take what she learned at the UW and pursue an advanced degree. Now at Cambridge University in England, Josie is pursuing first an M.Phil, the British… Read more